If you are a business owner or manager, I'm sure you have pride in what you do. You probably feel a sense that the business couldn't run without you, that the business needs you and couldn't survive without you. Perhaps it is even true.
It's also a very dangerous way of thinking. If your business truly “needs” you then the business is vulnerable. If you are sick or even if you just want to go on holiday, your business is going to suffer.
Running your business in this way means that you likely have difficulty going on vacation for very long. Perhaps you are afraid to come back to a complete mess. You may be worried the team will not cope when you are gone. Whilst this situation is good for the ego, it's not good for your business and it doesn't give you the flexibility to leverage yourself out of the business. It also means you don't have the ability to focus as much strategically on your business. It also means you can't truly determine what you spend your time on because you have all these things that you have to do just to keep the business running.
Setting up your business so you don't have to be there is not always an easy thing. It might even seem impossible. If there are only a small number of people in your business, it likely is impossible to remove yourself entirely. However, it's still valuable to start moving down this path of separating yourself from the business. This is going to be very valuable in helping you to have more freedom in how you spend your time, and ultimately to be more effective in the way that you spend your time.
Make a list of everything that you do. Is there someone else in the business you could train to do that activity? A great way to make sure this happens is to go on an extended vacation, two to three months, say. This is enough time that you will have to train people and set up processes to work when you are not there.
These lessons apply also if you have a managerial role in a larger company. To be truly effective and add the most value to your organization, you should NOT make yourself indispensible. Instead, you should work to replace yourself so that you are no longer needed and can focus on more strategic issues. As a business owner or a manager that is one of your main jobs: to find other people or systems to replace you so that you have freedom of your time. Of course as a manager the two to three month holiday is going to be a big ask in most corporations, but you can always try!
Dr. Rob Rawson is a medical doctor, internet entrepreneur and a time management expert. He is currently traveling around the world whilst managing a business with 45 staff.
