As those of you who have been watching this space the last several weeks know, I have been on the road a lot lately for Grow Group events and consulting—from Whistler and Vail to Kalamazoo, Orlando, New Orleans, and parts in between. I am often asked how I can keep this schedule up and run Grunder Landscaping Co. at the same time, and my answer is always the same: Because I have a great leadership team in place at GLC.

But it wasn’t always this way.

First I had to overcome the tendency to micromanage that I had when I first started out, and realize that I didn’t have to be involved in every GLC decision, interview, purchase, or communication. In fact, it’s better if I’m not—this empowers team members to exercise autonomy in their areas of expertise and removes me as a bottleneck. Issues that could take weeks to get resolved in the past can now get addressed immediately.

The other major step I had to take was to find, hire, and train the right people for my leadership team. This is a process filled with trial, error, and frequent frustration—sometimes you lose out on a candidate you really want, other times a promising hire turns out not to be a good fit—but it’s crucial to have the right people in place if you want to lessen reliance on the owner. 

And you should want to lessen reliance on the owner—in addition to reducing your own stress, it’s how you create lasting worth in a company. It provides opportunities for your team members, and shows young people that they can have a future with you. It also puts you on the path for an eventual succession plan and makes your company much more valuable should you ever want to sell it.

But it all starts and ends with your people. I couldn’t succeed without mine.

Have a great week!

P.S. If you want help building and training your own A team, join us at our GROW! 2019 Annual Conference in Denver this February. With sessions focused on the real-world challenges owners, their right-hand men and women, and office managers face, it’s a great opportunity to reward and develop your team. And if you sign up now you can take the tax write-off in 2018.