Let's get this out of the way right now: I'm a terrible CEO. I don't go to the office every day, and I only meet with my team a couple times a week. I hate giving speeches, sharing my vision, holding meetings, and all the other things that reputable publications tell CEOs to do. Honestly, I rarely start my workday before noon .
To put it simply, I am lazy . You think so, but I boldly declare it. The japan mobile phone numbers database verdict is guilty. But be that as it may, I run a group of companies with 200 employees and have invested in more than 30 companies over the course of my career. And this is done by a man who rarely wakes up before noon.
A couple of years ago, I thought laziness was my Achilles heel. I watched my entrepreneur friends climb the mountain while I hired people to do things I hated. I felt guilty. I felt like a fraud. But over the years, I’ve realized that laziness is my greatest asset.
By collecting ideas from people much smarter than me, I have developed a system I call Lazy Leadership. It is what helps me run my companies. Lazy Leadership is not about lounging in a hammock or working a four-hour workweek in Costa Rica. Lazy Leadership is about stepping back, learning from your team, and observing them instead of being an active participant in the process.
The Lazy Way
Entrepreneurship is a great way to describe delegation. It's the process of taking yourself out of the equation and motivating your team to do what they do best.
First, you cut out your boss and start working for yourself. Then you hire someone to do the work while you do more important things. Over time, you realize you can hire more people to do even more work.
Then people who can manage those people. Then managers who can manage large groups of people. Then, if you want, you can hire a CEO who can run the company while you watch it grow from the boardroom.
Is this crazy? You can delegate the management of an entire company. Of course, it's easier said than done.
When I first tried to hand over the wheel to a team, I was terrified. My company became an uncontrollable machine that was trying to end up in a ditch until someone—usually me—could grab the wheel and steer it back onto the track at the last second. I always felt like everything was going to hell without me, and I often wished I was cloned so I could handle everything.
But after a couple of years of giving my team the freedom to create a simple process and clear direction, my companies began to grow more efficiently than I could have ever imagined.
When I finally took my hands off the wheel, I realized that my team could run the train on schedule and perform better than I could have ever imagined.
And the best part is that I've been able to assemble a group of people who are doing the best work of their careers while I focused on building a working machine (more on that later).
Delegation barrier
Some entrepreneurs never cross the delegation barrier, and get stuck there forever. They try hiring someone, but when that person doesn't behave as expected, they take the wheel back.
They train their muscle memory and convince themselves that the only person who can do everything well is themselves. They are convinced that without their constant micromanagement, the company will descend into chaos.
I know a lot of people like that. They are unhappy.
"If your business depends on you, you don't own a business, you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic." - Michael Gerber, The E Myth
Ask yourself: what would happen to the company if you went on vacation for six months? If you think everything would collapse, you have made yourself too important to the company, and you work for your business, not own it. It's time to build an effective mechanism.
Construction of the mechanism
Henry Ford didn't make cars, he built factories. I think great leadership is about building a machine that makes a product. It's not about doing the work yourself. Many CEOs forget that and get caught up in sales, marketing, or product development, the part of the business they love, and they miss the big picture. Exceptional leaders build a company that runs without them.
Ray Dalio understands this well. While most U.S. corporations collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis, his company, Bridgewater Associates, is thriving. He is one of the world’s most successful investors, with $150 billion in portfolio assets and a 30-year track record of outperforming the market.
What is the secret of his success? In his opinion, it is that he perceives his business as a machine working to produce the profits he wants to make. He wrote a book about this called " Principles ". This is a wonderful and very strange book that completely changed the way I approach running companies.
Inspired by Ray, I now view my companies as machines with a pre-determined outcome.
