Daniel Doubrovkine suggests inspiring leads to give away parts of their job responsibilities to free up their time and achieve their company's mission and vision. He recommends leads ask their direct reports what they are great at and what they would do with more free time, and how that could impact the company. This approach allows leads to identify tasks that eat up time without high impact, so their reports can take them over and the leads can focus on areas with more strategic impact.

1. Inspiring Leads
to give away their legos
Daniel Doubrovkine
dblockdotorg | 2016
PAULINE AUBEY
Lego Portrait, 2016
Lego bricks
15 × 15 in
38.1 × 38.1 cm
Zhou B Haus der Kunst, Chicago
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/pauline-aubey-lego-portrait

2. Lead?

3. dblockdotorg
Make art as popular as music
Bring all of the world’s art online
GERARD RICHTER,Abstraktes Bild, 1997, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
https://artsy.net/artist/gerhard-richter
Vision
Mission
—
What we do …

4. Art x Science
Quality Worthy of Art
People Are Paramount
Positive Energy
Openness
—
How we do it …
dblockdotorg
Values

5. —
Leads
image courtesy Alex John Beck
dblockdotorg
Take responsibility for values and shipping software
+
Help individual contributors do their best work

6. How + What
80%
20%

7. —
Your Typical Lead 1:1
• Digest team problems
• Discuss complex people relationships
• Check-in with their mental health
• Identify what they do poorly
• Highlight what they do well
• Find opportunities to improve
• Prevent them from making mistakes twice
• Talk about something personal
• Empathize …

8. Inspiring?!

9. Growth???!

10. http://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups
“If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give
away your job every couple months.” - Molly Graham

11. Best Growth Advice Ever!

12. Inspire Leads to Give
Away their Legos
GODTFRED KIRK CHRISTIANSEN
Toy bricks "Lego", 1958
Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln (2015)

13. Freeing Time
Achieve their Mission
Get Closer to their Vision
Have an Impact on the Entire Company

14. Don’t Tell, Ask

15. What are you great at?

16. What would you do with
more free time?

17. How would that
impact the company?

18. This is how big this
can be for you.

19. —
Your Next Lead 1:1
• Find out what they are great at
• Paint a bright future for them
• Show the massive impact
• Identify what eats time away
zoom out
zoom in
http://code.dblock.org/2015/11/25/zooming-out-to-give-away-your-legos.html

20. AMA, thank you.
dblock@dblock.org
@dblockdotorg