How to Move From Doing Everything to Leading the Business

Research & Sources / Entrepreneur Growth

A good juggler can keep three balls in the air, then four, then five. It looks impressive. Then someone throws in a sixth, a seventh, an eighth. At some point, every juggler drops balls. Not because they got worse, but because two hands can only hold so much. Many entrepreneurs are jugglers who keep accepting more balls.

Doing everything works, until it doesn’t

In the early days, doing everything yourself is often the only way. You sell, deliver, invoice, hire, fix the website and answer support emails. That hands-on approach is often why the business survived at all.

But a business that depends on one person doing everything can only grow as far as that person’s two hands reach. And as the balls multiply, quality drops, decisions slow down and the entrepreneur gets more and more tired.

What research tells us

Noam Wasserman studied 212 start-ups for Harvard Business Review. He found that most founders eventually give up the CEO role, about half within three years, often because the company has outgrown the founder’s way of working. He describes a trade-off between keeping control and building value.¹

Michael Gerber made a similar point in The E-Myth Revisited: many small businesses stall because the owner keeps working in the business instead of on it.²

Leading means different work

Leading the business is not doing everything better. It is doing different things:

• Setting direction: where are we going, and what will we not do?
• Building the team: hiring, developing and trusting the right people.
• Designing how work gets done: processes, rules, rhythms.
• Making the key decisions and owning them.
• Protecting culture: how people treat clients and each other.

Moving step by step

1. Track one week. Write down everything you do. Mark what only you can do, and what others could do.

2. Hand over one area completely. Not just tasks, but the responsibility and the right to decide. Start with something important but not critical.

3. Write it down first. Before handing over, spend an hour describing how it works and what good looks like. Even simple checklists make a big difference, as a study of surgical checklists in hospitals showed.³

4. Accept a learning curve. The first months will be bumpy. That is the price of freeing your hands.

5. Use the freed time for leading, not for picking up more balls.

What this means for you this week

• Track your week in half-hour blocks.
• Circle three activities someone else could own.
• Choose one and write a one-page handover.
• Book two hours next week for work on the business, not in it.

Juggling is a great skill. Leading is knowing which balls to hand to someone else.

Sources

1. Wasserman, N. (2008). The Founder’s Dilemma. Harvard Business Review, February 2008. hbr.orgStudy of 212 start-ups: most founders give up the CEO role, about half within three years, and face a trade-off between control and value.
2. Gerber, M. E. The E-Myth Revisited. HarperCollins. harpercollins.comWhy many small businesses stall when the owner keeps working in the business instead of on it.
3. Haynes, A. B. et al. (2009). A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(5), 491-499. doi.orgA simple 19-item checklist reduced complications and deaths after surgery in eight hospitals worldwide.