Learn how to let go of the reins and allow your business to soar without you.
There is a new menace in today's offices. You've seen him before, or you are one yourself: the founder who refuses to let go. Like an overprotective father, you witnessed something come to life and now want to see every small step your creation takes. You believe you are helping, but the hard truth is that you impede progress.
So, how do you prevent this fate? If you're a founder, the answer is simple: make yourself replaceable!
Don't worry, you don't have to give up. It means you create a smoothly functioning firm that can function without your assistance, allowing you to focus on what you should be doing: pushing your company's goal and determining its future.
In this Summary, you'll learn.
How a decent app can function as an external brain;
Which three rules apply to every incoming email;
Why are skills and education only sometimes the most significant considerations for a new recruit?
1. Make yourself replaceable by establishing the appropriate company structures.
Many founders perceive themselves as puppet masters. They demand complete control, with strings linked to every small gesture on stage. Most of them don't realize that they frequently cause more harm than good to their business.
If you are a founder, consider yourself an initiator. Consider your business a series of dominos, with you as the first to fall. The crucial element here is that everything should be properly put up, with all the pieces in place. When the first domino falls, the rest will fall into place.
The essential idea here is to make oneself replaceable by establishing the proper company structures.
As a founder, it's easy to become preoccupied with your firm's specifics. However, you are not responsible for developing a Customer Relationship Management system or a Social Media strategy. Your role is to identify the right personnel to handle this for you. You must establish an organizational structure and empower your people to execute their best work without additional guidance.
Again, the best thing you can do is make yourself replaceable, at least in the everyday operational business.
Take the example of Malte Holm, a CEO overwhelmed by the number of little fires he had to put out. Employees came to him every day with minor problems, and as a result, he needed more time to handle them. He needed to think large and reset some of his company's domino pieces.
One of the challenges was in human resources. As Holm investigated and spoke with the HR manager, he discovered the root cause: the manager spent four hours in traffic each day! So Holm did what was necessary to make her job more manageable. He assisted her in setting up an efficient home office with a high-speed internet connection. Finally, she could devote more time to her career.
Holm not only made her life easier, but he also felt better afterwards. There was one less fire to extinguish, and he could return to his essential duties.
2. Identify and clarify roles.
You begin a new project at work. At first, everything is going great, and everyone is excited. But then, something happens, and the endeavour halves for unknown reasons. Suddenly, everyone scratches their heads, wondering what happened and what to do next.
This is frequently a symptom that needs more clarity about what needs to be done and who should do it.
The essential point here is to identify tasks and explain responsibilities.
Fortunately, there are some helpful project management strategies that founders and company leaders can implement to ensure that projects go smoothly and with a lot less head-scratching along the way.
The first step is to ensure that each project is broken down into specific jobs. Whatever the project's purpose is, it should be broken down into as many tiny phases as possible. In this manner, everyone engaged will understand precisely how to get from point A to point Z. It's also an excellent technique to keep individuals motivated because each step makes them feel like they're progressing and getting closer to their goal.
By the way, this idea applies equally to personal projects. You have three hours to complete an 850-word piece. Sounds frightening, doesn't it? But if you divide it into 15-minute increments, you'll find it much more manageable. If the first stage is to conduct research and the second step is to draft a basic outline, all that remains is to write approximately 85 words every 15 minutes. That is doable.
When managing a group project, once you've broken it down into tiny enough tasks, it's essential to allocate them and ensure everyone understands who is responsible for what.
This is where the second management tool, RACI, or Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed, comes into play.
The responsible person, usually the CEO or founder, approves the initiative and is ultimately in charge. If a large project begins with this person's approval, it will likely succeed.
The Accountable person monitors the project's progress and ensures everyone completes their assigned tasks. This individual also keeps the boss informed and involved if any significant adjustments need to be made to the project.
The Consulted person is a professional brought in when work requires expert counsel or skills beyond the ordinary team's capabilities.
Finally, the Informed person, such as the customer, requires regular updates on the project. The Informed can include numerous parties, although it is generally a smaller group than you might imagine.
When everyone understands their responsibilities and who they must report to, problems may be detected and resolved promptly, allowing everyone to focus on moving forward.
3. The six stages of the delegation system might help you delegate more effectively.
If you're a founder continuously overloaded with work, you're likely to overlook a crucial aspect of successful leadership: delegating.
