In a survey of owners carried out on behalf of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills, the second most popular reason given for wanting to start a business was – Control of own life / independence / freedom.  This makes perfect sense as there can be few things more frustrating than having all the good ideas but no power to make them happen.  The downside is that once you are in charge it can be hard to hand over decision making and tasks to employees. 

The classic situation, very common across a wide range of businesses, is the owner/manager who complains they are being worked to death but refuse to delegate because –

• Nobody has my level of knowledge and skill
• My decision making is far better than everybody else’s
• It would be quicker doing it myself than having to explain what needs to be done
• If it goes wrong, I’ll be criticised even though it isn’t really my fault
• I am the only one who sees the big picture
• The employee might make the right decision but in the wrong way
• The employee might find a better way of doing the task and make me look bad
• I’ll probably end up having to do it myself anyway
• I can’t have employees setting their own priorities
• I might not be indispensable if other people can do what I can do
• And so on…

Long term progress is sacrificed for the sake of short term validation.  The business owner who insists on completing every task themselves is a self-employed worker not an entrepreneur.   The entrepreneur who understands the only way to scale is to first build a team framework is on the way to growing value in his business.     

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