RULE 97

Do one or two things well and avoid the rest

The really good manager is a specialist. You can’t do everything. You can’t do everyone’s job. You can’t do more than a few things each day anyway. Best to pick your specialist subject, be really, really good at it and leave the rest to other people. In my company we have a very clear demarcation of who does what. I try to do as little as possible. I figure the better a manager, the less you do; it’s all down to your powers of delegation.

So I stick to what I do best, which is basically talking to other managers. I don’t do sales but I do open doors for sales staff to walk through. I don’t do key accounts but I do set up contacts for our key people to follow through, and I do oversee the accounting ...

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