# Why the owner becomes the bottleneck in their own business [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-08 updated: 2026-10-08 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Organization source booklet: [What Breaks When You Grow](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/growth-breaks) An owner who works alone even with a team is rarely being controlling; too much runs through them, and nobody has been trained to hold what they hold. When everything in the business waits for you, it is usually not because you are controlling or because there is nobody to trust. It is because too many people and decisions run straight through you, and nobody has been trained to carry what you carry. So you end up working alone, even with a team around you. ## There is a limit to how many people you can handle directly The booklet calls this **span of control**: how many people come to one person directly and wait on them. The source puts a number on it, one of the very few numbers it gives anywhere. According to the source, wherever that limit is broken the organisation dwindles, and wherever it is kept the organisation grows. The source also offers a simple test. If a manager feels overworked even when the needless traffic is already handled, they are probably trying to deal with too many people directly. Past a certain point you are no longer managing anything; you are just reacting. Suppose an owner with seven people who all report to him directly. He works twelve-hour days and cannot work out why. After he appoints two team leads, he has the same seven people and five fewer hours a day. And the span is not only staff. Suppose an owner with four employees and ten suppliers, all of whom go through her. When she looks into it, she finds the suppliers are the problem, not the employees. ## Both sides get crushed The source describes what happens when the limit is broken: “The executive is crushed by overwork and the persons under him are overwhelmed.” This is where a common mistake creeps in. Whoever is busiest in the business usually believes the suffering is all theirs, since they are the one putting in the most hours. But both sides are hurt by the same failure in the structure. He is hurt by too much, and they are hurt by too few answers. And they will not tell you. They will say everything is fine, and leave six months later. Suppose an owner who is shocked when a good employee resigns. When he looks back, it turns out the employee waited three days on average for an answer to every question. Or an owner who is sure she is protecting her team by taking everything on herself. The team sees it very differently: as being unable to move anything forward. ## The bottleneck the owner built A bottleneck in a business is the spot where everything stops and waits for one person. The source first describes it from one direction: staff who eat up a manager's time and patience and jam the manager's lines, meaning the routes along which requests and decisions travel. But straight after, the source turns it around. Depending on a manager for petty decisions, it says, jams the lines and costs money. These are two sides of one coin. The jam forms when others flood you, and it also forms when you insist that every decision goes through you. And according to the booklet, in most small businesses the one who built it is the owner. Suppose an owner who insists on approving every quote. Each approval takes him two minutes, yet the time a customer waits for an answer climbs from one day to four. Or an owner who routes every materials order through herself to keep the budget under control. The savings turn out to be negligible, and the delays do not. And the other way round: the same owner sets a figure below which nobody needs his approval. Most quotes stop waiting on him, and customers hear back faster. ## You are not working alone because you are controlling Here the source reaches the end result. When staff were never briefed, never trained and do not follow procedure, there is a great deal of overwork and little production, and the person at the top is forced to do it all alone. The source closes it in a few words: “It isn't an org, it's a mob.” This is the link most owners miss. You are not working alone because you need control, or because you trust nobody. You are working alone because nobody was trained to hold what you hold, and that is a failure you can fix. According to the source, the root is long-running failure to man the posts, meaning to put people into roles and keep those roles filled over time. Suppose an owner who keeps telling himself it is quicker to do it himself. That is true each single time, and wrong over a whole year. Or an owner who hired three people in two years and trained none of them. In practice she was working alone, with three employees. And the other way round: the same owner spends a few hours training one person. Two weeks later he takes a whole area off her hands. ## What the booklet has on this This chapter of the booklet has two exercises: a span exercise and a threshold exercise, and that is also where the number the source gives for span of control appears. The next chapter moves on to how you bring someone new into the business. When it looks as if the business cannot move without you, that is usually not a sign of how important you are. It is a sign of how the business was built. - [What Breaks When You Grow](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/growth-breaks): A name for the failure, a sequence that shows you where you stand in it, and one answer to the question of what comes first. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/the-owner-is-the-bottleneck) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/the-owner-is-the-bottleneck)