The key to efficient delegation is to be honest about the duties you could be more skilled and passionate about. These are the tasks you should delegate to others. If you aren't very good at accounting, you should delegate this duty to someone else.
This may appear straightforward in principle, but it can be challenging. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to make things easier.
The critical idea here is to delegate more effectively utilizing a method known as the six degrees of delegation.
The first delegation level consists of simple chores, such as having someone buy a book online for you. For situations like this, you only have to give someone direct instruction. Done.
The second level includes slightly more sophisticated activities, such as booking a flight from New York to Phoenix at a specified time. In this scenario, you can have someone conduct some research, see what's accessible, and write a summary for you.
The next step is if the study includes suggestions, allowing you to make a more informed conclusion. If you're trying to buy a home in Seattle, ask someone to investigate the city's real estate agents and present you with a list of the top five.
At level four, you would distribute even more responsibilities. For example, ask someone on your team with real estate experience to select an agent in Seattle, begin identifying and purchasing the house, and keep you updated every step of the way so you can make the final decision.
At level five, you would delegate decision-making authority while establishing specific boundaries. For example, they can find the property and make a purchase if it is in a particular city area and under a specified price; otherwise, they must consult with you.
Finally, at level six, you delegate full authority to another individual to do a task as they see fit. They can choose the agent, the location, and the amount to spend on the property.
Determining which responsibilities to delegate and to whom might be challenging. However, understanding these multiple levels might help you assign the proper assignment to the right individual.
The most challenging aspect for you as a founder is delegating the level of authority required by levels five and six. In the following section, we'll look more closely at how to recruit those individuals.
4. When recruiting, consider skills, personality, and problem-solving ability.
One of the distinguishing features of any outstanding founder or CEO is the calibre of the team they build. That's because assembling a team of top performers is easier said than done.
You may take action to improve your chances of hiring top personnel. The first step is to recognize the unique skill sets they bring to the table.
The takeaway is to look for talents, personality, and problem-solving abilities while recruiting.
It's tempting to hire someone based on specific criteria, such as age, gender, or educational background, but this might be restricting. Instead, concentrate on the talents you require this person to have.
However, you should be aware of the importance of the person's personality. After all, this is someone with whom you may spend a significant amount of time, and just because they possess every IT talent you seek does not imply that they have the demeanour of an excellent employee.
So, you must look for abilities that go hand in hand with positive personalities, which you can typically accomplish during a trial period. This is an excellent opportunity to determine whether they are proactive and willing to go above and beyond. Anyone can order a book online for you. However, the ideal hire would be someone who orders the book and follows up to see if it arrived on time and if you require anything else.
Another valuable ability is attention to detail. People who can identify minor errors, such as an important client's name missing from a guest list, are crucial to any organization.
Problem-solving abilities are another indicator of prospective outstanding hiring. For example, if you're looking for a brilliant writer, instead of looking at their writing samples, consider how they respond to a fast assignment, such as revising a poorly written piece. After all, anyone may submit excellent work that requires 50 drafts to complete, but you genuinely want people who can fix problems on the spot.
Skills like this will be valuable in a variety of scenarios. Remembering this during hiring will boost your chances of working with exceptional people.
5. Reserve your peak hours for flow activities.
Great. You now have a well-oiled company in place. Unfortunately, difficulties will continue occurring. Even worse, they all appear to require your urgent attention. So, how do you tackle day-to-day emergencies?
As long as no one hacks your work account, most of your problems are less critical than you believe. You don't have to deal with every situation immediately, even if you want to. Recognizing this truth will ultimately allow you to work more productively. For example, set aside your most productive periods for others.
The essential point here is to reserve your peak time for flow activities.
Everyone generally has a peak time - 90 minutes of the day when job efficiency is at its peak. Naturally, this is the moment when you're most likely to engage in flow activity, characterized by uninterrupted attention and the ability to accomplish a lot in a short time.
But how can you determine when you're most productive? Yes, there is an app for this. The author's company created the Less Doing Peak Time app, which tracks your interactions with it and alerts you when your nervous system is at its peak.
Once you've worked that out, maximise your daily peak hours. To do so, set aside this time for activities that require intense attention, such as writing or composing. You should also inform your coworkers that this period is off-limits to any calls or interruptions. Remember that just because someone thinks something is urgent doesn't mean it is.
