Are you in control – to your own detriment?
I met the owner of a small printing shop yesterday and we started talking about time off. He told me that he hasn’t taken a vacation, a real vacation of a week or longer without the blackberry or email, since he became a business owner. When I asked him why, he just laughed and reminded me that he owns a small business. He was needed at the shop to keep the business running.
Sound familiar? Being in control of your own destiny is right at the top of the list of reasons people get into business for themselves. They want to make their own schedule, have flexibility, work less. Yet, except for a small minority of business owners, what they end up with is just the opposite. They are the first one at work in the morning, the last one to leave at the end of the day, and the only one who can’t call in sick. All of the employees want, and take, vacations while the owner keeps the business afloat.
What’s going on? You’re the boss but the business is controlling you, not the other way around. In my experience, there are two causes here. First, the business owner has far more at risk than do the employees. After all, its your name on the door and if the business fails, the employees go off and find another job. The owner has to deal with the “funeral” and the grieving process goes on for years. On the other hand, success depends on the owner, alone. The employees aren’t going to make the business lucrative; they’re just employees. And I don’t have enough money to hire top-notch employees, so mine are only interested in themselves and their paycheck.
Or are they? That brings us to the second thing causing the business to control the owner, rather than the other way around. Everyone wants to feel that their contribution is important. They want to live up to an expectation you have of them. They want to grow in their career. Your employees are no different. They want to be trusted and they want to succeed. It’s the owner who is too afraid to give them a chance, to trust to her employees the important decisions. She is creating frustrated employees who underperform.
You’ve heard this many times. Hire the best. Pay a little extra for good people who can contribute. They will make you more money than they cost. Yet the small business owner continues to hire less than qualified employees, then won’t (or can’t) invest in training. The owner is left to complain about being unable to trust her business to her employees.
Control is a double-edged sword. It’s nice to have, lends a feeling of power, and fools us into believing that we are self-directed. The real power comes when you give up control. Empower your staff to make decisions and to take control. They will make mistakes. So will you. Give them permission to make mistakes and to learn from them.
When you’ve established a strong organizational set of values and a compelling vision, employees will, more often than not, make the decisions you’d expect. When you hold them accountable for well-understood performance standards, they’ll work to meet those standards. Employees might fall short once in a while but they will learn and do better the next time. You will be amazed at how much more “in control of your destiny” you’ll be when you shed some of the control you retain.
And you can take that vacation, without the blackberry, without the cell phone, without worry. Good luck and good business.
