Operating LogicA system for problem solving.

4.2
Self-sufficiency

"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary" — Thomas Carruthers






After its all said and done, building a toolkit is about self-sufficiency. The ultimate measure of success isn’t whether people admire your strategy. It’s whether they can live it without you. When you build a great toolkit, you give others something more valuable than a presentation or a plan: You give them ownership.

Ownership to think for themselves.
Ownership to make decisions aligned with a shared intent.
Ownership to keep moving forward even when the terrain shifts.

Because solid Operating Logic builds resilience.




Why self-sufficiency mattersIdeas that rely on a single person to interpret, explain, or defend them are brittle. They collapse the moment that person leaves the room, changes teams, or moves on. But when a concept is translated into a living operating system, when the thinking is embedded into how a team behaves and decides, it gains staying power. It becomes part of the organization’s DNA.

Self-sufficiency matters because:

It scales the idea beyond the problem solver.
It accelerates decision-making without gatekeeping.
It builds cultural momentum that compounds over time.

When people can carry the work forward without you, the work becomes truly theirs. And that’s when real change happens.


A shift in mentalityIn the early days of practicing strategy, it’s tempting to seat yourself as indispensable.

After all, you see the patterns others don’t. You can connect the dots. You know the story behind the decisions. But the responsible strategist recognizes a deeper truth: The more invisible you become, the more likely your work lives on.

Forget being the smartest person in the room.
Make the room smarter.

Operating Logic is the discipline of making new futures possible, even when you're no longer holding the reins. When you build great toolkits, you're equipping an enduring team of solvers.
By Garrett HerzikPreviousNext