Today I’d like to share an idea that’s been buzzing round in my head for a while now. I’ve written on related topics in other articles which I’ll reference later, but perhaps worth reading this through first.

The reason I haven’t put digits to keyboard (do we miss the days when we said ‘putting pen to paper’?) before now is because it can seem quite a niche area. Although I’ve found the principle to be true at many levels and stages of business, this initially really only relates to the micro/small business owner or founder as they grow through a team of 5, 10 and towards 20+. 

What’s the problem?
If you’re like me, your garden may have all sorts of things dotted around it. if you have a younger family, perhaps children’s toys left on the lawn. You know from experience that if you leave those things on the lawn long enough, the grass starts to grow around them and the grass will die back underneath the thing unless you keep moving it, like my bird feeder! The principle is the same in organisations and businesses. If the owner, founder or leader stands still long enough, the business will eventually organise itself around them. If you sit in one seat or in one role long enough, your team and your people will eventually organise around you without any effort.

You may be thinking, well what’s the problem with that, and it’s not a problem yet if all you want is a small team and a lifestyle business, hence my initial thought about this concept being a niche problem. If you want to build a scalable business, at some point it has to run without you – how do you do that?

I’ll drop a couple of further reading links here before we get stuck in:
How to achieve the owners second goal
Delegation as a leadership strategy
The secret to cultural success in business

There’s a concept called ‘the cult of leadership’ where the founder or leader is visionary, charismatic or compelling enough to attract people, both team and customers. I think that’s a little unfair as I don’t believe it’s a conscious decision to inspire other to follow, it’s just something that happens in the life of entrepreneurship. Never-the-less, small micro businesses, typically under 6 people often gain a very loyal following, not just of customers but of fans and team members too, simply because the founder has created a compelling reason to be followed. I see this happening a lot, particularly in service-based businesses as they try to grow and scale beyond micro and into small business territory (10+). I know when I first started my business journey, people joined the team and we gained customers without really trying too hard. Why? Perhaps because they agreed with and believed in what we were doing, perhaps it was because they wanted to follow the vision I had. Whatever the reason, what we ended up with was a mid-sized micro business where we just fell into our roles and activities to do and run the business.

The problem gets worse when we get comfortable in our role, as I did. The grass started to grow around me, and my business began to organise itself around me. I didn’t know it then of course, but it’s easy to see now looking back, and especially because I see it in other organisations nearly every day.

It gets worse because as I got more and more comfortable in my role and with my tasks and activities, everyone else began to assume that’s what I did and that’s what I would always do. There begins the slippery slope. Because everyone assumed I did what I did and they did what they did, there was no innovation, no challenge of the status quo, and ultimately no growth. Yes, the business got bigger, but that’s not the same as growth.

If you always do what you’ve always done… we all know the quote, the truth in it is that you can never build a scalable organisation, and definitely not a sellable organisation if you continue to stand in the same place and get comfortable letting your organisation form around you. 

My point is, if you do anything long enough in an organisation after a while nobody else is going to think about it. Nobody else is going to worry about it and nobody else is going to feel the desire to innovate and contribute beyond the mundane. If your aim is to build a strong, scalable and sellable organisation, then the weak point becomes the integrity of the organisation (not the individual). Again, the principle is if you stand in one place long enough, the organisation will eventually organise around you.

Now imagine you’re standing in the wrong place. Does that mean that the organisation that forms around you is in the wrong place too? Logically yes it does!

What do I mean by saying you’re standing in the wrong place?
Let’s start by saying that you can’t build a culture of innovation and growth if you’re doing all the work. That’s often the case as sole-traders begin to grow their team. I’ve found that there’s a shift point around 6 people when the owner/founder has to move. Move by getting others to do what they are best at and what the owner/founder may only be good at.

As your organisation begins to grow, you hire people to do certain tasks and fulfil certain roles, and you just expect them to do that. If they do it well, great. If they don’t, you find somebody who will. Come back to this link later on: How to get recruitment right

As you hire new people, you hire them for a very narrow segment of their knowledge or expertise. Because nearly every business starts this way, those you hire get comfortable in the job and nobody feels the need to learn what others know because you’ve hired them for their role not someone else’s – and the grass begins to grow…

Because there’s no shared knowledge and learning, you are actually creating a weakness rather than a strength. I remember in my early years how challenging as a business owner it was to manage staff holidays and longer term absence through sickness when the person away was the only person who could do that job. How much more time and energy it took for others to fulfil the role and complete the tasks when they didn’t really know how.

When somebody is responsible for the same things year after year, there comes a point when no one else worries about any of the things they worry about. The organisation becomes very personality dependent, not because you need to have that personality, but because that person fills that slot to the point where nobody else even thinks about it anymore. 

