Page 108 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com

It’s easy to grow by hiring people who specialise in areas you don’t deal
with, and relatively easy to take their advice and even defer to it. Sooner or
later, however, you’re going to have to hire people whose speciality
overlaps with your home turf, either as consultants or staff, and at that point
you will be forced to listen to advice that you have little inclination to
respect more than your own. Why will you inevitably have to do that?
Because even if you are very good at your key area, the fact that you guard
it jealously means that you run the risk of becoming a bottleneck as every
decision on that subject has to pass through you.

The only answer is to learn to step back and force yourself to ask for input
from other people. Evaluate it, bring in third parties where appropriate to
discuss it and then, finally, bite the bullet and act on it. If you don’t think
anyone has better advice to offer than you do, then either you should look
to recruit staff you respect more, or you should be asking yourself seriously
if you are in denial about being chronically stricken with founderitis
yourself. Time to get real.

HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU…
Take a break. A real one; a holiday with no email, no voicemail and
no calls to or from the office. Then come back two weeks later and
open your eyes to the fact that the business is still going. Accept that
and you are more likely to accept advice as a result.