Doing Everything Yourself Is A Problem You Created
This is a common situation, not limited to startups but seen in many small and medium-sized companies.
The executive handles nearly all the work, while staff perform only a limited set of assigned supporting tasks and never step outside that scope. Commitment to the business is low, nobody raises issues or examines problems, and all discretion inevitably concentrates in the executive’s hands.
To put it bluntly, this situation is usually self-inflicted. From the earliest days of founding the company through to the present, choices get stacked one after another that lead things to become this way.
Was there someone at founding who shared the same goal with you? If there was, and if that person joined the company, did you treat that person with care afterward? Someone who shares your motivation from the earliest stage can, if things go well, become an eternal comrade who holds the same dream until the business itself ends. Has there ever been a point where you yourself kicked away the ladder to that possibility?
One maxim often used in hiring is “hire people better than your existing members.” This is partly about securing continuous growth, but it can also be rephrased as “don’t just hire people you can conveniently use.” Purely from my own experience, I think every company, as it grows, naturally tends to hire more “mild, moderately competent people”: people who aren’t particularly sharp but will dutifully carry out their assigned work without issue. This produces no transformation and cannot remove a critical bottleneck. That bottleneck is “the executive’s own capability.” Once the limits of the executive’s capability become the limits of the company, the company’s future from that point on is already foreseeable. If anything, the executive must always be hiring people so that “there will be nothing left for me to think about.” Don’t worry. Even if you hire with that intention, things for you to think about will keep coming one after another regardless.
As I’ve mentioned in other sections, someone at the top is always exposed to everyone’s gaze. Members naturally watch how you act and what you say. That attention may be pressure, but it is also a prime opportunity. It is a chance for enlightenment. If you keep information closed, members gain no learning. Without learning, there is no growth, and no self-initiated action occurs. Before assuming “it won’t get through anyway,” make the effort to communicate.
For example, even half of the management challenges or worries you’re carrying about the coming term might not get through to your members. Even so, understanding gradually deepens through continuous communication. At the very least, they’ll start to notice things like “this topic comes up every year” or “we talked about that last year but not this year.” The broad, hazy outline of the business situation and the reasoning behind decisions does get through. And as that understanding spreads, awareness of the issues gradually rises, which can lead to discussion, proposals, and action. Not every member will make that transition so readily, but you can at least feel the company changing.
Analyzing the cause leads directly to the solution. Using the above as a reference, think through a solution suited to your own situation.
The content of this post is an excerpt (original text) from the following book. If you’re interested, please consider getting the book.
The Shape of a Happy IoT Startup
The Shape of a Happy IoT Startup
Originally published in Japanese at https://clazytech.com/2022/09/1183/. Translated with LLM assistance and reviewed before publication.