The other thing that happens is productivity becomes capped. As mentioned, not only might you be standing still for too long, but you may also be standing still in the wrong place for too long. The organisation is still going to organise itself around you, but if you’re not the best person to be standing in that place, then that becomes a cap to productivity. Let’s go further – if you’re standing in the wrong place, then not only might the organisation form in the wrong place, but the wrong people may be standing still in the wrong place for too long too. 

You may think I’m stretching the analogy but consider this. I started by building a team by accident. I need capacity so I hired. I needed a skill or expertise, so I hired. Note, this is after I realised I couldn’t do it all myself. When I needed capacity in a particular area, I hired for that team – On an on… The business was doing well, everyone seemed happy in their work and sales were increasing, but… Because everyone was comfortable in their role, including me, we just got on with the work, nothing changed, nothing grew, there’s was no cross-pollination of knowledge and no genuine innovation. 

The business got bigger, but it didn’t get better. Finally I realised that if I was going to build a business that could grow beyond small to mid-sized micro business (above 6 people), I must create a culture of innovation, shared knowledge and leadership across every person in the team, not just me. That’s a very hard thing to do if no-one has shown you how, or you’ve never done it yourself. Because I did this, like many others are doing every day, it’s easy for me to see it in other organisations and businesses, and because I now know how, it’s simple for me to share some ideas here to help you breakthrough too, especially if what I’ve already shared is ringing bells in your head!

How can I share responsibility?
How can I share knowledge?
How can I share decision making?
How can I involve people in what I’m doing?

Most organisations or businesses don’t begin by organising themselves around a role or a job description, but by organising around an individual. Anytime an organisation depends on a specific individual, that can become a weakness and a cap to productivity. Some people like the feeling of being indispensable, and we couldn’t do this without them. But in terms of organisational health, that is always a weakness that can make the organisation vulnerable.

Why so many get stuck.
If you’re going to build a business that grows and scales beyond the individual, you or any other person in the organisation, can’t stand still for too long. If you or they do, that becomes a weak point. Perhaps that person is doing such a great job, they’re perceived as being irreplaceable. If something were to happen to that person, where would the organisation be. What you may see as a strength is actually a weakness because no one else can do it. 

When I started to think about selling my first business it was hard. Why? Because the organisation had formed around me, and I was a critical weak point. What’s left when I leave? I’ve found this to be true time and time again at this niche sized micro business stage. The better a person can do their job and the more indispensable they become, the weaker the organisation is. 

Solving this to a point where an investor or buyer can see that the value is in the organisation not the individual requires a significant shift in thinking. It’s this blockage in thinking that prevents so many from scaling their business, and why so many more simply deny themselves the opportunity because they don’t know how.

Here’s 3 points to consider: Talent, Longevity and Leadership Habits

Talent – if you have a super talented person that no one feels like they can compete with, they won’t compete. They’re the go to person in terms of knowledge, skill, performance, presentation, whatever it might be. We all want to hire talented people, but wherever a super talented person lands, just know that the organisation is going to begin to organise around them.

Longevity – the longer someone sits in a particular seat or is wholly responsible for particular tasks, the less likely it is that anyone else is going to feel the responsibility or the pressure that the person sitting in that seat feels. Because no one else feels that pressure, no one else feels that responsibility in your organisation and no one else feels the desire to contribute or innovate.

Leadership Habits – create a pace and rhythm in leadership that through practice, become habit. Leadership habits are not just nice to do things, they are essential if you are going to grow your organisation beyond the micro and into small business. The forward motion of leadership creates a following of people that are doing the things the leader doesn’t want to do, and the things the leaders are not good at, at the same time as keeping the things the leader doesn’t want to let go of. Your job is not to keep tasks and activities, but to keep leadership and vision. This way you are always moving, others in your team are moving, and no one is standing still long enough to let the grass grow around them. 

What can you do about it.
Start thinking about how you would go about replacing yourself.
If something were to happen to you, where would the hole in the organisation be. 
I’m not saying stop doing what you’re good at, but just make sure that you’re not the only one that knows how to do what you’re good at. Make sure your leadership habits are creating inclusive decision making opportunities and shared responsibility and make sure other people know what others know by sharing learning, skills and knowledge.

This means that your strengths make the organisation stronger and not accidentally weaker. Again, whenever you stand still for too long, the organisation will begin to organise itself around you without any effort. It’s far easier to avoid this productivity cap than try to dig yourself out of it later.

Hope this is helpful – and do get in touch if you would like to talk about a breakthrough in your thinking.


Work with me:
I help owners, founders and leaders create a scalable business that works without them, build a world-class team, and 10x profitability. Book a call with me here to see if we could work together.

Remember, there are only three types of people – those who make things happen, those who wait for things to happen, and those who talk about why things don’t happen for them. Which one are you?