Insurance
Giving employees a say
How to allow others to lead in areas where you’re weak
By Carolyn LaWell
Smart Business Philadelphia | May 2009
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David St.Clair
founder and CEO
MEDecision Inc.
As David St.Clair has grown MEDecision Inc. from a one-man business in his basement in 1988 to a $50 million company, the hardest part has been allowing others to lead in areas where he lacks expertise.
“[It’s been difficult] figuring out how to allow people with the right experience, the right skills and leadership styles to lead in areas where I’m relatively weak, either by virtue of my inexperience or personality,” he says.
Through trial and error, St.Clair says he’s found a method that has led to success for him and the health care technology company’s 240 employees. It starts with understanding your own weaknesses. Then, you have to recruit people with skills in areas you fall short in. And lastly, you need to convey to employees that it’s OK to offer their opinions and even challenge the boss.
Smart Business spoke with the founder and CEO of MEDecision about how to use your employees’ strengths to balance your weaknesses and better your company.
Determine your weaknesses. It’s being brutally honest with oneself, being introspective enough to recognize and to listen to others about what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at.
Sometimes the business shows it when you try to do everything. But I think some of it is also paying attention to what you’re drawn to and what you tend to shy away from.
For me, for instance, I think I’m very, very good at taking ideas and making them real. I’m not good at making things routine. So I will try to reinvent a process, reinvent a product, every time I look at it or talk about it, as opposed to making it something that is repeatable.
There are very few people, I would argue, who have the breadth and depth to do everything very, very well. Simply pay attention to that, and be willing to bring in the right people to shore up where you’re weak.
Recruit people with the skills to balance weaknesses. In the beginning, I was always looking for what I referred to as athletes, people who are very good with a set of skills but really were in a position to help do virtually anything.
As we’ve gotten bigger, we’ve been able to go and get more specialists — people who have even greater depth in one particular area. You start seeing the opportunity to really shore up your own weaknesses and the rest of the team’s weaknesses because you can go out and look for folks who are clearly best of class.
There are many people who have a tendency to want to recruit … below them, people that they can be sure that they are going to be able to control for the next period of their own careers. You need people who are not always bright but people who are willing … to make their point because I recognize that I am not always right.
