Don’t Use a Spoon to Cut a Steak
“It is essential to have good tools, but it is also essential that the tools should be used in the right way.”
- Wallace D. Wattles
Don’t use a spoon to cut a steak! That makes sense right? Nobody in their right mind would try to cut a piece of steak with a spoon when there was a steak knife right on the table in front of them … right?
Sure, it can be done, for all my contrarians out there. But, if you try to cut that steak with a spoon it’s going to be messy, sloppy and you, and the people depending on you to get the job done right, will be disappointed.
Can we agree that attempting to cut a steak with a spoon is ridiculous?
Or is it?
Each week I am either talking with or watching a business leader, corporate leader or sports coach who tries to cut their steak with a spoon. Not literally but metaphorically.
They continue to put the wrong person in the wrong place to do a job that they are not intended to do.
I’m sure that the spoon would love to be idolized as a knife … and not just any regular knife, but a “steak knife”. But it doesn’t matter; a spoon is a spoon. Even a grapefruit spoon with a serrated edge would make a poor steak knife.
Sure, a spoon is a lot safer to have around. A knife can be dangerous if one doesn’t know how to use it. A spoon on the other hand, even if held backwards, doesn’t pose much of a threat.
Don’t get me wrong the spoon is a pro at what it does: scooping and ladling. In a fix it can actually take the place of a butter knife, spreading butter on a hot biscuit. But a spoon, even its bastard cousin … the spork cannot be a steak knife.
Why Are There So Many Spoons?
Then why do business leaders, corporate heads and sports owners and coaches continue to place spoons in the position where only a steak knife can do the job? Most of the time they do it because it’s convenient. This person has been in the building for a long time. Management feels like you need to reward them for their past efforts.
Or this is a friend, a person that the person doing the hiring likes. What they fail to consider is if their “friend” can actually get the job done. They think, “It can’t be that hard to do that job … right?” Their friend who wants the job said, “No problem, I can do that.” Even if they have no idea what “that” consists of. It’s a security blanket to have a friend working with them.
I have seen businesses who put a nice person on their front desk, who is not a multi-tasker. They become overwhelmed when a phone call and a customer come at her at the same time.
I have dealt with salespeople who couldn’t give away a life raft on the Titanic. While the most dynamic personality is left in the showroom assembling equipment. Why? Because the person doing the assembly had “always been that person who put things together”. They had a spoon out front cutting the steak and the knife in the back cutting up potatoes (to stay with the utensil analogy).
Making The Right Choice
If you want to turn your entire organization around, make sure that you have the right people doing the right job for the right reason.
Too many times people want to surround themselves with “good people”. If they’re just “good”, how do you expect to ever be great? If you keep people in jobs because “nobody else knows how it works” you might be missing out on a chance to revitalize your business with new people and new ideas.
It is vital for your growth and the growth of your business to do a “talent assessment” so that you are always cutting the steak with a steak knife, eating soup with a spoon and using all of the other “utensils” in your world for what they are meant to be used for.
Understanding Your Skill Set
In my own life I found I was one heck of a Steak Knife (Strength Coach) but a shitty Fork (football coach). I came to this understanding all by myself. Of course, having a 33 – 77 – 1 record over 11 years sure helped to highlight my shortcomings.
I did my own professional audit and understood what I was really good at and where I was lacking.
Too many times people will “fake it till they make it” in the way they do their work. It’s up to the person in the big chair to make these audits. It’s as simple as asking others in the office what they think about the strengths of their co-workers. This way you get only the truth. If you ask, “What do you think about your co-worker?” Most people will vail the truth. But if you ask about one’s strengths, they won’t be betraying their co-worker by saying good things … right?
When you hear the responses, you can assess what is said, but what is left unsaid may be more telling as you go through your audit.
For example: If the person lists these traits about a salesperson: They are very punctual. They always dress nice. They are polite. What does this tell you about their ability to sell your product? Are they motivated? Are they outgoing? Are they innovative? Do they know the product? Do they stay until the job is done? Are they self-starters?
You might need to dig a little deeper into the strengths.
Risk vs Reward: Being Dangerous
As I said earlier, sometimes Steak Knives can be dangerous. They have an edge. I’ve been around a lot of “knives” in my thirty-five years in coaching. I have found there are two kinds of knives.
The knives that destroy and the knives that defend.
The knives that destroy are arrogant and self-serving. They want their name on the front page. They will viciously undercut the best parts of an organization because they are petty. To them, it doesn’t matter if they are cutting their own throats, as long as they can inflict as much damage upon others as possible.
The knives that defend are in place to make sure that the message and the philosophy of the organization is constantly being put first. They will be hard line in their approach. They will be loyal to the end. They will eat the blame. They will be the last to eat. They will stand in the back when the praise is being handed out. They will do their work better than anyone in the building. And they won’t throw a parade when they get done with it.
You may look at the differences and ask, “Why would anyone hire the knives that destroy?” It’s simple, they are the ones who curry favor with those in power. Their errors are covered up and blamed on others. Their shortcomings are dismissed because they have been part of the organization for so long. Whereas those who defend stand with the leader of the organization, which, in many cases, is not where the power is truly held. The defenders, because of the edge, are not held in high esteem by others because they are always reminding the others in the office that they can be better, but they must work harder. The destroyers on the other hand are all about complacency.
It is necessary to have some knives in the drawer. A manager must understand how the person who is seen as dangerous uses their skills. Are they detrimental to the good of the organization or are they on the front line, fighting the daily fight, to ensure that the philosophy and foundation of the organization are being preserved?
In short, make sure you have the best people in the area in which they are the best at what they are tasked to do. Spoons doing the work of the spoon, forks being the best forks possible, and the knives staying sharp and doing the job they were tasked to do.
If you want to be successful: Stop trying to cut a steak with a bunch of spoons!
