Why Delegation Feels Like Losing Control — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Delegation is the price of scaling, loss
2. 0:02of control, right? And so I believe that
3. 0:04the the the spiritual path of
4. 0:06entrepreneurship is a consistent
5. 0:07relinquishing of control. And so we were
6. 0:10employees at some time, likely for many
7. 0:12people, and then you stop doing that,
8. 0:15and then you decide to start a business,
9. 0:16and you typically do that because you
10. 0:18want to quote have freedom. And so then
11. 0:20you say, I will have complete control,
12. 0:22but in order to have true freedom, you
13. 0:24actually can have no control. You have
14. 0:25to accept that's true freedom, right?
15. 0:27And so at every level, in the very
16. 0:29beginning you do everything, and then
17. 0:30you say, I'm going to have somebody help
18. 0:31me with this, so you give up a little
19. 0:32control. And then the next level is
20. 0:34like, okay, well, the doing I've out
21. 0:35I've I've delegated, but the management,
22. 0:37no one can manage like I can manage. And
23. 0:38then you give the management away, and
24. 0:39then you're like, okay, well, no one can
25. 0:40direct or lead like I can lead. Then
26. 0:42eventually give the leadership away, and
27. 0:43then there's like, well, no one can
28. 0:44think of the vision of the future like I
29. 0:45can. And then eventually, maybe there is
30. 0:47somebody, Steve Jobs wasn't able to be
31. 0:48replaced, but many of us aren't Steve
32. 0:50Jobs and are replaceable. And so
33. 0:52delegation is the price of scaling,
34. 0:55losing that control. And so hard-working
35. 0:57people, and this is what's really
36. 0:58interesting about this, hard-working
37. 1:00people have a hard time coming up with
38. 1:02non-hard-working solutions. And so this
39. 1:04has been particularly difficult for me
40. 1:05because like I I will look at problems
41. 1:07and say, oh, I wonder if I can outwork
42. 1:09this problem. When Bill Gates talked
43. 1:11about this saying, it's really good to
44. 1:13have lazy executives because they will
45. 1:15try and think of non-high-energy ways to
46. 1:17solve problems. And so the hard worker
47. 1:21won't feel like delegating because they
48. 1:23want to feel useful.
49. 1:25And it's incredibly difficult, but if
50. 1:27you draw the line, you have to say that
51. 1:29you will not do anything in order for it
52. 1:31to scale. Because otherwise, you will
53. 1:33absolutely be the limiter of your own
54. 1:35growth. And I don't think we are as
55. 1:37special as we think we are. And so you
56. 1:39might kind of just have to give up some
57. 1:41profit in the short term, but you'll
58. 1:44make more in the long term. And so this
59. 1:46has been kind of like a a thingy process
60. 1:48for me, which is at this point the razor
61. 1:50I have is if it requires me, it doesn't
62. 1:52work. That's how I think about it now.
63. 1:54And so I use the term internally for my
64. 1:56head, and Leila and I talked about this
65. 1:57with it zero. Like, we have to scale me
66. 2:00down to zero so we can scale it up to
67. 2:02infinity. Otherwise, I will always be
68. 2:04the limiter. And so, this is kind of
69. 2:06just like a
70. 2:08a great reminder or reminder or artifact
71. 2:10that I've gotten from the year is scale
72. 2:11zero. And I've been reminded this at at
73. 2:14at this level now is that nothing can
74. 2:16rely on me because the business is just
75. 2:17too big. The other little little tidbit
76. 2:20I'll I'll add in there as well is if
77. 2:21you're at equilibrium within your
78. 2:22business,
79. 2:23that means that like your supply and
80. 2:25your demand are fixed. Like, I can't I
81. 2:26can't take on more customers because my
82. 2:28supplies are like I my team can't handle
83. 2:30it, but I also don't have more demand.
84. 2:32Right? So, it's like what do you do when
85. 2:33you're at equilibrium? When I was in my
86. 2:35earlier part of my career, I would have
87. 2:36said increase demand and then force the
88. 2:38team to, you know, pull from the cracks.
89. 2:41And then with the extra extra cash flow,
90. 2:43you'll be able to afford, you know, the
91. 2:45the next person you need to hire. That
92. 2:47was what I would have said probably the
93. 2:48first 10 years of my career, 12 years of
94. 2:49my career.
95. 2:50And I would say that I have flipped that
96. 2:52thinking probably this year, which is
97. 2:54that I would say increase supply. And
98. 2:56I'll explain why. When you're at
99. 2:57equilibrium, whatever your next step is,
100. 2:58you're going to have to bear a cost.
101. 3:00And the cost will either be your
102. 3:02reputation or your profit. And so, if I
103. 3:04increase demand, the cost of that
104. 3:06increase will be my reputation because
105. 3:07my team will probably not be able to
106. 3:08deliver at the same quality they
107. 3:10otherwise would have because they are
108. 3:11overextended. If I increase supply
109. 3:13first, then the bandwidth of my team
110. 3:15will improve, and
111. 3:17in the short term, they will have to
112. 3:19train this new person up, which will be
113. 3:20a cost in the business. So, I'm going to
114. 3:22almost have a double cost. I have to
115. 3:24train this person up and I have to bear
116. 3:25the cost of the person to begin as well.
117. 3:27But, once that's done, I will have
118. 3:30dramatically increased the capacity of
119. 3:31the business, which will then give
120. 3:33bandwidth back, which will then allow us
121. 3:35to push to fill up the demand side. And
122. 3:37so, the reason that we were even able to
123. 3:39do the book launch this year, we
124. 3:41actually originally were going to do it
125. 3:42in February, couldn't do it cuz we
126. 3:43didn't have the bandwidth, and then
127. 3:44we're able to do it in August because 90
128. 3:46days prior, we hired four directors and
129. 3:49leaders in the business, which expanded
130. 3:51the capacity of the business that we
131. 3:52could do the launch.
132. 3:53So, that was the That was just some of
133. 3:55the lessons of this year from that. I
134. 3:57can't give you every single SOP, that
135. 3:58would be ridiculous. It would be like
136. 3:59this long. But, these are the top five
137. 4:01SOPs that we have used to scale, that
138. 4:03Leila [music] actually put together for
139. 4:05us, cuz she's really been the one who
140. 4:06operates the business. And so, yeah, I
141. 4:07don't know what's inside of it, but um
142. 4:09>> [music]
143. 4:09>> it's good So, we should check it out,
144. 4:11cuz Leila made it, and she makes good
145. 4:12stuff. It's free.