damnedif

Many readers seem to relate to the sports theme after my Sean Payton post, so I’m sticking with it this week with Andrew Bynum, the young star center for the L.A. Lakers. Although I’m in Celtics country, I greatly admire Bynum’s game. At a solid 7 Feet and 285 pounds, he should be and can be a force down low. He’s only 24 yrs. old and already really good. He could be great . . . if he listens to the coaches and sticks with the program.

But not if he goes rogue. Recently, the Lakers coach benched him for taking a three point shot. Worse yet, he stated in the post game interview that he will keep taking them. I’m with the coach on this one. Bynum should be unstoppable on the post. He easily scored over Kevin Garnet, a still formidable defender at age 35, a few weeks ago in the waning seconds of a close game. Obviously, the Lakers want and need Bynum posting up, not taking three pointers.

Sticking with the sports theme, Bill Belichick is famous for coaching players to “just do their job” and stay in position. This is generally good advice for any company. Employers need employees to do what they do best, to bring the most value to the company. The Lakers aren’t paying Bynum $15 million to go 1 for 7 at the three point line. They could pay me to do that for half that amount, maybe even less.

The lesson for your firm is make sure that your most talented employees are doing what they do best. Sometimes it is up to you to make sure that people have the support they need so they can focus on doing what brings money to your company. You don’t want your best sales persons with great people skills spending all day doing filing and filling out paperwork. You don’t want your billable employees doing routine, non-billable work that someone else could handle. The Lakers can find other three point shooters, some even better than me with my guaranteed 1 for 7 ratio of three pointers. But they will not find another center who has the size and talent of Bynum.