Managing Adults

People don't join companies waiting for permission.

They learn to.

The person you hired to own marketing is waiting for you to approve the campaign.

You hired them because they were good.

They're asking because you made it safer than deciding.

Watch what you do when someone makes a call you wouldn't have made.

Do you let it play out?

Or do you step in with, "I think we should..."

That moment teaches the lesson.

Not the job description.

You say you want people who think like owners.

But owners get to be wrong.

They learn from the consequences.

Your team gets to be wrong until your reaction teaches them it wasn't safe.

So they stop bringing decisions.

They bring options and wait.

And you wonder why no one just runs with it.

Because the last three times they did, you had notes.

You weren't wrong.

The work probably improved.

But something else weakened.

It was the part of them willing to be wrong in front of you.

Do that enough times and you get a team that executes perfectly.

And thinks not at all.

They're not lazy.

They're not incapable.

They're doing exactly what you trained them to do.

If you want different, you have to want it more than you want to be right.

Let the campaign run that you'd write differently.

Let the feature ship that you'd scope another way.

Let someone solve the problem their way.

Not because it's better.

Because next time they won't need to ask.

That's the trade.

You can have control.

Or you can have a team that doesn't need you in every room.

Most founders say they want the second.

Then spend every day optimizing for the first.

And wonder why everyone's waiting for permission.