How to Lift Your People’s Capability – The Ultimate Force Multiplier

If you’d prefer to watch on video than read, just click here – 5 mins with captions.

“I need lift the capability in my team so I can do more future-focussed work”.  It’s in the Top 3 things I’m going to hear whenever I have a chat to a manager at any level, and it’s a good idea. 

What’s rarely covered is how to actually do it.  That’s what we’re going to sort now.

Coming to Grips

Ever thought of yourself as a production line?  It’s easy to do in manufacturing, might look like this:

…where we have machines A, B and C, the numbers are how much each machine can do per day, leading to the total output being 5 per day.  Why 5?  Because Machine B is what I call the ‘pacesetter’, which is a friendlier word than the technical term which is ‘system constraint’.  This is basic Theory of Constraints from guru Eli Goldratt.

(If you don’t think he’s a guru….check him out…

…and if you haven’t read The Goal lately, do so again with a deliberate point of view of ‘this does apply to my workplace, I just need to see how’.  You’ll be amazed.)

Here’s the key to Goldratt’s work that, to this day, our cognitive biases struggle to believe – to make the system go faster, it is a complete waste of time to make A or C faster.  We can only speed things up by making B faster…or by re-routing things around B.

But We’re Not a Production Line!

Here’s the thing – anything that goes through stages follows the same principles, and if anything has to go through you, the manager…then we’re talking about a stage.  It just looks different, and gets a bit metaphysical….

We still have the work going through three steps, it’s now just going ‘up’ to you, the Manager…but it’s still a step.  And the third step is A again, but in the future, after the Manager’s input.

So if the Manager’s rate of ‘production’ is 5….then the most the system can produce is…5.  Regardless of how fast A can go.  This means, just like with machines, if we can speed up B…or route work around B…then the whole system goes faster.  Like this:

 And therefore lifting capability of your people will speed up the system immensely as it will re-route the work around the pacesetter.  And remember, you don’t have just the one A….you have lots.  Getting good at lifting capability is a force multiplier!

Why We Don’t Do It

You already knew this, maybe not so mathematically, but you did.   And there’s a good reason you’re not doing it as much as you’d like – because you’re a responsible person who delivers, and you know that giving it to other people is going to cause an issue in either quantity, quality or time that could bring things crashing down.

You don’t want to fail.  Maybe because you love the purpose of the organisation, maybe your own ego…it’s doesn’t matter, because either way,  we’re stuck in the circle.

What you don’t have is a method and/or checklist of sorts you can use to do this.  So here’s how:

The Method

1. Get Aware of Decisions

Whenever you’re handed a piece of work by your people, ask yourself “what is the decision I am being asked to make here”.  Seeing work as decisions (then action) lets us isolate exactly the reason why this has come your way.  Even if your decision is “that’s looks good to me”, you’ve still decided that it doesn’t look bad.

Start keeping notes on the decisions you’re being asked to make, by who, about what.  This then lets you…

2. Ponder why they couldn’t make the decision themselves.

This is the actual work part for you…the bit that sporting coaches and music teachers do naturally because they have to observe without being able to go out there and do it themselves.  Get rid of the annoyance, or the saying of ‘they should be able to’…and face up to reality objectively. 

Get clear on the decision they couldn’t make, and now start analysing, considering these categories.  And…if you have a good relationship in place, go through these together:

a) Context & Purpose

Check they have the background info and the point of the work in the first place.  Both specifically and for the team overall.  In the military it’s called ‘Commanders Intent’ and the idea is to acknowledge that leaders are going to be out of contact when the battle is on, so they are going to have to make their own decisions.  Commanders Intent gives them the direction.  At task level, it’s called Purpose.  Make sure that’s clear.

b) The ‘Thing’

Easily missed but check that what’s actually supposed to be produced is clear.  Use the basic categories of ‘what’, ‘good enough’ and ‘when’.  Without these, your people are going to have to keep coming back to ask which way to turn next.

You can learn more about both of these things here:, and if you don’t pay attention to them, you’re going to end up with someone looking like Hudson:

Both of the above relate to you working with the other person to create clarity.  These next ones focus on the person themselves…but it’s still your job to get these things moving.  They are:

c) Knowledge, Skills and Experience

The question here is simple – “what is the knowledge, skill or experience that, if they had it, we would both be confident in them making the decision themselves”.   Chat to them about it, or at least spend some time staring at a wall thinking about it.  Because this lays out the development pathway.  This pathway won’t come into sight until you’re clear on the gap.

Once you’ve seen what’s missing, then get about rectifying it.  Training, reading, assigning bits of work that will give them a lighter version of the experience…maybe just showing them how.  Keep in mind that the point isn’t the knowledge, skills and experience themselves, but these as what is required so they can make the decisions themselves. 

This one can be a huge win/win – most of us like a bit of mastery (or least not looking like an amateur), and if you are confident in your people – the work is going to happen without coming through that Machine B…you.

And at the end, we have a couple of curly ones:

d) Valuing the Work

Sometimes people just aren’t interested in the work.  Often, that might be bad luck for them, and part of being a professional.  But if it’s chronic, a conversation is worthwhile along the lines of “are you sure this is the job for you, I’m not sure skyscraper window-cleaner really suits someone who is scared of heights”.

You get the idea.  At least ask.

e) Raw Capability

And you’re occasionally going to get someone who is simply not yet tall enough, or are too tall… to be on the ride.  People are at their best in the Flow Zone, where the complexity of the work aligns roughly with the complexity of their thinking.

Borrowing this diagram from Bioss, the organisation founded by one of the brilliant thinkers (along with others) in human capability Gillian Stamp, it looks like this:

Above the line is where the weight of decisions is too much, and below the weight is not enough.  Either way you get decisions that lack quality and speed, just for different reasons.

If you’ve tried everything else and the decisions just aren’t getting made…you might have a raw capability issue.  If so….this one might not change, and you might have a similar conversation to the valuing the work one.  Check this out for more info on how this works.

Bringing It Home

When’s the best time to plant a tree?  20 years ago.  When’s the next best time…now!

Start doing this work from the very next decision that comes your way.  And imagine what it’s going to look like in a year’s time when each of your people is handling a bunch of decisions that used to get handed to you.

It might seem useless now….as does sticking a seed in the ground.   But you can think longer-term…..that’s why you got the manager gig in the first place.

So, time to go to work and lift that capability.  It will not only make your own work more enjoyable, it means your people don’t have to feel so much like kids checking in with their parents to make sure it’s “OK”.

Next step – started noting the decisions.  From who, about what. 

Time to plant that seed.