A business owner realized his constant availability and need to approve everything was killing his marriage and holding back his team. His experienced staff could handle most decisions, but they kept asking him anyway because he'd trained them to. Letting go meant trusting people who were already capable.
Chapters
The first few years of running the business, I remember, you know, it caused practically domestics with me and my wife because we'd be away on holiday and, you know, she would be sat there saying to me, I don't know what the fucking point is in you even coming away. And she was right, you know, she actually had a point because I would be— the phone would be just going constantly. It was emails, it was calls, it was— and actually it's not until you sit there and you think, hang on a minute, why, why am I getting all of this? It's for, you know, now and again, obviously there's an issue that, you know, as a business owner, you do need to be involved in, or a decision that perhaps, you know, you do need to give some input into. But for the most part, I was looking at all of these queries and I thought, well, hang on a minute, this is stuff that I don't need to be involved in this. You know, we've got this new client on, great news, but actually they want this fee or they want these extended terms or, you know, they're asking if we can do X or Y or Z. And I'm thinking, you know, look, I've got people in that business with the level of experience that they don't need to be asking me about this stuff. And you mentioned self-reflection, so I think, why do they feel like they need to? Why, why are they checking this stuff with me? And is it because of the fact that I'm kind of sort of displaying elements of that control freak behavior that I mentioned earlier on?
