Are You Choking?

At the Don Ryan Center for Innovation we help businesses that are scattered along the spectrum - from concepts written on napkins or stored in a person’s head to companies that have been in business for decades. 

It’s not uncommon, especially in a small company or a startup, to have one person that does a lot or most of the work. Sometimes this is by design. More often this is by necessity. If you are the only person in your company, there’s no one else to delegate to.

When you have too many things running through one person that person is the “chokepoint”

Here are some reasons a person (or you) may be a chokepoint:

·      There is no one else to help

·      These folks may feel that if they don’t do a task themselves it’s not going to get done

·      If the task does get done, they may not feel it is done “right”

·      It’s faster to do the task themselves than to teach someone else.  (that one is very shortsighted)

·      The person likes doing the tasks

Just because you’re busy does not mean you’re a chokepoint. But if you’re doing too many things or taking on too much and the company can’t grow (we use the word “scale”) because there’s too much on your shoulders you might be a chokepoint.

It’s kind of like that Jeff Foxworthy bit: “If you think you are the only one that can (insert task here) you might be a chokepoint”

Again, sometimes there’s no choice.  If you’re a one-person company, you have to do everything on your own.  But here is the catch-22.  If you do everything on your own, you may always be a one-person company.  (Plus, you will never be able to take a vacation).

One of the things we encourage our STARTUPS to do is make an organization chart early in the process. Show us who does what in the company even if the same name is in every box. Then we ask, “when you have the opportunity to stop doing one of these jobs which ones are you going to hand off to someone else?”

This helps us identify possible areas that might be a chokepoint. It also lets us know what other people that need to be hired when the company gets to that point.

So how to you stop being a chokepoint when you have the luxury? 

• Delegate

• Trust

• Let Go

Any true entrepreneur knows that they can’t do everything well. As soon as possible they start hiring people smarter than they are.  They hire people to do things they can’t or don’t want to do. Make sure you give that person the freedom and responsibility to do their tasks. Don’t micromanage or you’ve gone down the rabbit hole the other way. 

There are thousands of articles on how to delegate on the Internet. One of the ones we like best is here. The important thing is to find one that matches your style.  

The only way to grow a company is for information, ideas, and processes to flow clearly without chokepoints.

What’s stopping you? Other than the fact that you may be too busy?