Dr Evil and Mini-Me: A model for leadership development?

Austin Powers’ arch-enemy Dr Evil's miniature version of himself, Mini-Me* was created to do everything that Dr Evil did, in the exactly the same way that he did it. 

Was he on to something?  A key role of every leader is to develop other leaders, yet so few leaders (and especially Salvation Army Officers) seem to do so.  Perhaps we think it’s because we don’t have time, or maybe it’s because of one of the other common justifications. Of course, there is some cost but, as any leader who is in the habit of developing other leaders will tell you, the benefits far outweigh the costs. 

The Eight Most Common Excuses for not Developing Leaders

Why is it that so many leaders are reluctant to develop good leadership around them?  Here are just some of the expressed and unexpressed reasons I have heard and observed: 

1. They will see the inner workings of what I do and will find out I’m not as good as I look.
2. They may turn out to be better than me.
3. They may want to take over my job.
4. I must have exclusivity of some things to demonstrate my higher status as the “the boss”.
5. I don’t have time for training others.
6. Only ordained ministers can do what I do.
7. My congregation members are all too busy to take on leadership roles.
8. They won’t be able to do it well enough.   

Of course, when exposed to the cold light of day, many of these excuses seem weak and self-absorbed, even as we laugh at ourselves for unconsciously holding them.   But one of these deserves a little more attention. 

Excuse #5: I don’t have time for training others. 

This is a very seductive message for people who are running at close to capacity most of the time.  But let’s stop for a moment and do the maths. 

Let’s say I work about 60 hours a week, but I want to train someone to do everything I do, in the way that I do it (an unlikely scenario, but bear with me for the sake of the exercise).  He can watch what I do for the whole week and it would cost me no time at all. 

But I want to do better than that so I spend a few minutes with him at the beginning of each task explaining it.  During the task I may stop to explain from time to time, and at the end I may re-cap.  This whole process may make the task 10% to 25% longer.  Let’s be pessimistic and say it adds another 15 hours (25%) to the working week. 

To enhance his learning further, I decide to have a fortnightly mentoring session with him.  The session will go for 3 hours and I will have to put in about 1 hour of preparation and another hour of writing up the notes afterwards.  That’s a total of 5 hours per fortnight or 2.5 hours per week added to my workload. 

Now, on Day 1 of the training, I realise that as I am planning my day for two people, rather than just myself, so I need to be a bit more organised.  I put an extra half-hour into my daily time-management planning, but because I am better organised actually gain 1 hour per day in productivity.  That’s a gain of 5 hours on the week. 

Also on the first day, I realise that my trainee is keen to do more than just watch, so I can give him less skilled routine tasks straight away.  Even before the training has really begun he can save me at least an hour a day by doing tasks such as photocopying, running to the post office, attending to routine emails, etc.  (And an hour a day is really a pessimistic estimate!)  That’s another 5 hours a week I have saved. 

So even at the end of the first week, before the training has really begun, the whole exercise has cost me much less than two extra hours per day. 

First Week of Training

	The hours I work	Cost to me in hours
	Ordinary Working Week	60
Add	He watches me work	0
Add	Explanations along the way	15
Add	Mentoring Sessions	2.5
Add	Extra time management	0.5
Minus	Better organisation gains	5
Minus	Trainee doing routine tasks	5
	Total Hours of work for me	68

But this is only in the first week of training, and by the second week the trainee is able to carry out at least two hours of unsupervised tasks per day, which means it is getting close to actually giving me more time.  Certainly, within a month, the break-even figure will be passed. 

How about in six months?  Here’s a likely scenario.

After 6 months

	The hours I work	Cost to me in hours
	Ordinary Working Week	60
Add	He watches me work	0
Add	Explanations along the way	6
Add	Mentoring Sessions	2.5
Add	Extra time management	0.5
Minus	Better organisation gains	5
Minus	Trainee doing more complex tasks	20
	Total Hours of work for me	44

Explanations along the way have reduced to 10% of my time, and the trainee could be doing up to 1/3 of the tasks I was formerly doing.  This frees me up with another 16 hours a week to expand the ministry.  How exciting!

The same principles apply on a task-by-task basis.  If you are to train someone to preach, pastor, teach or carry out any other ministry, it costs no more than about 10% to 25% extra time in the beginning, and ends up releasing some of your time.  

Not convinced yet?  In my next post I will address Excuses 6, 7 and 8.  But in the meantime reflect on these emotional, spiritual and practical reasons why developing a leader is good, not just for the trainee, but for you. 

(Click on diagram for full size version.)

*Image above: Mike Meyers as Dr Evil and Verne Troyer as Mini-Me - Copyright Warner Brothers