Category: Team

In the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq, I was in charge of a detachment of Marines guarding civilian ships in the Persian Gulf. Our mission was to protect the vessels against boat born IED’s like the one that killed 17 sailors on the USS Cole in October of 2000. We maintained a 24 hour watch, both at sea and in port, with Marines armed with machine guns covering all directions of approach.

In the middle of this mission, I discovered that our standards had started to slip and the teams weren’t properly changing over the guard. The impact of this was that Marines weren’t fully prepared to repulse an attack while they were on post.

I decided to fix things by personally managing the change over of each shift.

“F*ck no!” One of my team leaders, Arciga, told me. “You always do ths s%$#!”

“What are you talking about?!” I asked him.

“Something gets messed up and you step in and take control. You always have to control everything. It’s my and the other team leader’s jobs. We screwed up. We’ll fix it.”

“Did you know that they would choose that option?” my account manager Slacked me.

Last week, we had a client request an estimate for an integration into Google Sheets. I responded to the request by pitching them on a different option that would provide more value to them. This also provided more value to us as the price for that option improved by 36%.

At this point in my career, I’ve done a lot of selling. Beyond my experience, I’ve done industry specific training on selling. I’m not a phenom, but if you put me up to bat, I can put runners on bases.

“I think he’s better than I am,” Octavia said.

Octavia is one of our junior developers. Like me, she has a desire to help people out of poverty. I had asked her to join me in interviewing people for our new WordPress Developer apprenticeship position. We were both surprised by the candidates that made the final cut. Octavia thought the final person we spoke with knew more about coding than she did.

I’m the smartest person in my business. It’s a problem.

You’re probably the smartest person on your team too. You’re most invested in your success and most familiar with the way your business provides value.

There’s a quote that goes, “the reward of work done well is more work.” And that’s the trap of being competent.

Several years ago, the 4 Hour Work Week created a flood of new entrepreneurs that were cash strapped and feeling pressure to grow. The promise of cheap help had many of them creating apprenticeships.

That trend has long passed as we prepare to hire our first apprentice under the Steward brand (job posting here: Hiring a WordPress Developer Apprentice . )

Why an apprentice? And why now?

I’ve long felt like there’s a link between entrepreneurship and leadership.

It’s easy to think of famous entrepreneurs who are highly effective leaders like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, or Steve Jobs. However, you’ve probably encountered many entrepreneurs who aren’t leaders at all or are terrible at that role.