An op-ed, short for “opposite the editorial page”, is a written prose piece, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication’s editorial board.
Storyblocks
I’ve built a lot of teams over the years.
For a long time, I had a formula.
Find the strongest people you can and pay them more money than the other guys. Give them a schedule, a budget, and drop them into a problem like a match into dry grass.
Fast. Focused. Expensive.
Plan it. Execute it. Move on.
These teams of consultants were built for momentum. Operators. Hard chargers. People who don’t ask why things are the way they are, they just start pulling levers. They also don’t particularly care about what’s left behind.
I didn’t invent this approach. I learned it as a consultant. When something was broken beyond what the local team in some country could handle, you overwhelmed it with horsepower and precision.
It worked. For a long time. On four continents.
Then it didn’t.
My last time doing it, I got it wrong.
Same pattern on the surface: unhappy oil company, underperforming wells, frustration with the international service companies, a call for outside help.
So I did what I always did. I built an A-team.
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Top engineers. Top operators. Top technicians. People who could execute in their sleep.
B.A. Baracus and Face on the next flight out of Calgary.
Only this time, I built the wrong thing.
The customer didn’t need a team to crush a single problem or execute a project they didn’t have staff for. They needed a system that could grow.
They needed mentors. Teachers. Advisors. People who could transfer capability, not just deliver results. People willing to slow down long enough to bring others with them.
I dropped in an invasion force where I should have built an occupation force.
We still delivered. On paper, it looked like a win. But we didn’t leave the place stronger. We left it dependent.
That’s the part that stayed with me all these years later.
Because building a team isn’t just about talent. It’s about intent.
Same budget. Same caliber of people. Completely different outcome depending on the mission you, the leader, define.
Before you staff anything, there’s a a version of this question every leader needs to at least ask:
Are we kicking in doors, or keeping the peace?
Forget to define the mission properly and even the best people you can hire will solve the wrong problem brilliantly.
That’s a lesson I learned the hard way.
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- 0100 Turnbull Project Manager0100 Turnbull Project Manager
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- 0095 Fast Trucking nearly 70 years good at it0095 Fast Trucking nearly 70 years good at it
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- 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
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- 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
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