My wife is very good at eating crab. It seems like an odd thing to say, but if you’ve ever eaten, or attempted to eat a crab, it can be a challenging experience. Crabs, of course, have an exoskeleton – a hard shell that needs to be broken or worked around to get to the meat. There are several devices and strategies to do so, including mallets, crackers, knives, scissors, and these long spork-like devices to scoop out meat wherever you may find it. Crabs have claws and sharp edges on almost every surface, making access very difficult and sometimes painful. It is also messy – usually crabs have seasoning or are hot after being steamed or cooked in a different manner. It's almost as if they were designed to not be eaten at all. But if you like the flavor of crab, the struggle is worth it every time.
The first time I saw my wife eat a crab, it was astonishing to watch. She systematically destroyed each challenging aspect of the crab – removing the hard shell in one graceful move, crunching the abdomen just enough to expose the meat underneath and easily plucking it out as if it were as easy as plucking a flower. She made minimal use of the array of tools we had on hand and quickly accumulated a pile of crabmeat that she pushed towards me to eat. I was left in utter awe of her deft dismantling of the crab. The whole process took less than two minutes. As a life-long crab eater, I was amazed at her level of skill and continue to be amazed at her unassuming manner in which she accomplishes such a difficult task.
People with specialized skills are extremely valuable. I joke with my wife that she should offer her skills to people as a crab-eating consultant, but in reality, specialized specialists are used quite often in medicine. Spine surgeons will frequently utilize a vascular or general surgeon to help expose the abdomen when performing an anterior lumbar spine fusion. In my own practice, I often refer patients to a different provider in my office who does peripheral nerve blocks on a regular basis. Recognizing your own skillset and its limits as well as humbly acknowledging others who can simply perform a task better than you is good medicine, and good business.
We see this a lot in teams as well. Building teams of diverse backgrounds, talents, and perspectives is instructive and informative to leaders, but really produces the best outcomes for almost any organization. An increasing pile of evidence is accumulating to support this. I think it takes humility and servant leadership to put these teams together and allow them to function at their best capacity without interfering or micromanaging. Something to think about the next time you are tackling a tricky business project or a stubborn crustacean.