Entrepreneurs don’t have to do everything themselves. But most of the time they think they do. Delegation is like kryptonite to most entrepreneurs. The most common reason I’ve seen comes down to “I can do it better.” But most of the time they can’t.

I gave this a lot of thought when I incorporated my new business this past Monday. While I was discussing matters with my attorney, I thought, “Why am I here? I should be programming. That’s what will make this business money.” The flip side is that one of our partners is an accountant with legal experience. He should have been sitting there.

So I pivoted. I delegated all the legal matters to the accountant. I was relieved and he was thrilled. Both of us were motivated and free to do the tasks we were best at.

There are other reasons that delegation is good. A CEO who wants to do everything him or herself implies that the other partners can’t. Delegating the right task to the right person shows people that they are needed and valuable. It also gets them invested early in being part of the evolution of the business. That will pay off later.

On trust: if you don’t trust that a partner can handle certain tasks, then you should strongly consider why and whether they should be a partner in the first place. If fear is driving you to not let them participate, the problem may be you and not them.

I’m a firm believer in balancing hard work with doing as little work as possible because that means the entire leadership team is being efficient. If that doesn’t happen early the consequences may be the draining of the company’s cash and resources.

It case you don’t realize it, thats a bad thing.

These are my 300 words for the day. I am Ralph M. Rivera.

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