I’ve been struggling to find an analogy that adequately conveys the role I want to have in my company. I want a framework and a language we can use to structure our communication and interaction with each other. I’d like it to be something easy to understand, something everyone can visualize. This is important for a few reasons. For one, when they consider whether to involve me or not, they can apply this analogy to their situation, and make a decision on how to move forward. For two, I want them to understand what value I’m trying to add, and how their interactions, contributions, and reactions can impact my ability to do that role effectively.

In my head, I’ve had the “hunter” and the “farmer” analogy working for quite awhile. It comes from Thomas Hartmann, whose theory for the origin of ADD is that the ADD person is a hunter, and everyone who’s non-ADD is a farmer. This works perfectly for me, except for one thing. Sometimes the people who I’d consider “farmers” are insulted by being called this, even though I don’t necessarily consider this any kind of lesser role.

I had a great lunch yesterday with someone I met when I was moderating a panel. I think she’s brilliant, and we got into an excellent conversation about what a company leaders role should be, and how employees at the company can view that role and understand the limitations and the necessary inabilities of that leader to respond to everything effectively if they want a successful company. She has her own analogy for it, but when I mentioned this analogy to my partner (who’s also my husband) he felt it has some of the same issues that the hunter and the farmer analogy had.

As I love analogies and stories as a way to help me and others visualize what I’m trying to communicate, my brain spent the better part of the night and this morning searching for another one. So here’s what I came up with:

My role should be like the editor of a publication. I should determine the strategic mission of the publication, explain to the public why they should invest in advertising or read the magazine. I might be involved in landing big advertising accounts, forming initial relationships with printers, fulfillment people, distribution channels, etc. I should have a public-facing role.

Internally, I might be responsible for the initial communication of how we’re going to do things, I might be responsible for planning and then communicating the direction of a specific issue, making sure the items submitted from writers fit that issue and the publication’s overall mission, edit where necessary to make sure everything fits in the issue, do final review to make sure it’s all okay, and ensure there’s value in advertisers’ investment in my publication.

Other employees should write the actual articles of that issue, and sell and create monthly ads. Additionally, they should be responsible for some of the editing choices, like should someone use the word “cajole” or “convince” in their article. Other employees should also help with printing, or distribution of the actual magazine, making sure writers get paid, and advertisers pay.

If that lead role gets too consumed in the day-to-day tasks of running the publication, there’s not enough time or energy for the vital strategic planning and action critical to the continued success and growth of the publication.

The employees of the company need to perform their role as much as possible with the guidelines given by the lead role.

Equally important, I think the person in the lead role needs to make sure they’ve adequately communicated the boundaries and strategies, along with the reasons for these boundaries and strategies, give some initial guidance to the employees so the boundaries and strategies are getting implemented correctly on an operational and tactical level, make corrections when necessary, and then just let the employees get the publication out.

I think the leader also needs to learn that sometimes there’s going to be typos while the employees learn. The leader needs to have enough security in place for recovery from errors that, while the typo is not ideal, it doesn’t shut the publication down. There’s nothing like a public typo for teaching someone how to do better next time. The leader needs to let the employees learn that lesson.

NOTE: Mind you, with all this said, I’ve never been an editor at a publication, so perhaps I have that role all wrong. I’ve just seen in my business how much more effective it is for our company if I function when I’m the “editor” of an implementation rather than the implementor itself.

Your Turn: What do you think of this analogy? Are you a company leader, or an employee? What analogies do you use in your business to communicate roles and describe abilities?