Exercises Leadership Principles

Exercise: Quilt Sewing

Duane Dier February 9, 2017

Let’s do number stuff.

Recall the Leadership Ratio and Multiplier Effect concepts

In Leadership Is About People, we discuss the concept of the Leadership Ratio to structure thoughts in response to the question, “how much leadership is the right amount for a team?”

We also discuss the Multiplier Effect in the book (and in this blog post), which is how one can contribute more as an effective leader than as an individual contributor.

Each make sense in isolation, but…

Put the Leadership Ratio and the Multiplier Effect together, and one might conclude that the more leaders you have the better, because math? Let’s consider some different hypothetical teams and determine who could help the team more by joining: an individual contributor (IC) or full-time leader (FTL):

If a leader can add more value to the team by leading (via multiplier effect) rather than contributing individually, an increase in leadership ratio is imperative.

  • [  1 IC  ]     [  0 FTL  ]
    • Adding 1 FTL to lead the 1 IC doesn’t make much sense in most cases.
    • Almost across the board, let’s say you are safe to pitch in with an IC.
  • [  2 IC  ]     [  0 FTL  ]
    • What is the goal of this project? Are the 2 ICs focused on achieving the goal, and actively ensuring that their collaboration is on track to do so?
    • Depending on the answers to the questions above, +1 IC or +1 FTL could make sense.
  • [  30 IC  ]     [  1 FTL  ]
    • Again, what is the goal of the project? How effective is the leader at multiplying the productivity of the team on tasks that help achieve the goal?
    • Would doubling the positive effects of leadership be more valuable than increasing IC throughput by less than 4%?

The arithmetic of combining the multiplier effect with the measure of leadership ratio is pretty clear. If a leader can add more value to the team by leading (via multiplier effect) rather than contributing individually, an increase in leadership ratio is imperative.

The Exercise

Imagine a project to sew a quilt. Start with one sewer, who can complete 1% of the total quilt per day, including time it takes to go back and correct mistakes. Time to go: 100 working days. It’s a big quilt, OK?

Add another sewer to the team, and time to go is 50 days. The next sewer, 34 days.

Imagine a supervisor who doesn’t sew, but can increase the throughput of the sewer(s) on the team by 0.2 percentage points of the total quilt per working day, a 20% increase in productivity. The supervisor accomplishes this by queuing up the thread and materials to reduce error rate, as well as bringing coffee.

Challenge A: Does it make sense for the 4th person on the team to be a supervisor, or a sewer?

Challenge B: When does it make sense to add the second supervisor?

Challenge C: Imagine a more realistic scenario relevant to your experience. How much value does the leadership give to the team? (put an actual multiplier effect number on it). Could your real-world team benefit from additional FTLs or additional ICs?

What can we learn?

How much did the leadership ratio depend on the problem description? How much did your answers depend on the leaders’ effectiveness?

What effect on project cost and schedule would a negative supervisor boost have? Is it quantifiable? Do you have real-world examples of leadership as a drag on team productivity?