I have been on holiday this week up in the Lake District and for the first 2 days I found the lack of internet and phone signal extremely stressful.  I don’t know if you, like me, are constantly connected. I need this to keep my peace of mind. I check my emails last thing before I go to bed because I don’t want to wake up to some disaster.  I check my texts constantly and then when I am bored I might spend 5 minutes checking out what my friends are up to on FB, or playing Candy Crush. 

To be put in a situation of not being able to do anything I normally spend much of my time doing – answering emails, looking something up on Google, firing off random questions to my staff as they occur to me – was very stressful.  I got that feeling – you know the one – when you think you have left the gas burner on – but you are half way down to London on a train and can’t do anything about it.  It’s a lack of control – which is hard to take for a control freak. 

But then we went out somewhere that did have a signal and I was able to catch a few emails and message the office.  And guess what I found. …  Yeah you know it.   They were sorting everything out without me.  Now maybe when I get back in on Monday everything wont have been done exactly how I would have done it.  Maybe someone will have made a mistake and had to sort it out themselves.  Maybe they had to go out of their comfort zone a bit and do something they weren’t used to.

But guess what again?  They will have coped – they might have done it better than I would have, and they will certainly have learned from the stepping up process.

I have learned that I have a great bunch of people working for me that I can rely on to do their jobs, and a bit more.   And I thought that maybe I should do that a bit more.  Perhaps if I trust them to get on with it and sort things out, then I can spend my time doing the stuff that really grows the business – working ON the business and not IN it all the time.

So.  Just maybe.  You, like me, will be able to go on holiday and let go a bit.  And if you don’t have people in your business you can delegate it to then outsource it – to the right people.  For example – with staffing and recruitment issues we act as HR department for several of our customers who don’t have the in house skills to manage the recruitment process or draw up employment contracts for example. 

It really is very liberating to know you have left things in safe hands.  What can you delegate or outsource to someone else to give you the head space you need?

Till soon

Carole Fossey