Asset and liability model

I was having a conversation with one of the leaders who heads a team of over 80 sales folks. Over the last 5 years he’s set up multiple sales teams and has grown as one of the exceptional leaders at Razorpay He told me about his model of coaching managers in the team which I found very interesting: The Asset and Liability model

As a leader, he’s required to solve complex problems by setting up efficient teams. And, these teams require middle managers (who themselves will grow into leaders very soon handling multiple areas and multiple middle managers). These middle managers are a tricky bunch. They are responsible for one big area (say, handling sales for enterprise clients) and they have around 5-6 sales folks reporting into them. They don’t just own the sales targets for their areas but also the crucial aspect of growing the 5-6 sales folks reporting into them.

So, for this leader in context, it’s absolutely important to find the right middle managers for his team and coach them. That’s where he uses his Asset and Liability model of coaching.

Every time a new manager joins his team, he openly shares with them that he’ll work with them over the next 6 months, coaching them as an asset to his team. After 6 months, there should be just 2 scenarios:

  1. The new manager becomes an asset to the team. Thereby making the sales head a liability to the team (there’s nothing much extra that the sales head can add to this sub-team. So, a liability). This is the ideal situation. The sales head sets up a team, helps laying the foundation, makes the manager an asset, and moves on
  2. The new manager fails to become an asset to the team. Thereby becoming a liability. In this situation, the manager is let go

While this is an oversimplificaiton, this model works well for leaders who manage multiple sub-teams with managers reporting into them. A leader is only successful when they’re not pulled into the day-to-day dealings of their sub-teams. Which requires strong managers heading the sub-teams. A big part of a leader’s role is to hire and train such managers. Failing to do so results in the leader getting pulled into activities which shouldn’t require their attention.


Disclaimer: Hey! These are my unfiltered thoughts, kind of like a stream of consciousness. I’ll be honest, I haven’t done extensive research. So, take all the information with a grain of salt. It’s mostly based on my personal observations and perspectives.

Hope you enjoyed the read! If you have feedback or a different perspective, I’d love to know. Catch me on Twitter or mail me at me@chettyarun.com Thanks!