Chris Cooper laid out the Seven Deadly Sins of Staffing earlier this week—and you can get his guide by sending him a DM.
Here, I’ll dig into what I consider to be the greatest staffing sin of them all.
The Sinful Plan: Seeking Salvation Through Abdication
Coop’s list of deadly sins:
- Creating vague roles
- Being unclear
- Giving too much
- Over-promoting
- Hiring in desperation
- Keeping people too long
- Abdication
For me, the last one is the worst—but it’s also incredibly common. Coop’s committed this one, and so have I. I bet you have, too.
Here’s the scenario:
A busy, overworked entrepreneur finally accepts that he must offload work to make time to build the business, so he hires someone. He lays out clear roles and responsibilities and shows the new person the path to advancement.
The owner onboards the new person and—with relief—steps back.
Everything is holy and pure at this point.
The overworked, grateful owner gets home for dinner with the family and has time and energy to start working on the business instead of in it.
The staff member has a job and clear expectations.
The sin: The owner then moves on to other tasks and completely abdicates responsibility for the staff member’s continued success and development. He assumes little additional contact is needed after the onboarding period and doesn’t think to check in, provide feedback or offer mentorship.
Sins of abdication produce two common results:
1. With a dedicated staff member, things go well for a while, but inevitably a problem crops up. When the abdicating owner finally notices the issue—usually on a bad day—he pulls the thread and then finds about five more. Then he gets angry, puts on his “no one can do it like I can” pants and wades in to fix everything at once. The staff person—who is trying very hard—feels frustrated because the laundry list of mistakes becomes the focus, and a much longer list of wins is ignored. She gets back to work with reduced motivation or starts planning an exit.
2. With a less-than-dedicated staff person, the abdicating owner might return to find a complete bills-not-paid, clients-leaving, plugged-toilet disaster. The owner is furious, and, in some cases, frightened because the business is wobbling. All trust has been washed away, and the owner and staff person are at odds, often permanently. The staff member will start making excuses to cover up for a lack of attention, and the owner will start micromanaging or stripping away responsibilities. The resolution comes when the staff member is fired or quits.
In both cases, the owner is pulled back into the role to some degree and no longer has as much time to build the business. In the worst-case scenario, work hours skyrocket and he’s missing dinner again.
The Solution
To avoid all the trouble, an owner only has to build in a little time to mentor a new staff person.
If given regular opportunities to ask questions and receive feedback, a dedicated staff member can quickly learn how to avoid errors and do things the way the owner wants. If an owner checks in on a mediocre staff member, the entrepreneur has a chance to bring the person in line before disaster strikes—or the owner will learn that the person must be reassigned or fired.
It’s not micromanagement. It’s mentorship.
If you abdicate all responsibility for their performance, staff members won’t succeed. It’s impossible.
But with regular check-ins, you can provide the feedback and guidance that will allow great people to thrive, and you can shape good staff people into great ones. You can also identify and correct hiring mistakes if needed.
So here’s a question for you:
When was the last time you mentored a staff member?
If you don’t have an answer, check in with someone today and set up a meeting. If you don’t, you’re abdicating, and it will cost you dearly at some point.
