Understand the surface level plus one

For any leadership or management position, you must understand the role and purpose of the individual components that you are bringing together as a whole for any goal.

It is often said that the best people for these positions are the ones who have an intrinsic understanding of who they are leading. This intrinsic understanding can sometimes be best built with experience.

However, as an entrepreneur, you will inevitably have to deal with domains in which you have none. Someone transitioning from a sales position to a CEO role will most likely have no hands-on experience as a graphic designer for example.

To properly lead people in these positions, you cannot have any blind spots.

Simply handing over accountability to someone else and saying, “This is your responsibility” does not allow for a proper review of the quality of the work and whether it correctly fits into the whole picture of the company.

To compensate for this, I advise people to gain a “surface level understanding, plus one”.

This means that you understand the superficial aspects of the role, or domain, including and excluding the specifics of the work, and go just one layer deeper.

For example, if you are working with a graphic designer, you should feel comfortable with and be able to ask questions such as the following:

1. What rules do good graphic designers follow?
2. What is the design process like?
3. What are the most common programs used for graphic design, and why?

None of these questions require an in-depth understanding of graphic design. Knowing the answers also does not make you a graphic designer.

However, what it does allow you to do is understand and visualize how someone works better.

Once you can picture what someone is actually doing, rather than focusing on the result, you allow room for more realism, as well as creativity and innovation in the collaboration process.

Rather than rushing from idea to result, you can better conceptualize the rules and boundaries that shape and constrict both the execution and collaboration.

For example, because you understand how Adobe Illustrator works, you can better estimate the time constraints that changing one graphic element on a larger illustration takes. However, if you had no understanding of this program, you might assume that all images are composite (i.e., you can’t easily change just one of them), and therefore, the submitted image by your graphic designer is final.

There are two ways to learn the surface level plus one very quickly.

The first is to simply ask someone involved in that role questions and try to focus on the working process. From there, branch out into specific questions that tie that work back to the business and its bottom line.

The second is to create a small project of your own, for example, trying to create your own logo with graphic design tools. Allowing yourself this lived experience is often very powerful because of the realization that the complexities of great work often lie in the nuanced details and compounded experience of each individual you work with.

Understanding each area that you're leading and managing at the surface level plus one means you know what actually makes your business work.

This, in turn, allows you to fully leverage everyone’s potential and ultimately your business as a whole.