Entrepreneurs want control. But too much can strangle a small company.
Face it: Entrepreneurs are control freaks. Many want workers who will follow orders and ask few questions. They don’t need dissent, they tell themselves; they need diligence.
That attitude can stunt a small company’s growth, warns Dan Murphy, founder of the Growth Coach, a small-business consultancy with 155 franchisees across the U.S. Murphy’s wisdom derives not only from years of executive coaching but also from hard lessons about delegating authority learned from expanding his own company.
To get that big so fast, Murphy says he needed more than hard work and raw intelligence. “I thought I was in a business-coaching company,” he says, “but I was in a franchising company and that made me very uncomfortable.”
Murphy stepped on a land mine by hiring employees who were affordable and intelligent but who knew nothing about franchising. “Initially, I didn’t want somebody in here telling me how to run the business,” he recalls. “I thought it was my way or the highway.”