I turned to the flipchart, this morning, and drew a picture of a can.

“How big is the can?” I asked. “And how big is the person filling the can?”

There were several guesses from the group here in Cincinnati.

“And, how do you measure the size of the can? How do you measure the person filling the can?” I continued.

Everyone knew exactly what I was talking about. The size of the can is the size of the role. The size of the person describes the capability of the person filling the role.

Leslie Pratch just posted an article about this in the Huffington Post. She provides two specific examples and then describes how to measure the size of the can.

Your thoughts?