Delegating in a start-up is like hiring a nanny
Being a founder is undeniably hard. Often you feel like you have got to have eyes in the back of your head, be in five different places at once, and always be thinking ten steps ahead, making brain-draining decisions constantly.
There are always things you want to do, tasks you wish you had time to complete, but there are always other parts of your venture that take priority and need attending to first. This style of working isn’t sustainable for you or for your venture. That’s why delegating authority, hiring executives and building a team can aid your productivity.
It's not just a feeling, its science.
Research shows that a high cognitive load (lots of thoughts whirring around your brain at one time) can lead to poorer decision making, more risk-averse choices and more impatience with money (Deck and Jahedi, 2015). These kinds of actions can be detrimental to the development of your company.
So the science is there, by stretching yourself out, being a one-man-band, single-soldier army, you may find your decision making decreases and you start making unwise decisions that could stunt the growth of your business. This is why delegating authority, bringing in a team to maintain the venture’s running can be essential for growth and success.
Being a parent and letting the nanny take over
It has become a common phrase for founders to describe their venture as their baby; something they grow and nurture from the outset, seeing it at its best and its worst, and always wanting the best for it.
Hiring a ‘nanny’ to help you care for your ‘child’ can allow you to place your attention and energy into the areas that need it best. But that’s easier said than done right? After all, your venture is your baby, you know how it likes to drink its milk, you know which blanket it likes to sleep with and you know what’s best for it. This is a cognitively and emotionally draining cycle to be living and working within.
Build a team you feel confident in, re-claim your time
As a founder, it can be tough to delegate authority, to let go, to allow the nanny to take over for the evening so you can go out and attend to what you need to. But when you do, you might come to realise the nanny might have some pretty good ideas too, that enhance your child’s growth and development. As well as the new-found time you now have can be spent expanding, growing, and exploring avenues to work on-the-business rather than in-the-business if that’s what your venture requires.
Jokes aside, it won’t always be easy and smooth sailing, and it requires a lot of personal strength and acceptance to let go. There’s a great deal of trust that goes into hiring a team and handing over elements over your business to someone.
When hiring and onboarding your nanny, it requires a conscious effort to really get to know the individual you are entrusting. During the hiring process, you’ll be exploring their strengths, their personality, their values and goals to ascertain whether they are the right fit, and crucially whether you can feel comfortable trusting them with your “baby”. During the first few weeks/months, you’ll be transferring knowledge, sharing skills, insider tips and tricks, nurturing your relationship and building trust.
Although it may feel time consuming (especially when you know the ins and outs so well you think you may as well do it yourself), dedicating the time and effort into selecting and building up the right team will pay its dividends 10 fold when you can spread out the workload, share the pressure and benefit from the value created by the team.
As Laura Shook Guzman put it in our recent support group on founder loneliness: “develop your leadership style to be able to trust and spread responsibilities. You want power within, not power over organisation. Activate the genius in all your team, the more people you bring in laterally, the more support you have”
We know it can be scary to think your venture can run without you, but ultimately it needs to be able to if you want it to thrive.
What next?
Here’s a few reflective questions to help you identify the areas in which a team may help your business to grow.
Are there tasks or expansion ideas you want to complete but never find time to?
Is there somebody that specialises or has trained in this area that could help you?
Could a second opinion, second pair of eyes, new perspective, allow you to break down a barrier you have been stuck behind?
What kind of individual do I see as part of the team? (personality, experience, working style)
How can I onboard this individual so I feel comfortable enough to delegate?
A thought to ponder on for yourself might look like… “do I desire business success or power?”, “do I want growth or do I crave control?”. The answers to these questions may highlight an internal conflict between ‘venture for success’ and ‘venture for self’.
I think it’s important to mention that whatever the answer, neither is right or wrong. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely game, and exploring it as a career path might be suited for you because you have an internal locus of control (feeling that outcomes are caused by your individual actions rather than external influences), and you enjoy the control, the power, and having something of your own that you yourself built and nurtured. There is nothing inherently wrong with this source of motivation and drive, and it is the truth for many.
If your goal is ‘venture for success’, if you want to see your child take its first steps, come into its own, develop in ways you didn’t think was possible, then sit, think and reflect… could hiring a nanny be the best thing for you and your child?
Written by: Dani Olliffe, Psychological Well-being Associate
Further reading and links:
Wasserman, N. (2008). The Founder’s Dilemma. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma.
James, R. (2016). What stops founders letting go?. INTRAC. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.intrac.org/stops-founders-letting-go/.
Letting Go: the Leader's Challenge. Change Factory. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.changefactory.com.au/our-thinking/articles/letting-go-leaders-challenge/.
Myers, C. (2016). Learning To Let Go: How I Evolved From Founder To CEO. Forbes. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrismyers/2016/04/14/learning-to-let-go-how-i-evolved-from-founder-to-ceo/?sh=1af1cfd5ba35.
Deck, C., & Jahedi, S. (2015). The effect of cognitive load on economic decision making: A survey and new experiments. European Economic Review, 78, 97-119.
