Which start-up would you prefer to be running?
the one where you are at the centre of every decision, where if you go on holiday things grind to a halt until you get back; or
the one where you take a vacation and things continue without a hitch – nobody noticed you went away.
It’s so tempting to want to be the CEO at the centre of everything. People queuing outside your office all day long waiting for the purity of your supreme wisdom. Then scurrying back to their desks to unwrap the nugget of gold you’ve reluctantly offered. You do all the talking at meetings, you make every major decision, you call all the shots. You and your business are one.
The problem is your team have become your robots, not the creative people you hired. You’re giving out fish to hungry people, you’re not allowing them to fish for themselves. You end up feeding the same fish to the same people over and over again. And at a stage of growth when you’ve got bigger fish you can be catching yourself if only you could free up some time.
That's enough about fish. So what to do?
Establish a clear set of principles for your business, like:
We never compromise on quality.
We fully satisfy every customer.
We’ll give a % discount in exchange for a future commitment.
We offer credit only to those customers with whom we have a flawless 6-month trading history.
Our repair cycle is no longer than 24 hours or the customer gets a replacement.
On aggregate our total marketing spend is 15% of turnover.
We only invest in ideas from which we can generate intellectual property.
You’ve shown your teams what you want and expect from them. Every team in your business now works to a set of principles they helped develop. Now leave each team to it get on with their work, checking back periodically as agreed with them. Remove yourself from their day-to-day work and only handle questions that are clarifications or outside the scope of the principles.
Do this everywhere. Be clear and precise on your expectations but get out of the way. Progressively make yourself redundant from each team (which will give them better, more accountable jobs) and go on to your next growth challenge.
Repeat, often.
ความคิดเห็น