131 - Don't Tell People Their Job is Easy

When you tell someone that their job is easy, you invalidate their contribution before they even get started. A couple years ago we were in a partnership with someone who consistently and constantly told everyone on our team that what they were doing was easy.

He would say crazy things like,”we need this entire website updated in the next two weeks but if we all pulled together and put in some extra effort it should be easy."

Everyone listening to him knew it wouldn't be easy but everyone listening was also afraid to contradict him. Instead the team did their best to deliver and he was always disappointed. The problem was so dramatic that we decided to stop working with him.

I don't know how to grow a company without a team, and every person in my organization makes a valuable contribution. I also do not believe that anyone's job is "easy". In fact a lot of the people that work for me do things that I can't and wouldn't know how to do.

Instead of invalidating your teams contributions, make certain that everyone knows that what they are doing to grow your business matters.