Latest / Prayer Before Work / Everyone Asks Dave. You're His New Manager. - Prayer Before Work
Transcript
- Sean Graver: A lot of Teams has this one person that everybody goes to when something breaks. And you just became his manager. Well, my name is Sean, and welcome back to Prayer Before Work. So let's call him Dave. Dave's been there forever. Something goes wrong? People ask Dave. Nobody remembers why a process works the way it does? Ask Dave. Some strange problem nobody has seen in three years? Dave's seen it. And Dave is good. And that's what makes this hard. Over the years, the team figured out that asking Dave is faster than figuring it out themselves. So Dave keeps solving things and the team keeps needing Dave. But now you're responsible for a team that falls apart every time Dave takes a week off. And you don't want to punish a guy for being the person who's always willing to help. But there's a story in Exodus 18 that that sounds Almost exactly like this. So Moses is leading the people of Israel, and he's sitting from morning until evening, settling every dispute himself. Everybody comes to Moses. Well, his father-in-law, Jethro, watches this for he watches this whole thing for one day, and he says, What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. Yeah, I think it's interesting that Jethro w when he's talking about who's wearing out, it's not just Moses. He says, you and the people with you. So when everything runs through one person, ultimately everybody suffers. The leader gets exhausted, and the people never grow. And you know, the one thing Jethro doesn't do is he he doesn't tell Moses that he's been doing it wrong for years, that he should stop caring so much. No, he helps him find capable people to share the load. So Moses doesn't lose his role. His role changes. He becomes the one who teaches and sets direction while others handle what they're ready for. And that might be the way forward with Dave. Instead of asking him to dump everything he knows into a document, ask him to teach. Pair him up with someone on the next weird problem and let them drive. While he coaches. You know, make Dave trained them something people notice and and they thank him for. Because a lot of Dave's value has always come from being needed. And if you take that away without giving him something to replace it, it's gonna feel like an emotion, even if you've never meant it to feel that way. And you might find yourself asking though, how much of this is Dave? And how much of this is the leadership previous that let it happen? Well Probably more of the second than the first, which is actually good news for you because that's the part you can change. So let's pray. Well, God, thank you for the people at work who are willing to carry more than their fair share, and they do it well. But help us to honor them instead of taking them for granted. And give us the wisdom to lead in a way that grows people instead of just leaning on a very few. And Where we've let others carry too much, show us and and help us to fix it with care and teach us to share the load the way you designed us to, just like in your example with Moses. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Go make today count.