Who's Running This Place?

I come across many experts every month.

Expert carpenters, Expert doctors, Expert computer gurus, etc.

These people know their stuff. That's why the are experts.

But Expert carpenters, Expert doctors, Expert computer gurus, etc, can make terrible business people.

The expertise in one area doesn't automatically shift to another.

Would you hire your plumber to replace a heart value on your kid?

Hope not.

My Sunday Seth Godin expands this point. As you read it, ask if you are overstepping your area of expertise and risking business failure because you haven't hired a business marketing expert:

Hire an architect

Architects don't manufacture nails, assemble windows or chop down trees. Instead, they take existing components and assemble them in interesting and important ways.

It used to be that if you wanted to build an organization, you had to be prepared to do a lot of manufacturing and assembly--of something. My first internet company had 60 or 70 people at its peak... and today, you could run the same organization with six people. The rest? They were busy building an infrastructure that now exists. Restaurants used to be built by chefs. Now, more than ever, they're built by impresarios who know how to tie together real estate, promotion, service and chefs into a package that consumers want to buy. The difficult part isn't installing the stove, the difficult (and scarce) part is telling a story.

I'm talking about intentionally building a structure and a strategy and a position, not focusing your energy on the mechanics, because mechanics alone are insufficient. Just as you can't build a class A office building with nothing but a skilled carpenter, you can't build a business for the ages that merely puts widgets into boxes.

My friend Jerry calls these people corporate chiropractors. They don't do surgery, they realign and recognize what's out of place.

Organizational architects know how to find suppliers, use the cloud (of people, of data, of resources), identify freelancers, tie together disparate resources and weave them into a business that scales. You either need to become one or hire one.

The organizations that matter are busy being run by people who figure out what to do next.

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