Why the owner ends up doing everything, even with staff

It sounds like a matter of character, or of a weak team, but it is a diagnosis with a clear cause. The owner who does everything alone usually does not lack people. What the people lack is a defined place, a written post and training.

Doing it all yourself, with people all around you

The source calls this single-handing, and defines it plainly: handling things by yourself. No surprise there. The surprise comes right after. You can single-hand when there is nobody else, and you can single-hand just as well in the middle of a big group whose job is to work or to help.

That is the point. This is not the problem of an owner with no staff. It is the problem of an owner who has staff, and who still ends up handling everything personally.

Suppose an owner with three employees who answers every phone call himself. He has three people, and all three are waiting to be told what to do.

Or suppose a studio owner who checks every file before it goes out to a client. A year later, nobody in her studio checks their own work at all.

In both cases there are people, and there is someone to do the work. What is missing is a person who knows the work is theirs and is not waiting for instructions.

The cause, in one sentence

Here the source leaves no room for interpretation: “The phenomenon comes about by having non-org-boarded, unhatted and untrained people.”

So what does each word mean?

• Non-org-boarded means the person has no defined place in the structure of the business: who they report to, and who they work across from.
• Unhatted means the person has no hat. A hat is the duties of a post, in other words what the person does while in that post, written down.
• Untrained means nobody ever taught them the job they hold.

All three words name something that was not done. A weak team is not on the list, and neither is the idea that you cannot rely on anybody.

The source adds the social cost as well. According to the source, single-handing is derogatory to the people around you who are not working.

The sentence that is true today and wrong next month

One sentence keeps the whole situation in place: it's faster if I do it myself.

Suppose a garage owner who says that sentence again and again. Six months later he is right, because nobody in his garage has learnt anything.

Now take the same garage owner when he puts two days into handing one post over to someone else. He loses two days, and gains five hours every week.

That is exactly the trap. The sentence is true today and wrong next month, which is why it is so hard to recognize as a mistake.

Even with procedures, something is still missing

The pattern appears in businesses that have staff, that have a structure, and that even have their hats in writing. The source breaks down what is missing in those cases into four pieces, and one of them is that the hats exist but nobody was ever trained in them.

Suppose a business whose procedures all live in a shared drive that nobody opens. The procedures are written, and the owner still answers every question himself.

Or suppose an office where each person knows their own work, and nobody knows what happens to it next. There too, every question ends up with the same person.

What not training costs

Here the source turns the money question around: “It costs money not to spend money pretraining for a post.”

Note the inversion. It does not say that training costs money. It says that skipping it costs money. That holds even for an owner with no training budget at all. You pay the price regardless; what is left to decide is whether you pay it with your hours or with your cash.

And not everything called training is training. According to the source, what is taught has to be practical and useful, and it has to apply to the job the person will actually hold.

Suppose an owner who sends an employee on a two-day general course. The course is good, and it never touches what the employee actually does day to day.

The opposite is the same owner spending one day on her own process, exactly as it runs. One day, and the questions stop.

The booklet gives this chapter two short exercises, called count and hand over. In the practice section at the end you will also find one called the first hat.

So when you find yourself doing it all alone, the question is not what is wrong with your people. The question is which of the three actions you have not taken yet.

The booklet is general knowledge about managing people, not legal advice.