Once you've identified your peak periods, you may help your coworkers enhance their productivity by being aware of and respecting theirs, just as you would ask them not to disrupt yours. However, when scheduling meetings that demand creative thinking and idea generation, attempt to schedule them so that as many people as possible attend during their peak times. This increases your chances of having people who are sharp, vibrant, and full of creative ideas.
At the very least, this knowledge will ensure you avoid booking meetings during the terrible daily slump period when people produce more yawns than bright ideas.
6. Control your emails with filters and the Do, Delete, or Defer rule.
When speaking to audiences worldwide, the author frequently asks, "What keeps you from being creative?" The most popular response is, "My cluttered inbox." So, what can you do about this?
The main point is to control your emails with filters and the Do, Delete, or Defer rule.
The quickest and easiest solution to this problem is to build filters. For example, you can set up a filter to detect any email containing the phrase "unsubscribe" and route it to a separate folder. This filter will considerably clear your inbox by removing all the newsletters and website updates you subscribe to.
But wait, you subscribed to these emails for a reason. Don't worry; nothing is being removed. They're simply being eliminated as a distraction because, let's be honest, you don't have time throughout the workday to read an endless stream of newsletters. There is always a later time to catch up.
The Do, Delete, or Defer Rule is another valuable approach for reducing your email load. When emails arrive, you may squander valuable time and mental energy determining how to address them. This rule will make your decision-making process easier since you will only have three options: do, delete, and defer.
"Do" indicates that you will act on it right away. It's ideal for emails with actionable things that can be accomplished in five minutes or less, such as one from IT regarding upgrading your computer's privacy settings.
"Delete" is a practical and underestimated feature. For instance, if someone sends you an email just to say thanks or that they’ve finished a task, don’t respond – delete it! Remember: the more emails you send, the more you’ll receive. If more people hit “Delete” instead of “Reply All,” we’d get fewer emails.
“Defer” is the third and final option for all the emails that can’t be dealt with immediately. For example, any email that relies on someone else’s input.
Taming your inbox is a great way to free up the mental energy you’ll desperately need to drive your company forward – for example, by generating new ideas more effectively.
7. Record and store your ideas systematically.
Question: What will keep you ahead of your competitors?
The answer: your unique ideas.
As a founder, you have vast amounts of information at your fingertips. Just think of all the podcasts, websites, newsletters or tweets. But this also means your ideas can spring up at any moment. And since ideas can be fleeting, you need a system to capture the very thoughts that can move your business forward.
The key message here is to record and store your ideasystematicallyay.
However you handle your creativity, finding a system to suit your preferences is essential. For example, if you’re most inspired by videos or podcasts, you may enjoy using videos or voice memos to record your ideas. And if you need to bounce ideas off a colleague, you may want to ensure you consistently record your brainstorming sessions.
As for the author, he likes to use meetings to generate ideas and preserve that information in emails, which he reads, like a digest, at the end of the day.
So that’s one way you can capture your ideas. But how do you avoid drowning in a sea of information?
An exemplary storage system for ideas should act like an external brain that takes the weight off the real brain sitting between your ears. After all, the fewer ideas you try to keep in the back of your mind all day, the less likely you’ll forget them. And as a bonus, you’ll have more brain power for other ideas.
One excellent kind of external brain is the If This Then That app, or IFTTT for short. You can use this app to build all sorts of shortcuts between two applications. For example, you could set it up to automatically email your voice memos. That way, you won’t lose any of your genius ideas.
8. For great content production, figure out what you do well and create organizational structures that support your talent.
Bill Gates once said, “Content is king.” Even though this was back in 1996, it's equally valid today. No matter what business you’re in, great content is crucial to success. After all, it’s the primary way of reaching out to your customers. So, let’s look at how you can up your content game.
The first thing you should do is recognize your limitations.
If writing is not a strength of yours, then don’t waste a lot of time and effort by struggling through poorly written articles and blog posts. Instead, do what the author did. When he was trying to improve his Less Doing blog, he realized he had a lot of nothing.
So he hired someone to do it for him.
The key message here is to figure out what you do well for great content production and create organizational structures that support your talent.
What the author did have was a steady supply of ideas for new blog posts, so it was just a matter of finding someone who understood his voice and could form his ideas into great articles and posts.
This took some time, but it ultimately allowed him to produce more content while freeing up time to pursue other projects.
Another important aspect is creating an efficient means of production.
