You thought you were simply building a business, but over time you’ve built an extension of yourself.
Ask yourself: what would happen if you disappeared from the business for a month?
Firstly, you’d probably laugh (nervously) and then, when you realise it’s a serious question, you’d pause…. Because you already know the answer.
Decisions wouldn’t be made, certain clients would want you because no-one else would do, problems would stack up, waiting for your return. It could be a commercial disaster.
Don’t get me wrong, your team would work hard to keep things running, some would see it as their time to shine and above and beyond to prove themselves to you.
They would deliver – to a point, because there’s an invisible line they wouldn’t be brave enough to cross. It means nothing would necessarily fall apart, but nothing would move forward either, and you’re almost guaranteed to come back to, best case, a mountain of work, worst case, fixing problems create because you weren’t there to prevent them.
That’s not only exhausting for you ,but also tells me that
You haven’t just built a growing business, you’ve become it.
Even with a team in place, its still:
- YOUR strategy.
- YOUR judgement making the decisions.
- YOUR standards providing the quality control.
- YOUR relationships creating the pipeline.
- YOUR knowledge providing the insight.
- YOUR initiative spotting what others don’t see.
- YOUR foresight fixing problems before they happen
And its YOUR mindset and emotional state affecting the mood, energy and culture of the entire business.
There is no separation, YOU are the business.
This is completely understandable and the same for many Founders.
Why?
Because in the early years, it was only you. It was your drive, experience, tenacity and hard flipping work that made the business successful in the first place. You can’t just switch all that off because the business has grown.
You aren’t wrong.
However the problem is that your business has grown quicker than the way you’re currently operating it and that’s risky – professionally and personally.
One very capable human carrying an increasingly heavy commercial burden, is not sustainable and certainly isn’t saleable.
So if your business has managers, a leadership team, more clients and revenue, then it automatically has more complexity too, and if all that is still organised entirely around you, you still haven’t gained any capacity or freedom. You’ve created dependency.
That’s what needs to change.
You need to create a degree of separation between you and the business.
Your business needs a capable leadership team, people confident to make decisions and the ability to execute and perform without your constant input.
If you’re serious about growth, scalability and future commercial value, you need to accept that your role has to evolve too.
Nows the time to discover where your real value belongs and focus on creating a business that’s capable of operating beyond you.
So perhaps the uncomfortable question isn’t what would happen if you stepped away for a month. it’s:
What do you want to happen when you do?