How Come It Feels Like All I Do I Babysit Adults All Day?

In This Episode

Many business owners are frustrated by the sense that they spend most of their days babysitting adults. Mind you, these are adults they are paying to work at their company. As an owner you hire people to help you out, not to create more work and drama for you. So what’s a business owner to do?

We try to keep things real simple when coaching our business owner clients. We focus them on what their role should entail which can be summed up in three words: Plan Direct Control. Ask anyone you are managing, “What’s the Plan?” If you hear good stuff, great, then your job is to help Direct them through getting that Plan executed. You Control things by having regular meetings and reports.

The idea is to “trust but verify” what is being done, but it all starts with getting agreement on the Plan. Having people “Present” their plans as well as updates gives you great insights as the manager for how this person thinks, makes decisions, and processes information. The meetings you have as part of the Control should be focused on them Presenting, not you.

It’s also key to get clarity of who is responsible for what. Or making sure everyone knows who “the guy” is as Dan Gilbert says (owner of Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavaliers, among other things). You don’t have to put up with babysitting all day, but it’s up to you as the boss to make changes first.