Drive vs. Driven

The other day someone asked me a question about management. I drew them a picture similar to the one above. As leaders we often think of ourselves as the main gear that does much of the work. In mechanical terms that larger gear (the one to the right) is called the “driven gear” and it does in fact directly generate the force that gets the mechanical work done. The smaller gear to the left is called the “drive gear” and it is that gear that allows the larger gear to work. Its placement and size dictate the effort and output of the larger “driven gear”. And of course the “drive gear” represents what management is all about.

When you look at your work over the next few days make sure you are asking yourself this, “is this something I should be directly doing, or making sure that it happens through my team?”. I would even suggest take one thing that you regularly do yourself, and see what happens if you put that work out to your team to do as opposed to yourself. It is a good exercise of delegation and follow-up; and key to the idea of helping work happen as opposed to doing the work. Often we talk about management as the practice of “almost doing the work” and this is a great exercise to practice that idea. So take one task that you handle directly and see if you can move it from the "doing the work” column to the “almost doing the work” column this week.

Our feedback and behavior dictates the effort and output of our team much like the “drive gear” does to the “driven gear”. The larger gear has the strength to get the work done, but it needs the direction and structure of the smaller gear to make it happen. The more you can be the “drive gear” the better your management and your team will be.