The Self-Managing Company

Physical Copy:

Audiobook:

By: Dan Sullivan

Rating: A

This was another playbook of my executive coach. The concept is to create a self-managing company. It sounds like some pie in the sky idea but it is a little different than you think. 

You, as the entrepreneur, need to be spending your time working ON the business to grow and innovate it.

Your “company” manages everything predictable and recurring.

So what you are building is a team of rockstars to handle the predictable and recurring pieces of your business. This allows you to spend time focusing on the growth and innovation that lies within your Unique Ability.

My Favorite Concept: Unique Ability Teamwork

You focus on your unique ability. You help your team determine their unique ability and then allow them to focus on that until your entire business is made of people focusing on their unique ability. 

If entrepreneurs spend time on things they’re not good at, then everyone working for them will follow suit.

Teams work best when each person is focused only on activities they love and do best - their Unique Ability.

Always fascinating and motivating. The basis of Unique Ability is to continually be conscious of the activities and the settings you like and that energize you - and the things that don’t.

Unique Ability leadership by example. Your most important leadership activity in developing and expanding a Self-Managing Company lies in continually moving all of your time into just those activities that are in your area of Unique Ability.

True for you, true for everyone. Every time you free yourself up more to operate in your Unique Ability, the more possible it becomes for every member of your team to do the same.

Teamwork that expands itself. Unlike in the environments of typical large corporations, there are no “superior” or “inferior” skills when you’re operating within the Unique Ability concept. The only distinction is uniqueness.

To give this kind of freedom to your team requires a profound shift in your thinking, but you’ll increasingly enjoy greater creative and collaborative support for your own Unique Ability as more of your team members are able to focus entirely on theirs.

Being self-managing keeps you uniquely simple. The greatest advantage of having a Self-Managing Company is that you and your team are always experiencing greater simplicity, clarity, and confidence while your competitors are experiencing increasing complexity, confusion, and uncertainty.

Next Actions:

Have every team member go through the exercise of determining and understanding their Unique Ability.