Dr. Geoff Smart

Geoff Smart is the #1 thought leader on the #1 topic in business. He is the Chairman & Founder of ghSMART, a leadership consulting firm, and his purpose is to help leaders amplify their positive impact on the world.

  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Books
      • Who
      • Power Score
      • Leadocracy
    • Keynotes
  • SMARTtools
  • SMARTthoughts
  • ghSMART
  • Email Geoff
You are here: Home / Leadership / Do Less, Make More

April 28, 2016 By geoffsmart Leave a Comment

Do Less, Make More

pablo (19)

Would you love to do less work, and make more?

Make more impact.

Make more money.

Make more people’s lives better?

Here is what average to below-average business leaders do. They personally involve themselves in a lot of details. They get “busy.” And they achieve mediocre results.

My colleagues and I have had the privilege of advising self-made billionaire entrepreneurs, S&P 500-beating Fortune 500 CEOs, and heads of state. Want to know what the cream of the crop leaders in the world do differently?
They hire and lead through others.

That’s it. For our Who book, John Malone (whose business TCI Cable was the top-performing stock in the U.S. for a decade) told me, “I like to supply a little direction, but I expect everybody on my team to supply the energy. If you feel you have to ‘motivate’ a manager or employee, you have the wrong person.”

And for Power Score, we followed entrepreneur Jeff Booth to his expanding office in Vancouver Canada. We asked him whether he is busier and miserable, now that his business BuildDirect had achieved scale, and had grown over 7x in four years (from $20m to $150m). How did he do that? He radically upgraded the talent on his team. That was what made the difference. His power score rose from 60 (out of 1,000) to 729. Without the right who, he is certain he would not have achieved that success. Jeff told us that he is enjoying his life more, and that he has more time to be creative and strategic, because his team is so strong. He personally does “less,” and his business makes a ton more impact and money.

Download the SMARTtools for Leaders™ WHO Tool. 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Leadership

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign up for SMARTthoughts email newsletter
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

SMARTthoughts for Leaders:

  • Balancing Legacy with Change: Lessons from the Founder-CEO Transition at Marshall Industries
  • (no title)
  • The Rx for Business Success: Systematic Hiring
  • After 400 Career-Oriented Conversations, This Surprised Me…
  • How One CEO’s Shift Drove Industry-Leading Growth
  • Wondering ‘How to Motivate Employees’ Is a Management Fail
  • 3 Questions Every Leader Should Ask Monday Morning
  • Thank You
  • 5 Mistakes Leaders Make With Job Descriptions
  • Remote Work is No Joke
  • Don’t Come Back to Work
  • 26-Year Anniversary Letter to Colleagues
  • Are You a Great “Remote” Leader? Take This Checklist Challenge
  • Is It Possible to Have a Job That Is Fulfilling and Lucrative — but Still Have a Life Outside of Work?
  • Hiring Government Leaders: Lessons from the Private Sector
  • ghSMART Turns 25
  • How Crisis Revealed the Cultural Roots of the #1 Consulting Firm to Work for
  • Successfully Convince a CEO in 3 Steps
  • The 2 Secrets to World Class Service—It’s Not What You Think
  • 3 Reasons Why Recessions are Awesome for Great Companies
  • Do You Know Someone Who Has What It Takes to Get Hired to the Consulting Firm Ranked #1 in Overall Satisfaction?
  • Three Things to Say and Get Hired to Your Dream Job
  • Do You Have a “Ninja” Executive Assistant?
  • Confidence
  • Two Reasons Why Smart People Make Dumb Career Moves
  • ghSMART Unseats McKinsey as #1 Firm for Client Interaction, According to Vault
  • 5 Tips to Spot Candidates with the Right–and Wrong–Stuff
  • ghSMART Appoints Kevin Burns Senior Advisor and Founding Member of Chairman’s Council
  • Opposite Day—How to Fail at Becoming CEO
  • ghSMART Appoints Mike Peel As Senior Advisor And Founding Member Of Chairman’s Council
  • They Will Love Your Reflection
  • The #1 Most Important Word in Business, Which You Rarely Hear
  • Run Your Next Meeting Like A CEO
  • Why You Will Reach the Top of Your Field, And Others Won’t
  • 3 Questions No Leader Should Ever Ask
  • The 3 Hardest Questions about Your Career
  • Great CEOs Give Their Teams Freedom to Choose
  • 3 Simple Closing Techniques for Smart People
  • 5 Ways Smart People Blow the Close
  • Hold People Accountable with this Simple Leadership Hack
  • Set the Right Priorities with this Formula You Learned in Econ101
  • What if the Secret to Job Happiness is Who You Work With?
  • 3 Ways to Get Your Life Back
  • How to Hire Team Players
  • 5 Practical Ways to Learn Something New in Business
  • 3 Ways to Run Meetings Like a CEO
  • 5 Ways to Answer Questions
    Like a CEO
  • 10 Smart Public Speaking Tactics You’ve Never Tried
  • The Key to a Happy Life
    Isn’t What You Think
  • Stop! Don’t Make the
    #1 Mistake in Business

Copyright © 2025 by G. H. Smart & Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.