Infantry, Calvary and Medics

Pitfall Remedy

Pitfall: Mis-aligned expectations on who does what causes thing to fall through the cracks or leads to “turf wars”.

Remedy: Infantry, Calvary and Medics (aka Roles and Skills)

Track: Staffing and People

Stages: Initial Sales

Symptoms/use this if you see one or more of:

Growth leads to new jobs overloading team members or unexpected interrupts for team members are growing.
A new opportunity or challenge causes conflict between team members on how best to approach it.
Team members don’t have a clear idea of what is expected of them.

Resources, Actors & Participants: Team & People Managers - anyone wearing the Human Resources hat.

Tools (links): RACI Chart – map your teams skills and responsibilities (email Team and a Dream for more information on obtaining the attachments mentioned in this page)

Parable:

The following excerpt is taken from “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu (translated by Thomas Cleary). It is commentary from the political strategist Du Mu.

If a general lacks the planning ability to assess the officers and place them into positions where they can use the best of their abilities, instead assigning them automatically and thus not making full use of their talents, then the army will become hesitant.

Huang Shigong said, “Those who are good at delegating responsibility employ the intelligent, the brave, the greedy, and the foolish. The intelligent are glad to establish their merit, the brave like to act out their ambitions, the greedy welcome an opportunity to pursue profit, and the foolish do not care if they die.”

If your own army is hesitant and confused, you bring trouble on yourself, as if you were to bring enemies in to overcome you.

One can envision that the attributes and skills of an Infantry-man, a member of the Calvary and a Medic are vastly different.

Gross inefficiencies emerged in Soviet-era assignment of personnel to labor roles due to incomplete assessments of individual skills and desires.

The most successful companies today take great care to make best use of the people they employ. This is especially relevant inside a startup, when you can’t afford to have any inefficiency in your role assignments.

Description:

If you are facing the problems outlined at the top of this remedy, rejoice! Your company is growing. Problems of overlapping responsibilities – or gaps in responsibilities are usually a sign of growth.

For example, someone working with clients (consultant, salesman) and someone working on product definition might collide after the first sale while trying to work out a proper support channel.

A CEO and salesman might collide when the need for a deeper, more sophisticated market strategy emerges.

People develop skill sets. They improve. The work-load grows. People jump into new problem spaces that emerge under their feet. This represents an opportunity for specialization… a new chance for productivity gains – or a possible pitfall when the result is power struggling, arguments over approach and too many bumps.

Clear communication around roles and responsibilities is critical for all key initiatives. In the RACI tool linked to below, individual roles are matched with the tasks and activities related to their job function.

These roles are further articulated through the descriptors from the acronym R.A.C.I.

(R)esponsible – Who gets in trouble for if this doesn’t happen!

(A)ccountable – Who does the work

(C)onsult – Who needs to be consulted before and during this activity

(I)nform – Who must be kept abreast of developments and progress in a given activity or task

Tool #1: Use the “RACI” chart to map out your organization’s roles, skills and communication flows

Tool #2: A clear job description can help make sure you hire the right people for the right role. We attach two forms of job descriptions – one for a Technical Manager and one for a Systems Administrator.

Critical Success Factors:

Communicate everyone’s roles and responsibilities clearly. This is best done in project or initiative kickoff meetings, with everyone present.
Take the time to understand all of the responsibilities that must be attended to during a project.
Ensure you think through both “soft” skills (e.g. people skills) and “hard” skills (e.g. proficiency in a programming language) when hiring someone for a role