Delegating in a start-up is like hiring a nanny
Being a founder is undeniably hard. Often you feel like you have got to have eyes in the back of your head, be in five different places at once, and always be thinking ten steps ahead, making brain-draining decisions constantly.
There are always things you want to do, tasks you wish you had time to complete, but there are always other parts of your venture that take priority and need attending to first. This style of working isn’t sustainable for you or for your venture. That’s why delegating authority, hiring executives and building a team can aid your productivity.
It's not just a feeling, its science.
Research shows that a high cognitive load (lots of thoughts whirring around your brain at one time) can lead to poorer decision making, more risk-averse choices and more impatience with money (Deck and Jahedi, 2015). These kinds of actions can be detrimental to the development of your company.
So the science is there, by stretching yourself out, being a one-man-band, single-soldier army, you may find your decision making decreases and you start making unwise decisions that could stunt the growth of your business. This is why delegating authority, bringing in a team to maintain the venture’s running can be essential for growth and success.
Being a parent and letting the nanny take over
It has become a common phrase for founders to describe their venture as their baby; something they grow and nurture from the outset, seeing it at its best and its worst, and always wanting the best for it.
Hiring a ‘nanny’ to help you care for your ‘child’ can allow you to place your attention and energy into the areas that need it best. But that’s easier said than done right? After all, your venture is your baby, you know how it likes to drink its milk, you know which blanket it likes to sleep with and you know what’s best for it. This is a cognitively and emotionally draining cycle to be living and working within.
Build a team you feel confident in, re-claim your time
As a founder, it can be tough to delegate authority, to let go, to allow the nanny to take over for the evening so you can go out and attend to what you need to. But when you do, you might come to realise the nanny might have some pretty good ideas too, that enhance your child’s growth and development. As well as the new-found time you now have can be spent expanding, growing, and exploring avenues to work on-the-business rather than in-the-business if that’s what your venture requires.
Jokes aside, it won’t always be easy and smooth sailing, and it requires a lot of personal strength and acceptance to let go. There’s a great deal of trust that goes into hiring a team and handing over elements over your business to someone.
When hiring and onboarding your nanny, it requires a conscious effort to really get to know the individual you are entrusting. During the hiring process, you’ll be exploring their strengths, their personality, their values and goals to ascertain whether they are the right fit, and crucially whether you can feel comfortable trusting them with your “baby”. During the first few weeks/months, you’ll be transferring knowledge, sharing skills, insider tips and tricks, nurturing your relationship and building trust.
Although it may feel time consuming (especially when you know the ins and outs so well you think you may as well do it yourself), dedicating the time and effort into selecting and building up the right team will pay its dividends 10 fold when you can spread out the workload, share the pressure and benefit from the value created by the team.
As Laura Shook Guzman put it in our recent support group on founder loneliness: “develop your leadership style to be able to trust and spread responsibilities. You want power within, not power over organisation. Activate the genius in all your team, the more people you bring in laterally, the more support you have”
We know it can be scary to think your venture can run without you, but ultimately it needs to be able to if you want it to thrive.
What next?
Here’s a few reflective questions to help you identify the areas in which a team may help your business to grow.
Are there tasks or expansion ideas you want to complete but never find time to?
Is there somebody that specialises or has trained in this area that could help you?
Could a second opinion, second pair of eyes, new perspective, allow you to break down a barrier you have been stuck behind?
What kind of individual do I see as part of the team? (personality, experience, working style)
How can I onboard this individual so I feel comfortable enough to delegate?
A thought to ponder on for yourself might look like… “do I desire business success or power?”, “do I want growth or do I crave control?”. The answers to these questions may highlight an internal conflict between ‘venture for success’ and ‘venture for self’.
I think it’s important to mention that whatever the answer, neither is right or wrong. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely game, and exploring it as a career path might be suited for you because you have an internal locus of control (feeling that outcomes are caused by your individual actions rather than external influences), and you enjoy the control, the power, and having something of your own that you yourself built and nurtured. There is nothing inherently wrong with this source of motivation and drive, and it is the truth for many.
If your goal is ‘venture for success’, if you want to see your child take its first steps, come into its own, develop in ways you didn’t think was possible, then sit, think and reflect… could hiring a nanny be the best thing for you and your child?
Written by: Dani Olliffe, Psychological Well-being Associate
Further reading and links:
Wasserman, N. (2008). The Founder’s Dilemma. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma.
James, R. (2016). What stops founders letting go?. INTRAC. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.intrac.org/stops-founders-letting-go/.
Letting Go: the Leader's Challenge. Change Factory. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.changefactory.com.au/our-thinking/articles/letting-go-leaders-challenge/.
Myers, C. (2016). Learning To Let Go: How I Evolved From Founder To CEO. Forbes. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrismyers/2016/04/14/learning-to-let-go-how-i-evolved-from-founder-to-ceo/?sh=1af1cfd5ba35.
Deck, C., & Jahedi, S. (2015). The effect of cognitive load on economic decision making: A survey and new experiments. European Economic Review, 78, 97-119.
