I was talking to a client recently who'd had a rather unusual Friday.
For once, he wasn't spending the day catching up with problems, answering questions or trying to clear the backlog of things that had accumulated during the week.
His inbox was down to eight emails.
And he was actually getting around to some of the things he'd been meaning to do for ages.
Things that weren't particularly urgent, but that he knew were important for the business.
We'd been working together for some time on getting more of the day-to-day responsibility into the team, so it was encouraging to hear.
What interested me, though, wasn't really the empty inbox.
It was what he was starting to do with the time he'd created.
For perhaps the first time in a while, he was getting ahead of things rather than constantly catching up.
I think that's quite an important distinction.
When I talk to business owners about stepping away from the day-to-day, the conversation often starts with what they need to stop doing.
Which decisions could somebody else make? Why are they still getting involved in particular customer issues? What work keeps finding its way back onto their desk?
Those are useful conversations, and we've had plenty of them with this particular client.
But there's another part that I think deserves just as much attention.
What are you going to do with the time you get back?
Because the point isn't simply to have a quieter diary.
It's to give yourself the opportunity to do the work that the business now needs from you.
And that work can look quite different from the things that have kept you busy for the last few years.
Take business development, for example.
When you're heavily involved in operations, it's very easy for business development to become something you do when you have time.
You respond to enquiries, follow up opportunities that are already in front of you and perhaps make a few calls when things are a little quieter.
But how often do you sit down and think properly about where the next stage of growth is going to come from?
Which customers would you really like to work with? Which relationships should you be developing now? Are there markets or opportunities you haven't had time to explore?
And just as importantly, are there types of work you should be moving away from?
You need a bit of thinking space for those conversations.
The same applies to what's happening outside the business.
Markets change. Customers change. Technology changes. Competitors make different decisions.
If you're spending every day dealing with what's immediately in front of you, it's quite difficult to lift your head and consider what those changes might mean over the next couple of years.
You can find yourself responding to something that you could have seen coming much earlier.
Then there's the team.
One of the things I often notice is that business owners are very willing to help their people solve today's problems.
They're less likely to find the time to sit down with them and think about what they'll need to be capable of doing twelve months from now.
Who could take on more responsibility? Where are the gaps in the management team? What does the next generation of leadership need to look like?
Those conversations don't necessarily produce an immediate result.
But they're important if you want the business to keep developing without everything coming back to you.
And I think there's a similar question around the way the business operates.
The systems and processes that worked when you had ten people might not be the ones you need when you have thirty.
The structure that helped you reach your current turnover may not be the structure that gets you to the next stage.
At some point, somebody needs to stand back and look at the business as a whole.
Not just whether today's work is getting done, but whether the business is set up properly for where it's heading.
Quite often, that somebody is the owner.
Which brings me back to my client's Friday.
An inbox with eight emails might sound like a fairly small achievement.
But I suspect it represented something rather more significant.
He was beginning to have the capacity to think about the business instead of spending all his time operating it.
And I think there's a challenge in that transition too.
When you've spent years being the person who gets things done, it's easy to measure the value of your day by how many things you've dealt with.
You finish the day, look at everything you've sorted out and feel you've been productive.
A day spent thinking about the future, having a conversation with a potential partner or working with a manager on their development can feel rather different.
You might not have much to show for it by five o'clock.
But it could turn out to be one of the most valuable days you've spent on the business.
I sometimes wonder whether this is why owners find it difficult to let go, even when they've got capable people around them.
They're not just handing over work.
They're having to get comfortable with a different idea of what their own contribution should look like.
And that takes a bit of getting used to.
I was pleased to hear my client had finally got some breathing space.
What I'm more interested in now is how he uses it.
Because if the business has reached the point where the team can manage more of the day-to-day, the owner's job has to move on as well.
Perhaps a useful question to ask yourself is this:
If your team gave you back a full day every week, would you know exactly what you should be doing with it?
And would it be work that genuinely moves the business forward, rather than simply another opportunity to catch up?
If you're still the person everyone turns to when something needs doing, it can be difficult to find the time to focus on growing your business.
Book a call with me and let's explore how you can build a business that relies less on you being involved in every decision.
P.S: How effective are you as a leader, and where could you be doing more to bring out the best in your team? Take my High Performance Leadership Scorecard to gain a clearer picture of your leadership strengths and identify opportunities to become a more effective leader.
