Why Giving Away Your Job Can Make You More Valuable
Read on kevferrell.com
Welcome to REWIRE | REBOOT, a weekly newsletter where I share reflections from my ongoing personal growth journey and provide tested ideas, frameworks, tools and practices to help you create the life you want.
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In this issue:
- Rewire - Make Yourself Replaceable
- One Action - Give Away Some LEGO
- Reboot - Nutritional Building Blocks
- Recommended - “Give Away Your Legos.”
Rewire - Idea I'm Exploring
Make Yourself Replaceable
I believe good leaders should always be trying to work themselves out of their current jobs.
Not necessarily out of the organization. But out of the role as it exists today.
Leadership is not about making sure everything important continues to depend on you. It’s about building strong teams, sharing what you know and developing people who are ready to take on more.
You want people around you who are curious, ambitious and willing to challenge themselves. Eventually, some of them should become capable of doing parts of your job, and perhaps doing them better than you.
That shouldn’t feel threatening. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of leadership.
I have never spent much time worrying about being replaced. Throughout my career, I have tried to replace myself in each role so I could grow into different work and explore new challenges. Every time, it has led me to something better.
Handing responsibility to capable people has created room for me to tackle problems that might otherwise have gone untouched. It has allowed me to step back, see the business from a different perspective and search for better ways of doing things.
Trying to replace myself has not made me less valuable. It has made me more useful. And made my work more interesting and enjoyable.
Sometimes, the people you help develop leave.
Losing a strong person can be disappointing and disruptive. But when someone I have worked closely with moves on to a bigger opportunity, I don’t view it as a betrayal.
I am happy for them. I am also grateful that I may have played some part in helping them become ready for what came next, whether that next step is alongside me or somewhere else.
I would rather help someone become ready for a larger opportunity than limit their growth so they are easier to keep.
The alternative is to cling to your role, your information and your authority because you are afraid of being replaced.
That may feel protective, but it usually creates one of two problems:
- You stop growing and eventually passes you anyway.
- Or you suppress the potential of the people around you and limit what the team can accomplish.
If every decision still needs you, you haven’t made yourself indispensable. You’ve made yourself a bottleneck.
In 2021, I came across an article called “‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups”. It has stayed with me ever since because it gave a memorable image to something I already believed.
Drawing on her experience in rapidly scaling technology companies, Molly Graham explained that early employees begin by building large parts of the company’s LEGO tower. As more people arrive, they take ownership of pieces you once controlled. That can be uncomfortable.
Graham put it bluntly:
“If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give away your job every couple months.”
Her advice was aimed at hypergrowth startups, but I think the principle applies broadly.
To grow, you have to give other people the chance to own something you once owned.
That doesn’t mean dumping work on them and disappearing. It means providing the context, authority, resources and support they need. And then giving them room to do it without insisting they copy your every move.
If someone can succeed only by doing everything precisely as you did it, you may have transferred tasks without transferring ownership.
When you delegate well, you don’t simply lose responsibility. You create capacity.
You can use that capacity to lead a new project, solve a neglected problem, develop someone else, learn a skill or build something that didn’t exist before.
There are always more LEGOs. Give some away. Find new ones to play with.
The same principle now applies to the emergence of AI.
People across many industries are understandably concerned about losing part of their work, or perhaps their entire role, to technology.
But refusing to adopt AI and learn how it can improve your work does not protect you. It may leave you defending tasks that no longer represent the best use of your time.
Embracing the power and potential of this technology to find new ways to do what you do and how you do it will ultimately increase your value.
It's a similar concept to delegating responsibility to other people. You're giving away some of your LEGOs to AI to do the stuff that it can do better, faster, and cheaper than you, and freeing you up to do better, higher-value work.
Adaptability is a superpower. A topic I’ve written about before. AI has made the need to adapt feel more urgent for some, but the principle is not new.
Nothing stays the same. Change is inevitable.
Those who remain stuck in their current ways of doing things may eventually fall behind.
Those who remain curious, learn new tools and skills and keep looking for a better way will be more prepared for whatever comes next.
Consider the decisions, processes or areas of responsibility you are holding tightly.
Are you still the right person to own them?
Or are you afraid of what letting go might mean?
Sometimes the way to become more valuable is to stop proving that everything still needs you.
One Action
Give Away Some LEGO
Identify one recurring responsibility, decision or process you may be holding because of habit, identity, fear or a desire for control.
Choose someone who is ready to take on more. Help them step up.
Then answer one more question:
What higher-value work will you do with the capacity you create?
Start small. The goal is not to abandon responsibility. It’s to practise releasing control responsibly.
Reboot - Health & Longevity
Nutritional Building Blocks
Several people have recently asked me for advice on getting their diets back on track.
Nutrition is a massive and highly individual subject. Despite what many health influencers will try to make you believe, there isn’t a one-size fits all formula for nutrition.
Often, what will work best for any individual is whatever plan they can actually stick to.
However, if you’re looking for a simple place to start, I would focus on two simple shifts that I believe will work for anyone.
1. Prioritize protein
Think protein first. Most people do not consume enough.
Protein provides the amino acids the body uses to maintain and repair muscle and other tissues. It also tends to make meals more satisfying so that it’s easier to reduce consumption of other calories.
Start by identifying the protein source in each meal rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Top animal sources: Eggs, lean meat, fish, poultry, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese.
Good plant sources: Tofu, tempeh, edamame and legumes.
Supplements: Whey protein isolate is the gold standard. There are many blended plant sources that work well also for those who need to avoid dairy.
How much?: For physically active individuals or anyone aiming to reduce fat while preserving muscle, 1.4–2.0 g/kg of lean bodyweight per day is commonly cited range.
I personally aim slightly higher – about 1 g/lb or 2.2 g/kg.
There are days when you’ll miss the target. When you aim higher on the days you do hit it, your daily average will more easily land within the range.
2. Slash sugar
Most people consume too many carbohydrates. In particular sugar.
Start with the obvious sources.
Replace sugary soft drinks, fruit juice and calorie laden specialty coffees with water, another unsweetened option or even artificially sweetened alternatives in limited quantities.
Make dessert an intentional treat rather than an automatic part of dinner.
Read the labels on flavoured yogourts, cereals, sauces, granola bars and foods marketed as “healthy.” Even “no added sugar” does not necessarily mean sugar-free or nutritionally strong.
The goal is not perfection or joyless eating. Have the dessert deliberately. Don’t consume the sugar automatically or unknowingly.
—
These two shifts alone can materially improve the overall quality of what you eat and how you feel and perform.
I explored both ideas in more detail in “Add AND Subtract for Growth”.
It provides a deeper starting point for new readers and a useful reminder for those who read it before.
Recommended Reading
‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups”
Molly Graham draws on scaling teams at Google, Facebook and Quip to explain what rapid growth feels like from the inside: roles change, responsibility shifts and capable people can struggle as a company outgrows old structures.
The LEGO metaphor is the hook, but the article also explores the stages of scale, the value of planning ahead and the emotional resilience growth requires. It’s especially useful for founders, executives, managers and early employees in growing organizations, but its lessons about releasing control and adapting apply far beyond startups.
Inspirational Quote
“Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly they come to see it in themselves.”
— Stephen R. Covey
Readers Corner
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Until next week,
Kevin
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