Delegating in a start-up is like hiring a nanny
Being a founder is undeniably hard. Often you feel like you have got to have eyes in the back of your head, be in five different places at once, and always be thinking ten steps ahead, making brain-draining decisions constantly.
There are always things you want to do, tasks you wish you had time to complete, but there are always other parts of your venture that take priority and need attending to first. This style of working isn’t sustainable for you or for your venture. That’s why delegating authority, hiring executives and building a team can aid your productivity.
It's not just a feeling, its science.
Research shows that a high cognitive load (lots of thoughts whirring around your brain at one time) can lead to poorer decision making, more risk-averse choices and more impatience with money (Deck and Jahedi, 2015). These kinds of actions can be detrimental to the development of your company.
So the science is there, by stretching yourself out, being a one-man-band, single-soldier army, you may find your decision making decreases and you start making unwise decisions that could stunt the growth of your business. This is why delegating authority, bringing in a team to maintain the venture’s running can be essential for growth and success.
Being a parent and letting the nanny take over
It has become a common phrase for founders to describe their venture as their baby; something they grow and nurture from the outset, seeing it at its best and its worst, and always wanting the best for it.
Hiring a ‘nanny’ to help you care for your ‘child’ can allow you to place your attention and energy into the areas that need it best. But that’s easier said than done right? After all, your venture is your baby, you know how it likes to drink its milk, you know which blanket it likes to sleep with and you know what’s best for it. This is a cognitively and emotionally draining cycle to be living and working within.
Build a team you feel confident in, re-claim your time
As a founder, it can be tough to delegate authority, to let go, to allow the nanny to take over for the evening so you can go out and attend to what you need to. But when you do, you might come to realise the nanny might have some pretty good ideas too, that enhance your child’s growth and development. As well as the new-found time you now have can be spent expanding, growing, and exploring avenues to work on-the-business rather than in-the-business if that’s what your venture requires.
Jokes aside, it won’t always be easy and smooth sailing, and it requires a lot of personal strength and acceptance to let go. There’s a great deal of trust that goes into hiring a team and handing over elements over your business to someone.
When hiring and onboarding your nanny, it requires a conscious effort to really get to know the individual you are entrusting. During the hiring process, you’ll be exploring their strengths, their personality, their values and goals to ascertain whether they are the right fit, and crucially whether you can feel comfortable trusting them with your “baby”. During the first few weeks/months, you’ll be transferring knowledge, sharing skills, insider tips and tricks, nurturing your relationship and building trust.
Although it may feel time consuming (especially when you know the ins and outs so well you think you may as well do it yourself), dedicating the time and effort into selecting and building up the right team will pay its dividends 10 fold when you can spread out the workload, share the pressure and benefit from the value created by the team.
As Laura Shook Guzman put it in our recent support group on founder loneliness: “develop your leadership style to be able to trust and spread responsibilities. You want power within, not power over organisation. Activate the genius in all your team, the more people you bring in laterally, the more support you have”
We know it can be scary to think your venture can run without you, but ultimately it needs to be able to if you want it to thrive.
What next?
Here’s a few reflective questions to help you identify the areas in which a team may help your business to grow.
Are there tasks or expansion ideas you want to complete but never find time to?
Is there somebody that specialises or has trained in this area that could help you?
Could a second opinion, second pair of eyes, new perspective, allow you to break down a barrier you have been stuck behind?
What kind of individual do I see as part of the team? (personality, experience, working style)
How can I onboard this individual so I feel comfortable enough to delegate?
A thought to ponder on for yourself might look like… “do I desire business success or power?”, “do I want growth or do I crave control?”. The answers to these questions may highlight an internal conflict between ‘venture for success’ and ‘venture for self’.
I think it’s important to mention that whatever the answer, neither is right or wrong. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely game, and exploring it as a career path might be suited for you because you have an internal locus of control (feeling that outcomes are caused by your individual actions rather than external influences), and you enjoy the control, the power, and having something of your own that you yourself built and nurtured. There is nothing inherently wrong with this source of motivation and drive, and it is the truth for many.
If your goal is ‘venture for success’, if you want to see your child take its first steps, come into its own, develop in ways you didn’t think was possible, then sit, think and reflect… could hiring a nanny be the best thing for you and your child?
Written by: Dani Olliffe, Psychological Well-being Associate
Further reading and links:
Wasserman, N. (2008). The Founder’s Dilemma. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma.
James, R. (2016). What stops founders letting go?. INTRAC. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.intrac.org/stops-founders-letting-go/.
Letting Go: the Leader's Challenge. Change Factory. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.changefactory.com.au/our-thinking/articles/letting-go-leaders-challenge/.
Myers, C. (2016). Learning To Let Go: How I Evolved From Founder To CEO. Forbes. Retrieved 4 July 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrismyers/2016/04/14/learning-to-let-go-how-i-evolved-from-founder-to-ceo/?sh=1af1cfd5ba35.
Deck, C., & Jahedi, S. (2015). The effect of cognitive load on economic decision making: A survey and new experiments. European Economic Review, 78, 97-119.