Redundancy - Key To Growth

With every interaction I have had with various leadership individuals the fact of making self ‘UNWANTED’ has kept hitting time and again. Most first generation entrepreneurs truly remain CEO’s of their company - Chief Everything Officer.

They know everything that is happening around them in the organization. This is critical in the early stages of the business cycle. Yet the transition from passing the baton and using the right delegation determines if they can move into a role larger than the day to day transactions.

The more a business owner relies on own skills and capabilities to maintain a degree of quality, the business stays stagnated at a certain level. The immediate focus areas block the long term vision as S/he keeps getting sucked into the transactions in-order the sustain that level.

A COO whom I was recently working with had this wonderful method of keeping control over certain business decisions & yet allowing people to use their own prowess. With over 250 staff, more than 200 came indirectly as his reportees. He kept in touch with each one of them, asking for their inputs / thoughts that gave them a sense of belonging. It didn’t matter how big / small the decision was.

To ensure quality on tasks he would say ‘Do what you feel is right, just show me once finalized’. ‘Will you take responsibility for the outcome?’ he would ask when someone comes to seek his approval. That way he would share the accountability.

While the emphasis lies and has to be in setting right kind of control checks so that client satisfaction remains uncompromised, strengthening the systems and processes defines how soon the entrepreneur truly becomes a CEO! A strong emphasis on defining the right kind of practices and methods means becoming less person dependent and more process driven as an organization.

Each business owner has a knack of managing and getting the job done. This will be different from the above example. Yet, what is common with most at leadership level is the ability to Let GO!! & put trust in the system which at the end of the day is managed by people!