The Only Way to Truly Have More is to Give Away

A few years ago, I worked at a small business concerned about her operational expenses. I understood that they hired great hands, including me 😜 to organise their processes and then find replacements capable of executing the same jobs at lower costs.

I think I liked the idea of eventually getting replacements to run the same processes at cheaper rates, but the problem was that the experts hired weren’t consultants but employees that were very keen on keeping their jobs.

Having appointed the MD to ensure that the cost-cutting objective was achieved, (office gossip 😉) management hired other great guys.

The new hires were expected to understudy the team leads of the different departments where they planned on cutting operational costs and, my department wasn’t excluded.

As team leads, we were expected to have documented processes we must follow strictly and then given a chance to our mentees to execute the same process after 6 months while we supervised to ensure that all processes were carried out effectively (I found this interesting, imagine organising your funeral 😁).

Imagine how bored I felt during the 3 months period I was expected to leave my job for someone else to do.

During the period we supervised, some of us decided to take learn additional skills and research on new trends that would improve the kinds of work we did and to be honest, the discoveries we made during these almost off day periods were daunting.

At every quarterly meeting, we attended to report on the progress of our mentees, the board and top management found reasons to extend the mentorship programmes because we always shared innovations on how current practices could be improved (Innovation).

I became particularly keen about giving away my current responsibilities which included giving away my powers. Because I was handed those responsibilities that made me feel secure in my job, I found other ways to be more powerful and relevant.

Trust me on this, if you want to have more power, more wealth, more relevance, do not be the only man in the spotlight. The spotlights you put out will always point fingers back at you to show that you are the reason behind the progress of everything.

Ask Jesus, who went from 12 disciples to 70 and now a million pastors, Ask Prophet Mohammed, Ask Obi Cubana and many other greats and finally ask the kings of the Igbo Apprenticeship systems.

Shalom