Nicholas Barry

I'm constantly struggling to strike the right balance between the value of my own time and the time of my subordinates. On the one hand, I can complete nearly any task more quickly than they can, because I have more experience. On the other hand, I'm in a position as a manager because I can accomplish more by supervising a large number of subordinates than I can by doing everything myself.

Sometimes it's obvious that I should do something myself. If it will take several times longer for a subordinate to complete something, I'll do it myself. (I don't have an exact multiple worked out in my head, but it has to be pretty high - probably above five times longer - before I'll do something myself for no reason other than that it will take a subordinate longer.)

Or if it will only take a little bit longer for a subordinate to do a job, and I trust my subs to do a good job, then I'll let them do it.

But I've been struggling recently when it comes to how to structure the working environment. I see a large part of my role as setting up a working environment in which it's easy for my subs to be productive. I've invested a lot of time in creating tutorials and instructions, for example, and I teach my more experienced subs to mentor the newer ones. Those are one-time investments that pay off handsomely in terms of saving me time.

It's not so easy to decide whether to spend time myself, though, when it comes to creating our list of things for subs to work on. I generate reports of new To Do items for my subs. Without going into excessive detail, they used to have to go three separate places to find (1) their previously-assigned items, (2) current tasks for them to work on, and (3) larger projects for them to work on when they finish their simple tasks.

It seems clear that this is unnecessarily complicated, but I allowed this situation to last for a while because it will take me more time to work all of those sources into our one main project management solution (Teamlab.com). And this extra time won't be a one-time investment; I'll have to spend this extra time every single day. And I usually work very hard to get rid of things that cost me extra time every day.

So in this case, because my role is to make their working environment easy, I did decide to shift everything into Teamlab, even though it will take me more time. But I still face other similar decisions that are even tougher. How do you all decide the value of your time in comparison to the value of the time of your subs?

My mom and I kayaked recently from the charming little town of Clarksburg, and she related a frustrating exchange with a small business there.

Usually we'll drop off a car at the take-out point, then launch some ways up the river. But there is only one good put-in point in the area. You have to kayak upriver first, so when you tire out you have an easy ride back to the put-in point. If you start downriver, by the time you're ready to turn around you may have a much harder trip upstream than you had anticipated.

My mom, Camilla, had noticed a private lagoon on a previous trip. "I told them they should consider letting people pay for day usage of the lagoon as a put-in point," she told me as we paddled up the river. "The lagoon is right across from the town store, and people could buy lunch there. People would be happy to pay for day use!" My mom is an entrepreneur, and is always thinking of things like this.

"Let me guess," I told her. "They brushed you off?"

Yes, they had brushed her off. They told her that there was already a put-in point down the road. "But it's not anywhere near the store," she protested to me. It didn't make any sense to either of us that the lagoon wouldn't even be interested in considering a new way to make money, and potentially gain new long-term customers.

Actually, it did make sense to us - lots of people and organizations aren't good at considering new ways of doing things. I can understand that people sometimes have good reasons for not making what may appear to be an "obvious" improvement. But most frequently when people reject suggestions it seems to be because they're not really willing to even consider changing the way they do things.

Do you have ideas for getting organizations to consider suggestions that might improve the way they do business, or accomplish their mission? I'm thinking not only of informal suggestions like the lagoon suggestion, but also of the suggestions made by consultants organizations hire. Having spoken to a few friends who consult, I know that getting organizations to follow through on recommendations can be difficult - and if they don't take the recommendations, they're likely to feel that the consultant was a waste of their money.

So how do you prod, coax, or persuade organizations to make changes when the changes are in their own interest?