Swapping the hero doesn't fix the system
Why hiring a general manager won't fix a business that only runs because someone holds it together.
I recently spoke with a managing director who took over his business and grew it enormously over the last decade. By any measure, it's a success story.
But that success had come at a cost. Somewhere along the way, he'd become the person holding everything together. Problems landed on his desk. Decisions waited for him. He was being dragged into the day to day, all of the time, and he knew it wasn't sustainable.
So he had a plan: bring in a general manager, maybe even a new MD, to run the operation, so he could step back and focus on the things he's passionate about.
It's a good instinct. Stepping back from the day to day is often exactly what a business needs from its leader. But as we talked, a different picture emerged.
A group, not a team
I asked about his leadership team. Were they a team, or a group of individuals each working on their own stuff?
He was honest. A group of individuals.
Culture trickles down. If his managers bring their problems to him, it's very likely their people are bringing problems to them. The whole business has learned to push problems upwards rather than solve them where they happen.
And there was more. Information didn't flow cleanly through the business. Problems weren't surfaced in time, and occasionally the first anyone knew about them was when a customer felt the impact.
Human effort compensating for a broken system
None of this was about a lack of effort. Quite the opposite.
What he was describing was a system performing well below what it should. The only reason it held together at all was him. A huge amount of human effort, his, compensating for a broken system.
Seen that way, his plan looks different. Bringing in a general manager doesn't fix the system. It just changes whose effort is holding it together.
If the roof leaks, you can stand there holding the bucket. Or you can pay someone else to hold the bucket. Either way, the roof is still leaking.
And when the person holding the bucket goes on holiday, guess who's back holding it?
When the new hero leaves
Maybe that's a trade worth making. He'd get to step back. He'd get his evenings and weekends back. For a while.
But the day the new person goes on holiday, falls ill or leaves, he's straight back where he started. Possibly worse off, because having stepped away, he'll be less in touch with the very problems he suddenly needs to solve.
And unless the new person single-handedly fixes habits and ways of working that took years to form, the problems are all still there. They've just changed who's carrying them.
Know what you're actually fixing
To be clear, hiring a general manager, or even replacing yourself, can be a really good move. Plenty of businesses outgrow the way their founder runs them, and the right person in the right role makes a huge difference.
But a new hire answers the question: who should hold this together?
The more useful question is: why does it need holding together at all?
If the answer is the system (a leadership group that doesn't work as a team, problems that travel upwards, information that doesn't flow), then fix the system.
Then bring in great people to run something that works, rather than to prop up something that doesn't.
Otherwise you haven't solved the problem. You've just bought a new hero.
So if you're the one holding the bucket, ask yourself: are you planning to fix the roof, or just find someone else to hold the bucket?