In my last article, I talked about the difference between building a business that operates like a jigsaw puzzle and building one that operates with LEGOs. With a jigsaw puzzle, every piece has a specific place, and the finished picture can only be assembled one way. With LEGOs, the pieces can be combined in different ways to create all sorts of things.

Now I’d like you to imagine a jigsaw puzzle where every piece represents an employee. There’s Sarah, Robert, Michelle, David, and Jane. Each person has a particular place in the organization, with specific responsibilities that belong to them. Everything works beautifully as long as all the pieces are there.

But what happens when Jane takes a vacation, calls in sick, or needs to be away for a few weeks because of a family situation? Suddenly, there’s a Jane-shaped hole in the middle of your puzzle, and none of the other pieces fit. Sarah has her own responsibilities, Robert has his, and Michelle is busy doing what Michelle does. Everyone knows their own job, but nobody really knows how to do Jane’s.

The business hasn’t necessarily stopped operating, but certain things aren’t getting done. Customers may be waiting, paperwork may be piling up, or other employees may be trying to figure out how to handle something they’ve never been taught to do. And the entire organization is waiting for Jane to come back so the puzzle can be complete again.

What If We Were Working with LEGOs Instead?

One of the wonderful things about LEGOs is that different pieces can perform the same function. If you need a particular size brick to complete part of your structure, it doesn’t necessarily matter whether that brick is blue, red, or purple. As long as it has the right characteristics, it can do the job.

What if we thought about our employees’ responsibilities that way? Jane might have ten different things she’s responsible for accomplishing. But that doesn’t mean we need one other person who knows how to do all ten things. Perhaps Sarah can handle three of them, Robert can handle four, and Michelle can take care of the remaining three. And what if Sarah isn’t available either? Ideally, at least some of those responsibilities could be handled by someone else who has also learned how to do them.

We haven’t created another Jane. We’ve created a team with overlapping capabilities, where the work doesn’t depend entirely on one particular person being available.

That doesn’t mean everyone needs to know how to do everything. Some responsibilities require specialized training, and some tasks are performed so infrequently that teaching everyone to do them wouldn’t make sense. But the business should understand which activities are essential to its operations and have a realistic plan for how those activities will continue when the person who normally handles them isn’t there.

The goal isn’t to make every employee interchangeable. It’s to make sure that the organization has more than one way to accomplish the work that needs to be done.

What Happens When Everyone Is There?

Here’s where I think the LEGO approach becomes even more valuable. We tend to think about cross-training as a way to prepare for vacations, sick days, and other absences. But what if we looked at it as a way to make better use of the people we already have?

Consider a small business with several employees who handle administrative responsibilities, others who work directly with customers, and still others who manage the operational side of the business.

Over time, the business has changed. Technology has automated some of the administrative work, and customers are using online systems to accomplish things that once required a phone call or an office visit. The administrative employees are still needed to provide coverage throughout the day, but they don’t have the same volume of work they once had.

Meanwhile, employees in another part of the business are struggling to keep up. There are routine tasks that need attention, customers who need follow-up, and work that occasionally gets delayed because the people responsible for it have too much on their plates.

If we’re thinking in terms of a jigsaw puzzle, we may look at the administrative department and conclude that we have too many people. After all, there isn’t enough administrative work to keep everyone busy all day. At the same time, we may look at the other department and conclude that we don’t have enough people because there’s more work than the existing employees can handle.

But what if we stopped looking at those employees as fixed puzzle pieces and started looking at the capabilities they have, along with the capabilities they could develop?

Perhaps one administrative employee could learn to handle some of the routine customer follow-up. Another might be interested in learning how to prepare orders or coordinate work for the operations team. Someone in operations might learn to handle basic administrative tasks when the front office is particularly busy.

Now we have employees who still perform their primary responsibilities but can also contribute in other areas when their time is available. We haven’t necessarily added or eliminated any positions. We’ve simply changed what our existing team is capable of accomplishing.

Do You Know What Your Team Can Actually Do?

We generally know what each employee is supposed to do. We have job descriptions, established responsibilities, and an organizational structure that tells us who handles what. But knowing what someone is assigned to do isn’t the same as knowing what they’re capable of doing.

If I asked you to identify every employee who could answer the telephone, process an order, prepare a customer document, or handle a particular operational task, could you do it? Would your answer include only the people who currently perform those responsibilities, or would you know who else has the necessary skills? What about the people who could learn those tasks with a little training?

And do you know where your employees have available capacity? Not just whether they appear busy, but whether the work they’re responsible for actually requires all the time they’ve been assigned to it?

Those are important distinctions. An employee may have the skills to handle another responsibility but no time available to do it. Another employee may have plenty of available time but need additional training before they can contribute in a different area. Understanding both capability and capacity allows you to make much better decisions about how work gets accomplished.

It also means looking beyond departmental boundaries. If someone has the ability and available time to accomplish something that needs to be done, does it really matter that the task has traditionally belonged to another department? Sometimes it does. There may be licensing requirements, safety considerations, confidentiality concerns, or specialized expertise involved. But sometimes the boundary exists simply because that’s how the work has always been divided. And those are the boundaries worth questioning.

Building a Team Instead of a Collection of Positions

There’s another benefit to developing overlapping capabilities that goes beyond getting more work accomplished. When employees understand what their coworkers do, they often become better at working together.

Someone who has spent time learning another function may begin to understand why certain information is important, why a particular process takes longer than expected, or how a small mistake in one department can create a significant problem somewhere else. They may recognize opportunities to help before someone has to ask. They may become better at communicating because they understand what the other person needs. And they may develop a greater appreciation for the work their coworkers do every day.

Instead of having a collection of people who each understand only their own part of the business, you begin developing a team that understands how the pieces work together.

Of course, that requires some intentional effort. People need training, opportunities to practice, and clear expectations about when they should step into another function. It’s also important to recognize that having the ability to perform a task doesn’t automatically mean someone has the time to take it on.

Cross-training isn’t a license to pile more and more work onto your most capable employees. It’s a way to distribute work more intelligently across the resources you already have. And when it’s done well, employees gain opportunities to develop new skills, explore different kinds of work, and understand how their contributions fit into the larger organization.

The strength of your team isn’t just what each individual employee can do. It’s what your people are capable of accomplishing together.