Becoming expendable

When you are an entrepreneur (rather than a freelancer), your main job is to work on your company (rather than in your company). So, if the going concern of your company depends on you to execute, you’re not acting as the entrepreneur, but as an employee of your own company. The company suffers since you are the only one who can work on the company. And the work suffers since there are likely more qualified people out there to do the work.

When Derek Sivers ran CDbaby (on Farnam Street, 18:42), there came a moment he broke. He hadn’t instructed his employees sufficiently to become self-directed in executing the work. That meant that he was constantly being interrupted with questions and couldn’t spend any time on creative and new opportunities for the company.

There wasn’t any free time. Explaining took more time than answering or doing it. But he decided that not changing the situation was worse. So, every time when he got asked a question, he would gather everyone (8 employees) and give his answer and explain the goal and reasoning behind it. A painful investment of time now that frees up many small moments in the future. It took a long time where he was extra busy. But the result was that he was completely expendable in the operations of the business. And that freed him up to do more important work that he enjoyed doing.

Besides doing the work of teaching your employees how to do the work, your business model and pricing strategy need to account for the paid work you need to hire. If you have to perform the work because you can’t financially hire someone to do the work, you haven’t priced your products correctly.

Jip (of Commoneasy) realized on a 2nd level that he didn’t have to do all the work. In order to reach his mission, it doesn’t even have to be his company who does the work. Who else is already active in the field and can we involve as a partner?

Listen to my interview with Jip de Ridder on the Podcast De Gebakken Peren here. Hear his thinking on delegating; his worldview on humanity and what services need to be for real people; and on how the growth of Commoneasy was intimately linked to his personal growth.

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Originally published at https://www.studiogeorge.nl on September 18, 2020.