A good friend of mine owns a successful and well-known restaurant in Abu Dhabi. Years after its launch, she is still involved with the smallest details of its day-to-day operations, even though she has a qualified manager and a good team that is able to perfectly manage the daily tasks.
The fact that she micromanages, including supervising the cutlery-washing process, affects my friend's productivity at her full-time government job. She does not feel as productive at work and ends up burnt out and unable to think of ways to creatively develop her restaurant. She has even admitted to me that her micromanagement is stressing out her staff who feel they are on alert the entire time.
One of the best ways I know to create value for a small business is for its owner to become operationally irrelevant. This does not mean not caring about one's business anymore. What it means instead is that the owner should change his or her relationship to the business by having different staff members or a general manager see to the day-to-day tasks.
This type of approach, also referred to as passive management, provides owners with the opportunity to remove themselves from the more mundane tasks - which could impede creative thinking - and instead focus on strategic and innovative ways to develop their business forward, such as focusing on the big and important picture.
You can tell if a business has a passive owner when it can operate for months without his or her presence because involved, competent and responsible staff members know how to keep things running smoothly. A business that operates this way also attracts investors and buyers.
Taking the step towards passive ownership is not easy. It involves a change of the owner's mindset to start believing that not every issue that comes up is a crisis and requires their direct involvement.
When an owner treats every situation as a crisis, everything seems late and everyone is under pressure.
At least this is how it is with my friend. Sometimes she would ask her staff to come in early or to stay up late to perfect a new dish. She realises now that she might have created an unhappy environment for her employees and that she might even be at risk of losing talented individuals because of her behaviour.
Passive ownership also requires its owners to build a team of effective staff and developing a reporting process and a system for employees to follow. Trust between owners and their staff is also important, and would aid in understanding when a mistake comes up.
And this is an issue that often stressed my friend. Not because she does not trust her staff, but because she does not want to waste time "understanding" what went wrong, or whose fault it was. But by doing so, she is impeding the process of allowing her restaurant to stand on its own, at least for a couple of days without her involvement.
This is where the books by the late W Edwards Deming, an American author and business consultant, on quality management come in to place.
He discusses that when a mistake or crisis comes up in a business, an owner should not blame a person but instead blame the system. With proper systems in place, mistakes become smaller and more manageable. It is important to note that time and willingness to change work procedures are important to ensure that this is effective.
Passive ownership or management is also a good approach for managers or chief executives to adopt. Just like with small businesses, it would free them from dealing with routine tasks, and allow them to focus on enhancing profit or developing the corporation. It also empowers employees and develops their leadership skills.
If you feel pressured to take responsibility for every single task that comes your way, it might be time to re-strategise.
Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer and fashion designer. She can be followed on Twitter: @manar_alhinai
