Entrepreneurs, Listen to Lao Tzu

Experienced entrepreneurs know full well that the secret of a successful start-up lies in its implacable capability to execute, according to a short and tight list of priorities. After all, it's their relentless focus that allows new entrepreneurs to compete with vastly larger market incumbents. Let's consider the case of MaritimeX (fictive name for a veritable shipping company). Built from scratch by two Greek childhood friends, Aris and Stavros, MaritimeX had grown from an office staffed by two people to a sizable company with 25 employees. There was only one problem: after sales had reached $9 million three years earlier, they had plateaued. Although they overworked themselves to exhaustion, the two founders were unable to go beyond the ten-million-dollar mark. A quick glance at MaritimeX's workflow would have revealed where the problem was. Each individual customer order had to be assessed by one of the two founders first. Since it would take at least one week or two before Aris or Stavros could complete their evaluation, often potential customers gave up before somebody at MaritimeX seized the chance. Although they devoted themselves full-time to evaluate contracts, they could only manage a few at a time. So founders unintentionally ignored whole markets, letting the possibility of offering lucrative special transport services slip by. Aris and Stavros had become the bottlenecks of their own company! Entrepreneurs are obstacles to their own success, when their drive for perfection becomes enemy of the good, i.e. implementing the necessary steps for growth. When people asked them why they wanted to evaluate every single activity in person, the owners of MaritimeX answered that the task was incredibly complex and that it required a sophisticated understanding of costs and a lawyer's knowledge of international law. The two founders were quicker and faster in identifying the better business propositions. How could they stand aside and let sloppy evaluations prevail? Aris and Stavros had to take important decisions from a financial and personal point of view. Did they want to grow, and risk jeopardizing the quality of service and relations so jealously held? Or did they prefer to stay small but successful, while impressing their customers with their personal touch? What was more important for them: growth or control? Actually, one thing does not necessarily exclude the other. A look at the more common excuses for micromanaging one's own company reveals the mistaken thinking that holds back many successful entrepreneurs: "As final decision-maker, I must do everything, because I've got to know everything". Entrepreneurs should not refrain from getting their hands dirty, but decisions and information gathering should be delegated every single time it's possible, so that the entrepreneur can devote himself/herself to activities nobody else can do in his/her place, such as imagining new business scenarios. "Delegating to people less competent than me leads to inferior results". Every founder hates seeing their collaborators making "avoidable" errors, but good entrepreneurs know that the best is enemy of the good, and in many cases of growth. Knowing your employees' shortcomings is no excuse to do everything personally. Successful entrepreneurs know that the best was to employ their time is to prepare their employees to face difficulties and help them learn from mistakes. Many new entrepreneurs assert: "The time spent training your collaborators is time wasted (and cannot be invoiced)". Lao Tzu instead said: ""Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime"". Letting one person taking all decisions is source of delays and ultimately unsustainable. In a survey we have conducted with Harvard Business Review (https://bottlenecksurvey.chefsnotbakers.com), an astonishing 41% of respondents revealed that their business would "collapse", or at best "slowly decay" without them! Even if you're the best at what you do, it does not mean you should do everything. An entrepreneur who fails to refashion his/her style of management from "executor" to "educator" will never tap into available resources to seek new business opportunities.