The Best Mower for a Perfect Lawn (and a Better Life)

“If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”

                                               – John C. Maxwell

I have never had a more attractive lawn than I did in the years leading up to 2016.  The biggest determinant of this outcome was a decision I made about the purchase of a lawnmower.  I decided not to purchase one at all.  My wife and I decided to hire a “lawn guy” to mow, and edge, and fertilize when necessary.  The result was that I got back hours of my free time and the yard looked infinitely better than if I had decided to maintain it myself.

Whether he knew it or not, the lawn guy was now on “Team Miller”.  The team was assembled to hold our world together by doing all of the things that we couldn’t do ourselves, couldn’t do particularly well, or simply didn’t enjoy doing in the limited hours we had in the day.  His teammates included hairstylists, a groomer for Brutus (our big hairy dog), an accountant, and even a guy who told me what suits to buy/wear (I was a bit more “corporate” back then). There were several others, but you get the idea.

Building out our team had several wonderful outcomes.  My wife and had more free time for the activities we enjoyed, while the quality of all of the “outsourced” work improved.  One thing we didn’t predict was how liberating it was to unburden ourselves from the “to-do” list of tasks that had become the unfortunate subjects of much procrastination.  We were “living the dream” to an even greater extent, as the roster for Team Miller grew longer.  

Then a strange thing happened.  The team started to shrink, and somehow it got even better!  The place where Brutus was getting groomed teamed up with a Veterinarian.  They added kenneling and “Doggy Daycare” to their offerings.  Now if we had to travel, one team member could easily shuttle our pup between other nearby individuals to have several needs taken care of before we came to retrieve him.  The groomer, vet, kennel, place to play with other dogs could all be deleted from our contact list, to be replaced by the “Dog Guys”.  

Now we started looking for a new quality in our team members.  Of course, we wanted you to be good at your specialty, but what else could you or your team do for us?  Who else could you collaborate with or connect us to?

In the 2017 essay Make Better Decisions in the New Year, I discussed the concept of “decision fatigue” and suggested that one tactic for making better decisions is to make less of them.  One way to make fewer decisions is to delegate.  Today, I am taking that concept one step further.  Yes, you should delegate.  You should build your team, but maybe you should also look for strong team members that are either versatile and/or excellent collaborators.

Lately, several of our clients have been benefitting from this concept through our business.  We have been working closely with estate attorneys to handle projects like charitable giving, or simple things like making sure that account titles and beneficiary designations fit seamlessly into the larger collaborative plan.  Similarly, as we move into the fourth quarter, clients are thinking more about upcoming meetings with their tax preparers.  Our in-house tax analysis and forward-looking planning throughout the year create a wonderful bridge between our team and client CPAs.  Our “project management” skills have touched on insurance specialists, HR professionals, and even real estate experts.  More and more, clients are looking to us to help shrink the list of people that they need to meet with, in order to make their plans a reality.  Understanding this, I am consistently shocked by how many professionals have simply not developed the skills to “play well with others” in order to make peoples’ lives easier.

In the 2013 Film 2 Guns, Denzel Washington played a character named “I-know-a-guy-Bobby.”  When asked for an ostrich, an explosive chemical, and a 50-year-old classic car, Bobby’s response was, “I know a guy.”  In the popular book, The Go-Giver, a character who always knew a guy was simply called “The Connector.”  No matter what you call the character, it seems that everyone’s lives could be made easier by access to more people who “know a guy.”

“You know how I got a guy for everything? Well, they're all in New York.  My suit guy, my shoe guy, my ticket guy, my club guy. And if I don't have a guy for something, then I have a guy guy to get me a guy. And oddly enough, his name is Guy.”

~ Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother)