Give Away Your Legos
In a scaling company, repeatedly hand off what you're good at to keep climbing the growing pile.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 95%
A mindset and practice for people inside rapidly scaling companies: the moment you become good at a job, hand it off and take on a bigger, unfamiliar one. Use it when a company is growing fast and roles keep getting redefined, and when you feel territorial about a team or project you built.
Origin
Molly Graham developed the metaphor at Google and Facebook, where the communications team she joined grew from 25 to 125 people in nine months. She noticed she had to have a recurring 'Legos talk' with employees who resisted handoffs, and eventually wrote it up as an article.
Core principles
- 01The Lego pile (your company, your job) is always getting bigger; you must grow as fast as it does
- 02Whatever you've gotten good at, you should be preparing to give away
- 03Territorial, fearful emotions during handoffs are inevitable and normal, but they are not useful signals
- 04Embracing change beats fighting it; you almost never see what's around the corner
How to run it
- 1
Recognize you've mastered your current pile
Notice when you feel 'I was put on earth to do this' about a job or project. That comfort is the signal that a handoff is coming.
Pro tip The graph of how fast your business grows is the same graph of how fast your job is getting bigger.
- 2
Hand the half-built thing to someone new
Pass your current work to a new hire even when it feels unfinished and you fear they'll screw it up. Then move to the next, unfamiliar pile.
Watch out You will feel excitement paired with fear and territoriality; expect it rather than treating it as a reason not to hand off.
- 3
Rehire yourself into a bigger job
Take on the larger, less-defined scope (house to neighborhood to city). Repeat this on a fast cadence as the company grows.
Pro tip At Facebook, Molly got to a place where she was effectively giving away her job every three weeks.
In the wild
Molly's department grew from 25 to 125 people. Rather than clinging to what she owned, she repeatedly handed off responsibilities and took on new, larger scopes as the company expanded.
→ She went from someone good at one function to someone capable of leading entire functions across multiple hyper-growth companies.
Common mistakes
Clinging to what you built
If you stay and keep building 'houses,' the pile keeps growing until you're literally buried under Legos, holding onto something small while the opportunity passes.
Treating handoff emotions as decision signals
The urge to grab your Legos back or resent the person who took them is normal but should never drive your actions.
Is it for you?
Best for
Operators and managers inside fast-scaling startups who feel territorial about a team or project they built
Not ideal for
Stable, slow-growth organizations where roles rarely change and continuity is more valuable than reinvention
From the transcript
“both learning to give away what you've gotten good at and move on to the next shiny pile of Legos”
“That means that if you actually just stay and build houses eventually you're literally buried under a pile of Legos.”
“you have to sort of grow as fast as your company is growing if you really want to take advantage of the opportunity that comes…”
From the episode
The high-growth handbook: Molly Graham’s frameworks for leading through chaos, change, and scale