When the author made his first podcast episodes, the process took around 15 hours. As a result, he could only publish one episode every six weeks, and, as you can imagine, it’s tough to build a strong audience with so little content.
Once he found a way to largely automate the process, however, he could put out a steady stream of podcasts and build a loyal audience.
Here’s how it works in practice:
First, the author spends a few hours making the recording. He then saves it in a Dropbox folder, where the editor adjusts the sound quality and adds an intro and an ending. The recording is then uploaded to both SoundCloud and YouTube; at this point, subscribers are sent an email announcing the new episode, complete with a link to the podcast.
With the proper structure in place, you can spend a fraction of the time producing your content, which allows you to focus on making your content even better!
9. You’ll attract customers with smooth contact points and free samples.
Even the best content in the world can only take you so far. It’ll wither away unnoticed if you don’t have customers and fans who actively recommend you – and that means building a stable customer base. How do you do that?
The key message is that you’ll attract customers with smooth contact points and the proper free sample.
The first step is analyzing every point of contact your business has with its clients and customers. You’re looking for anyway a point of contact can be improved.
This includes websites, Facebook pages, customer service email exchanges or phone operators. Once you’ve identified all the points of contact, you can sort them into three categories or phases of the customer relationship: Before, During and After.
The Before category includes all contact points between prospective customers and your business. This might be your website or hearing about you at an industry conference.
The During category is for interaction with active customers, where you should ensure your customers are nurtured and treated well.
The after category includes contact points with former customers, such as a follow-up email asking if they were happy with the service. Don’t neglect these. How you end a transaction with a client will significantly impact how you’re remembered.
In all three phases, the key is providing lead magnets. A lead magnet is something of value that you can give the customer, often for free, to stoke their interest.
Ideally, a lead magnet is desirable and something they’ve already shown interest in. It might be the first few chapters of a book or the first few minutes of an online course.
Piquing a customer’s interest with a taste of free, high-quality content will make them more likely to buy the complete package. Another great thing about lead magnets is that they’re usually samples of products you already have, so this task is perfect for delegating to someone else.
By now, you should know how to make your current business more automated and capable of running without you. This means you’ll have more time to spend on exciting new ideas and start working on founding your next business.
10. Sometimes, the best way forward is to say no and slow down.
One of the author’s clients is Justin Kavanaugh, a world-famous trainer to an impressive roster of professional athletes, including many top American football players.
Throughout his career, Kavanaugh always took on a lot of work, including many high-profile speaking engagements, and always pushed himself to do more. But when his first child was born, all this changed. He had to start saying no. This was hard for someone who had never met a challenge he couldn’t accept.
In fact, Kavanaugh had to cancel some international speaking engagements he’d already agreed to. Even though it pained him to do so, he knew it was the right thing to do. The most important thing now was staying close to home, being with his child and supporting his wife.
The key message here is: Sometimes, the best way forward is to say no and slow down.
No matter what your business is, there will be times when slowing down adds more value than speeding up. This is something every founder and CEO needs to know from the get-go. This might mean deprioritizing the fast-paced operations of the sales department paying closer attention to more delicate issues like HR, or improving customer relations.
Kavanaugh experienced first-hand the need to slow down in the athletes he trained. He regularly saw athletes become successful and then get greedy with their efforts. Suddenly, it was all about getting faster, stronger and scoring more points as quickly as possible. That raised the risk of burn-out and overuse injuries.
But whether you’re the founder of a Fortune 500 company or a football superstar, you must regularly go back to the basics. Keep working on strengthening the skills that made you successful in the first place. The only way to do this is by taking a break occasionally and calmly reflecting on the parts of your game that need fine-tuning. This is how you stay at the top.
Final Summary
Founders will always be essential players in any company, but that doesn’t mean they must be involved in all the business's day-to-day operations. In fact, trying to do everything yourself is a sure way to burn out. Ultimately, it’s your job to set up an organization that can run smoothly on its own so that you can spend more time following new ideas and leading the way forward.
Let’s give the last word to the author, Ari Meisel, who we interviewed in 2016. Here he is, talking about delegation and time:
Meisel: The thing is, [delegation] is like a muscle that you have to use. There should be a process for anything you do more than twice; if there's one, it can almost be automated. So that's the thing, you're not aware of what you could be taking advantage of by not having that be part of what you do or even by going through the process of automating it so you don't have to do it. BProtectyour time; it's the only thing we can't get more of.