Aye Aye Skipper...

Let’s pretend you own a massive 80ft yacht, one of those amazing ones where it’s basically a luxury palace floating on the water. Now it’s perfectly possible to captain/skipper (I get sea sick so I’m useless at nautical metaphors) a vessel of that size yourself, but it does take an amount of qualifications, experience and local knowledge (when I say local knowledge I mean, like, knowing there’s a shallow bit 500m off the coast of where ever). So yes, it’s possible to gain that knowledge but if you’re say, entertaining a group of friends, it’s going to be hard to serve drinks, be convivial host and so on, whilst avoiding the above shallows and pointing your yacht in the right direction.

It doesn’t mean it’s not possible, but let’s be honest it sounds like flipping hard work.

Now imagine that yacht is your business. As a business grows, running it is like having that giant vessel at your command - you know you can sail it on short trips or in familiar waters, but should you really do it, especially on longer journeys or when in uncharted or challenging seas.

The answer is quite simply, no. There are people out there who are highly experienced and know where all the shallow (and presumably deep bits) are... by the same token, there are people out there who can help with different aspects of your business and when it gets to the point where you can’t do it all that’s what you need to consider.

Now, back to the boat. Let’s say you find the most amazing skipper in the world, he knows his stuff (or she, I’m not sexist about who takes charge of my boat) would you:

1) let them get on with plotting and sailing you from a to b and trust they know what they’re doing (providing you’ve told them about where b is)?

Or would you

2) stand behind them checking they’re doing it right and the way you’d do it?

I’m hoping you were horrified at 2 and opted for 1, but just in case let me reiterate that delegation (hiring your skipper) cannot be successful unless you ditch micro management and let people succeed (leaving your skipper to do their job).

So that’s my thought for today - successful delegation and micro-management are mutually exclusive, so sit back, pour a gin and enjoy the waves... And the 400 hundred other things that running a business/boat requires.