Your Most Important Role

On the morning of my first session with a new client, I help them build out the structure of their Leadership Team using the Accountability Chart tool. When we define the Roles for a given Function (Roles are the key things for which the Leader in that seat will be held accountable), I start by asking “does this Function have direct reports?” If the answer is “Yes'”, then the first Role we list for that Function is ALWAYS “LMA”, which stands for Lead, Manage and Accountability.

Occasionally I am asked why this Role is always listed first. The answer is simple: if you are Accountable for LMA, there is NOTHING you can possibly do that matters more.

Why is that?

If you have LMA accountability, your job is to build the right team of people, then ensure that team works together as a well-oiled machine. And LMA is your “compounding factor”.

I explain it like this:

There are 168 hours in a week (24 x 7). If you work 168 hours in a week, you will kill yourself. I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean it quite literally (and if you don’t believe me, check out Dr. Matthew Walker’s excellent book Why We Sleep).

But a team of four people working a standard 40-hour work week can comfortably deliver 160 hours.

I don’t care how smart you are, how talented you are, how dedicated you are or how hard you work, you simply cannot match the power of:

• The right team
• Doing the right things
• The right way
• With a shared understanding of the end goal
• And a strong culture of accountability

That is the very definition of the aforementioned “well-oiled machine”.

Creating an organization where every team is a well-oiled machine is the dream of every entrepreneur. And it absolutely IS possible – it is the essence LMA.

So if you are Accountable for LMA, there is NOTHING you can possibly do that matters more.