One of the truly lamentable mistakes that a founders often make is to share the responsibility, but none of the risk. By not sharing the risk, they shoulder the burden of failure but none of the means to control the outcome. The common refrain at this stage is “I keep micromanaging and I don’t know why.”
“I sat in every interview for the first 250 employees.”, said the CEO of a very well known European success story. It’s a lesson you ignore at your peril.
One of the core topics that comes up for every founder is the nature of delegation. How to delegate. When to delegate. Who to delegate to. The question is complex because it concerns and grows from a range of psychology that uniquely affects founders of growing businesses. This article is concerned with shining a spotlight on it so that you can be better aware of the issue, not just so that you can solve it, but also so that you can play with it.
However, dig deeper into Wapnick's statement and you unearth an unvarnished truth that's vital for any founder: the value of seemingly tangential pursuits.
“...when people are given what appear to be multiple paths to success, they will try to retain all the paths as options, even though selecting one specific path would have guaranteed them the most success.”
Whims of founders and the impact of their apparent urgency is a phenomenon that is often complained about and yet one that remains unresolved even as organisations become much larger. It’s a problem because the singular influence of a founder can impact the direction an organisation takes almost seemingly at will. And it’s often a ‘power’ founders don’t even know they’re wielding.