You gotta let go, to Grow.
Back in the 2000s, my brother and I were repping dozens of American suppliers in Canada. After working with so many different owners, we started to notice that they fell into two categories. Some were like us, in that they came from larger organizations and were trying to build a great company, with some structure and ability to scale. But there were more than a few who ran flat organizations and had an intense need to make every single decision. It became a running joke between us that they had an “Eight Million Dollar Problem.” Our observation was that anyone can make all the decisions in a company while growing it to $8 million (of course, we meant $USD, and now with inflation, it’s 12!). But then, they plateau. Not because of the economy, the product, or the competition, but because the owner has hit capacity.The Control Trap
These were sharp, hard-working people who had built their businesses from scratch, and along the way they insisted on having the final say on everything from product design, to hiring, to pricing, to purchase orders, to office decor, to choice of cleaning contractors, to bathroom tissue (1 ply vs 2 only. Three? Fuhgeddaboudit!). It wasn’t about ego, at least not in an obvious way. From their perspective, it was usually about quality control and making sure things didn’t go sideways. But the end result is that the owner became the bottleneck. There are only so many decisions one person can make in a day. So when everything has to go through you, your company can only grow as fast as you can think. That’s the ceiling.What It Takes to Break Through
Getting past that ceiling means moving from owner-led to systems-led. And that means letting go. Not of control, exactly, but of how that control is exercised. Instead of making every decision, you design the systems that guide those decisions. You create clarity around roles, accountability, and expectations. You invest in people and trust them to handle more. Part of the process means that you will have to accept that others will make decisions that differ from the ones you would have made, and that it is perfectly okay. There is always more than one way to do things, and most decisions are not mission-critical.
Not every decision has to be optimized. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
If you’re constantly “improving” on the decisions made by those you’re supposed to trust, they will not feel the necessary responsibility and autonomy to fully buy in.
Not every decision has to be fully optimized.
Learn to “satisfice”.
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