Build the Clock.

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, in their book Built to Last, drew a distinction I have never forgotten. Some leaders are time tellers. They are brilliant at knowing what time it is, and everyone depends on them to say so. Other leaders are clock builders. They build the mechanism that keeps telling the time long after they are gone.

Time tellers are often more impressive in the moment. But their organizations tend to falter when they leave, because the capability lived in them, not in the system. Clock builders are quieter. Their genius shows up years later, in an organization that keeps making good decisions without them.

The carrier deck was a clock

The carrier deck worked because the system was bigger than any crew. People rotated in and out constantly. The ship kept running, because the knowledge lived in procedures, training and culture, not in any one person’s head. Most startups are the opposite. They work because of the founder. A company that only works because one person is there is fragile.

Three parts of the mechanism

Culture

What people do when you are not watching. Make your reasoning visible. Explain the principle, not just the outcome, until people orient the way you orient. Then they start to orient better than you.

Systems

Briefs and debriefs, clear decision rights and metrics that tell the truth. What is not written down does not scale. Good systems are a form of generosity.

Succession

Plan for your own absence. It is the ultimate act of confidence in what you built.

Near the end of his life, Steve Jobs chose a successor very different from himself. Tim Cook has said publicly that Jobs told him not to ask what Steve would have done, but simply to do what was right. A founder who wants his work to last does not want a copy of himself. He wants someone who will orient well in a world he will never see.

What the research adds

Liz Wiseman’s research for her book Multipliers puts a price on time telling. She studied smart leaders she calls Diminishers, who sit at the center of every answer. In her first round of research, they got less than half of their people’s capability, about 48 percent. The leaders she calls Multipliers got virtually all of it. Every answer a time teller gives is a question the team stops learning to ask.

Start building the clock

1. Find the single point of failureName one thing in your company that only works because you are there. A relationship, a decision or a body of knowledge.
2. Transfer it this monthDocument it, teach it, or hand it to someone and stay available as a coach rather than an owner.
3. Show your reasoningFor your next three decisions, write down why, not only what.
4. Write the succession pageOne page on who runs what if you are gone for a quarter. Planning for your absence is confidence, not irrelevance.