Maybe someone else can manage?
So far, the discussion has been about you assuming the full management role. But there may be another alternative.
If you prefer not to take on the management role yourself (for any number of reasons), maybe you can delegate the management position to someone else.
This route, however, has its own challenges, particularly if you’re trying to delegate the entire management role, or even most of it.
You can hire someone…
One alternative may be to hire someone to do the management work.
The challenges to this approach include:
- It’s difficult to find the necessary skills in the employment marketplace. Just as most business owners don’t know how to run a business, most other people don’t either. Many people will claim this ability, but most will prove not to be so capable.
- It’s also difficult to find someone whom you can trust sufficiently to give this huge responsibility. This person will be largely responsible for the future of your business.
- Anyone who is sufficiently capable and sufficiently trustworthy is likely to be fairly expensive. This is a rare set of attributes that may also be attractive to a number of other businesses. As much as you may wish to employ this position, you may find that it’s beyond your budget.
- Even if you hire someone to manage your business, you will still need to know enough, and be involved enough, to monitor the situation and ensure that the company is being managed appropriately. So, hiring a manager, even a good one, will probably not discharge you totally from management responsibility.
You can add a partner with management skills…
Another alternative may be to bring in a partner with the necessary management skills, that hopefully complement your own skills.
The challenges with the partner approach are similar to, but even more profound than, trying to employ the management position.
- The desired skills and trustworthiness are just as difficult to find.
- A partner will be the owner of a portion of your business. This ownership is expected to motivate the partner to high performance and, hopefully, to achieve stellar results. But the actual results may not match those expectations.
- A partner will be entitled to a share of the profits (which is hopefully a motivating factor), but that partner will probably also have to be paid a salary in some amount, plus benefits.
- An employee can usually be fired fairly easily if the position doesn’t work out. But it is much more difficult, and expensive, to get rid of a partner if that arrangement doesn’t work out.
A more thorough discussion of the challenges of business co-ownership is provided elsewhere in this website. In summary, it’s not to be taken lightly, and a great deal of consideration must first be given to whether the proposed partners have compatible goals and expectations.
(Of course, allocating management responsibilities among people who are already partners in a business is a very different matter from adding a new partner for the purpose of delegating the management responsibilities.)
A partial approach
After further consideration, most business owners will find that it’s either impossible or unattractive to delegate the total management role to someone else, either as an employee or as a new partner. Most business owners will conclude, instead, that they have to take a significant personal role in the day-to-day management of the business.
On the other hand, it may be very appropriate to delegate to other employees certain, smaller portions of the management function, subject to the guidance and supervision of the owner. This approach might even be preferable to the owner trying to do too much with limited time and other personal resources.
But even if some activities can be delegated, the owner’s increasing management responsibilities will likely require an adjustment to his or her role in the business — so the business can achieve the desired vision for the future.
If you are ready to do this, there are some potholes to look out for.