Chapter 19

To grow, you gotta let go

Probably my smartest realisation when I founded my own company was that there were some things that I would never, ever be able to do (technical), and some things that I could do – but didn’t want to do (financials).

I wanted to focus on sales and marketing. And I could only do that once I had surrounded myself with people who were far more capable than I was when it came to those things that I couldn’t do – and those things that I simply didn’t want to do. Once I had hired people in those key positions, I was deeply grateful that I never, ever had to worry about the tech or financial side of the company again. Sure, I was there when I was needed, but I never interfered in the day-to-day management and nor did I want to.

Some founders love to micromanage. I was the opposite. Once I’d hired the right person for a role, they were empowered to do what they came on board to do and that’s how we grew. To grow, you have to let go. It’s a matter of being able to trust your team. By trust, I don’t mean worrying about someone putting their hand in the cookie jar. I mean you trust that person to do the role better than you could do it yourself.

I remember the time I got a really good lesson on how to manage. I held a management meeting for every one of the managers in the company, and on this particular day the guy who ran my Canberra office said: ‘Dave, sometimes I ring you to ask for your advice and you say, “Seb, it’s your office, make a call.”’ He told me that 99 out of 100 times he was making the call. It was that one time when he did ring me for advice that he really needed my input and support. This was one of the best lessons I ever got. I’d been so proud of myself, thinking I was empowering people to run their part of the company – yet here was a manager telling me that I wasn’t there when he needed me most. It was a defining moment for me as a manager. If a manager needs your help to make 99 out of 100 decisions, then you have the wrong manager for that role. But when you seldom get a phone call and the manager is making great decisions, always make sure that you are there when they do put up their hand asking for your input.

Nobody can possibly be good at everything, nor is it possible to fulfil all the roles required in a fast-growing company yourself. You may be the sole founder, like I was – but to grow, you have to surround yourself with a team of people with a complementary skill set AND like-minded values. Get that right, and you are on your way.

So, what should you be looking for when making these key recruitment decisions? It took me some time to identify what I expected from a person who would be assuming a management position – a role that I was effectively outsourcing to another member of my team. Ultimately, a frustrating situation involving one of my managers made me realise that it boiled down to three key attributes (and all three were required – just having two of them would not be good enough):

1. Vision

2. Hands-on attitude

3. HR skills

Vision

As the founder, you must have the overall vision for where you want the company to be, but you should not be expected to have a vision for every single part of the company.

If you’re a tech-led founder, you may know that cash flow, montly recurring revenue (MRR), annual recurring revenue (ARR), pipeline management, expenses, payroll, lease agreements, taking forward cover, and so on, are an important part of a business. But it is your CFO and CRO, not you, who should have a vision for how their part of the company is going to work seamlessly and effectively for your staff, customers and business partners.

When I hired my first tech engineer at Com Tech, my vision was that if a customer called for support, we would answer calls promptly, with accurate information. If we didn’t have a response immediately, we would never keep the customer in the dark. How we did that was up to Nathan and Darron (our tech management team). What systems and resources they needed was also up to them – I couldn’t give them the authority without the responsibility.

Hands-on attitude

You don’t deserve respect, you earn it. You earn it by rolling up your sleeves and working WITH your team, not by having a team work FOR you. We always wanted managers who worked for their team, not the other way around. Of course, you also need to lead: it’s your actions – rather than a title on a business card – that will earn you respect.

HR skills

As a founder, you need managers who hire the right people, in terms of both attitude and ability. They need to fire the ‘wrong’ people as quickly as possible and, importantly, they need to motivate a team of people to be the best that they can possibly be. This happens in small companies, in sporting teams and in large companies. How often have you seen a soccer team change managers and the very next week that team goes from losing to winning? They have exactly the same players on the field as the previous week – the difference is they now have a manager who knows how to get the best out of a team of people. It happened at Microsoft, which has become one of the most valuable companies in the world, not by bringing in new people or products, but simply by an exceptional leader galvanising a team to be the best that they could possibly be.

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So, on the subject of managers – including you, the founder – I have a few remaining words of advice.

• I have beaten this one to death, but I want to reiterate: surround yourself with highly capable people in those roles that you will never be able to do yourself, or that you may be able to do but don’t want to. I remember meeting an older founder who told me that he had finally realised he couldn’t do it all on his own. To which I replied, ‘That’s a strength, not a weakness. Nobody can do everything well.’ You’re generally either a striker or a defender, a batter or a bowler, a sales specialist or a tech specialist, but rarely both.
• Strive for perfection, but don’t let it stop you from executing on your vision. As long as you’re not going to let your customers or staff down, don’t wait for that perfect product or service – if you do, you may never get to release your product. I couldn’t put this any better than Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn: ‘If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.’ You have to get your product out there to know whether it is solving the problem it was designed for. Once in market you will receive valuable feedback from your customers, and this input, together with your own roadmap, will only help you to enhance your solution.
• It’s nice to be important, but it’s important to be nice. Muhammad Ali famously said that he would like to be remembered ‘as a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him.’ As a founder you should be humble and expect the same from the management team that you surround yourself with. At the end of the day, we all put our pants on one leg at a time. If anyone watched the memorial tribute to Shane Warne, what was most evident about Warney was not just his amazing feats on the cricket ground, but also the manner in which he treated everyone – no matter their status or wealth. If Warney could be humble, there is no reason for anyone else not to be. We love Ash Barty for the same reason – humble beats arrogant every day.

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