I think this is the first time in awhile where there was a word in a book that I actually never heard of before. The chapter of the title is “Delegate, Don’t Abdicate.†I never heard of the word “Abdicate†before. I looked it up and it is along the lines of relinquishing something.
The theme in this chapter was all about knowing exactly what is going on in your business and not just trusting others to do it. Basically, things like micro managing is a good thing. There were a bunch of examples of business owners who simply trusted others to take on a reign of a business when it comes to an important role. Not surprisingly, the business would go bad eventually.
The solution was that if you do pass on responsibilities to other people that you need to watch them like a hawk. Make sure they report everything back to you, always be persistent in making sure they got things done, etc. A good point was brought up where if you are a small business you don’t have the luxury of a large corporation that can afford to make errors. For many small businesses, it just takes one thing to make you bankrupt. Again too, it seems like Cloutier was bring up the “trust no one†mentality when it comes to running a business.
Delegation usually is the key to running a business while at the same time enabling yourself to do more. But as this chapter mentions that doesn’t mean you can just be carefree by simply passing off the responsibilities to another person. It’s really rare that you would find someone capable to take on big responsibilities honestly and competently.
I think a lot of the story examples used in this chapter were intriguing. Example, there was one where the store owner who got injured and then he simply let his best employees run the business. Didn’t turn out very well. For the most part you do need to have direct knowledge of exactly what is going on.