Run your company on automatic pilot

Why do you manually run your company? Is it because you love working 60 hour weeks? Do you love it cutting into your social life? Are you impervious to stress and burn out? Are you going crazy? Starting a successful company involves all these things, but after a while your health, your wealth and happiness will suffer if you don’t start running your business on automatic pilot.

Take a look at successful and sustainable companies – they use groups of people delegated by the owner to run them. So if you are run ragged, live to work or are not getting enough of what excites you, then keep reading.

Just like installing an automatic pilot in an airplane, delegating costs money. But it provides a more reliable, cost effective, safer way to fly and the pilot can always take over in an emergency. After a company is up and running the owner’s responsibility should move from the daily running of the company to operating it remotely via a select small group of people. This allows the owner to focus their talents on looking at the company as a whole instead of the day to day concerns.

This small group of people comes in three basic forms; a good group of directors, a good group of advisors, or a blend of both. The good blend is probably the most attractive form for smaller companies.

Legally all companies must have at least one director (normally the owner). Because the law puts onerous duties on directors the role is not as attractive as it used to be, and is relatively expensive for owners to employ them. A cost effective option is to employ a group of advisors to cover the non legal aspects of the company and a group of directors to govern the legal ones.

So what does the good blend look like? For a start, what looks effective for one company will not look so good for another because the aspirations of owners are always different. Some want to earn a reasonable salary; others want to build a multibillion dollar international company. Some want to close the company and retire, while others want to pass it on to their children.

It is tempting to select people for the groups from a broad mix such as an accountant, lawyer, industry experts, independent consultants and those familiar with your operations. While these attributes are positive, there are other deeper considerations that make this selection one to resist like; your aspirations, company maturity, style, size, fields of endeavour, risk, expertise, culture, budget constraints and a raft of others.

These groups provide a major source of competitive advantage for the company, so it pays to attract the right people. Selecting independent people is a great way to bring perspective, objectivity, skill and knowledge that smaller companies cannot always afford to employ for everyday operations. You could appoint employees to groups, but they are not always ready or best suited for the role.

ENS is launching workshops to explore this opportunity, see what can be delegated and what should not, what form of grouping is right for you, who you should appoint to the roles, the cost/benefits of your investment and how to achieve full value from running on automatic pilot. To register your interest visit www.ens.org.nz/autopilot

ENS is launching workshops to explore this opportunity, see what can be delegated and what should not, what form of grouping is right for you, who you should appoint to the roles, the cost/benefits of your investment and how to achieve full value from running on automatic pilot.To register your interest in these workshops please contact us by email: team@ens.org.nz

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