Two leaders discuss why outsourcing fails when you don't understand the problem first. They share experiences from their own management struggles and explain why owning and learning the core issues matters before handing work off.
Don't outsource your problems. I used to kind of probably have like a, I guess I would say a confidence issue around, oh, I really don't know how to do X, Y, Z. So like I'm going to find someone and hire them to do it. And a lot of founders I think try to just like pay to make that pain go away. And that, that I think just drives you to your problems. In a Ferrari, like you're basically just burn a bunch of cash and you have to really learn that problem yourself. Then you're going to have the expertise to like, know who's really good and credible to be able to solve that problem. And turns out like, you might actually end up being like the expert on that problem yourself. And so that's something I'm always like reminding my team, reminding myself to do.
That's interesting. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about that. Outsourcing your problems. When I was replaced as the COO for 1-800-got junk, they brought in the former president of Starbucks USA to bring my replacement. And she was definitely outsourcing the problem. She wouldn't listen to the franchisees, she wouldn't listen to the front line. It was always hire these big corporate consultants to come in and I think she just wasn't even close enough to the core of the business to really even get it, which kind of makes sense.
