In August 1942, General Montgomery arrived in North Africa to take command of the British 8th Army. Within a few days he began replacing the senior officers. One of his new corps commanders was Brian Horrocks, who had last seen action in France in 1940 as commander of an infantry battalion, after which he had been promoted quickly to leadership of a Division. Montgomery put Horrocks in charge of stopping Rommel’s last offensive in what has become known as the Battle of Alam Halfa. The British defenses held and Rommel was forced to withdraw.
Horrocks was understandably pleased with himself until a liaison officer from 8th Army headquarters brought a letter from Montgomery. It began: “Well done — but you must remember that you are now a corps commander and not a divisional commander…” It went on to list four or five mistakes Horrocks had made, mainly around interfering with the tasks of his subordinates. As Horrocks thought about it, he realized that Montgomery was right. So he rang him up and said, “Thank you very much.” Horrocks went on to become one of the most successful generals of the war.
Bungay goes on to fast-forward to a recent story where top-level edicts were hamstringing project managers with too many details. Which prompted him to “remind everyone of Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke’s definition of a good directive — it should tell people only what they need to know in order to fulfill the intention…in some companies everyone is doing the jobs of the level below. As a result no-one actually does the top job.”
The CEO’s domain is O.P.U.S…O-verarching Vision, P-urpose, U-nifying Strategies, and S-corecard. When the CEO helps the team get clarity on those four areas, you have the foundation for building a high performing system. High performers will be attracted to that kind of clarity and leave a system that doesn’t have it.
High performing leaders trust their high performers to do their jobs. High performing leaders also do not close the performance gap of underperformers by doing their jobs for them.
Thank you B-rett & thank you Stephen Bungay. Simple concepts, but REAL, HARD, WORK. It’s why we build and why we practice.
Together we improve.
p.s. You can read the rest of Stephen Bungay’s blog at Harvard Business Review
BUILT TO LEAD 
Rue –
I was making that mistake when I stopped to check my email and read your blog.
“High performing leaders also do not close the performance gap of underperformers by doing their jobs for them.”
I stopped what I was doing. That IS a gift of time.
The gift you’re receiving – and giving this week – is priceless. May the Lord’s blessings be evident all around and through you.
You’ve blessed me and the organization I lead. I just wanted to thank you for that.
Karen
Great to hear from you Karen … Fine line between serving our team and doing them a “disservice” isn’t there?
Sent from my iPhone
Yes sir.