Welcome to The Business Academy.

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Last week I had an interesting group discussion.

The president of a large real estate company is experiencing some issues at one of his properties.

He has hundreds of people that work for him, managing tens of thousands of units...But he keeps encountering problems at one of the properties.

They tried hiring more people. They tried paying people more money. And nothing is working. Now his team is feeling demoralized by their inability to fix this problem.

So the question came up...

When do you step in as CEO, and fix the problem yourself?

Charlie Munger once described Warren Buffett's management style as "delegation short of abdication".

We all know if you want to grow a healthy business, you need to build a trusted team around you. You need to let your leaders own the process. They need to learn to make decisions, make mistakes, and fix them.

But what if you're not getting the desired result? Should you step in and help?

Here's where we landed as a group:

You need to assess the risk to your business and impact on your culture.

If the negative impact of team culture is high and the business risk impact is high. You definitely get involved.

If only one of them is high, you may still want to get involved depending on how high the risk is.

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Some important notes. This is a short-term, one-time fix. You can't parachute in every time there's a problem. You need to hire the right people and invest in a long-term solution.

The act of stepping in, and leading from the front can be quite motivating to employees. You show you care. You aren't seen as someone who is making decisions an ivory tower. You are willing to roll up your sleeves and work side by side to get to a solution.

A few interesting observations came up during our conversation. Each person shared a personal story of how they dealt with a similar problem. Here is the summary of the learnings shared:

1. Ultimately, you're the owner. And you need to do whatever it takes to solve the problem.
2. Leading from the front builds allies in your company
3. You learn things on the ground you didn't expect to learn, that may be unrelated to the original problem
4. You create a culture of showing up and getting things done

My personality is such that I'm not able to be fully hands-off.

If things are not going well, I will sleep better if I'm very involved with getting the situation towards a solution. I used to shy away from stepping in, but that is no longer the case. If things are going well, I'm happy to be hands-off. If things are going poorly, and the current leader has tried a few different strategies, then I'll step in and won't shy away from taking charge until we reach a solution.

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🔑 One great read

I loved this autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I've alway been a big Arnold fan. He IS the embodiment of the American dream. He came today this country barely speaking the language. And became Mr Universe multiple times, a movie star, a successful real estate owner, and the governor of California. I particularly appreciate his attitude, and how he travels through life with grace, appreciation and humor.

​You can check it out here.​

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🔑 New Interview with Dylan Peterson (built The American Truck Store to $40M in revenue)

Check out how he built his 8-figure truck dealership with $0, how to succeed in a competitive industry, and so much more. You can listen on Apple​ Podcasts, Spotify, and my new YouTube channel.

Have a great week,

Sieva

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Disclaimer: nothing here is investment advice. Please do your own research. The information above is just for information and learning.

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