Letting Go Without Losing Control

Ever tried stepping back from the day-to-day, only to watch things start slipping through the cracks?

In this episode of The Profit Builder Unscripted, I talk about a question I hear from nearly every business owner at some point:
“How do I stay in control without being in the middle of everything?”

I’ll walk you through five steps that can help you delegate without losing traction, let go without losing control, and lead without micromanaging.

These are proven steps I use with my clients and in my own business.

You’ll hear:

• What needs to be clearly defined before handing anything off
• How position agreements build accountability and ownership
• Why regular check-ins, when done correctly, keep projects on track
• The power of simple, consistent feedback (it’s easier than you think!)
• And why trusting the process is key to long-term success

I’ll also share a real conversation I had with a client who was right in the middle of this transition.

If you’ve been struggling to step back while still driving results, this episode is for you.

Here's the link to the resource I mentioned in this episode to Build Your Dream Team.

Resources:

• Want to increase your profitability? Grab my book “The Profit Bleed.“
• Looking to grow your construction business? Check out our exclusive group "The Contractors Collective.”
• Want employees to take more ownership? Check out our course - “Build Your Dream Team.”
• Are you struggling to hire the right people? Check out our “Contractors Hiring Blueprint” course.

Connect with Vicki on social media:

• YouTube: Vicki Suiter
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickisuiter
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuiterBusinessBuilders

If you love listening to this podcast, please leave a review in Apple Podcasts.

Transcript

If you're wondering how to maintain control in your contracting business without being in the middle of the mix all the time, make sure to listen to this episode, because that's exactly what we talk about. Hi, I'm Vicki Suiter, and welcome back to the Profit Builder Unscripted.

Today in a meeting with a client of mine, he asked this really awesome question that I just felt compelled to share with you what I shared with him because I hear this a lot from people and I've actually recently experienced this for myself and my business and that is how do you maintain control and not be in the middle of the mix of everything without micromanaging, without having to check every detail and how do you get people the, how do you know that people are doing a job well without being in the middle of it and being in the mix of it? 

And how do you let go of control without things just kind of getting unraveled? And what I loved about this question was that, first of all, it's a question that resonated with me with something that happened earlier this week, but it's a question that I get a lot from business owners who are trying to grow their business to the next level.

You know, as a contractors, whether you're a general, a subcontractor, a designer, an architect, like everybody reaches a certain point in your, in your growth where you have to trust your team to be able to get things done without you and without us being in the middle of the mix. And that the only way that we can do that with the confidence that somebody's doing a good job and with the confidence that they're, they're going to be successful at that and that they're not going to make a huge, well, they will make mistakes because everybody makes mistakes, but that you know as a leader that they're doing their job, that they're getting their job done. 

And I will share with you what I shared with this client and many people over the years and that I had to remind myself about this week, which is the very first thing that you need to do is to be super clear about

What are the deliverables? What are the results that you want somebody to produce in that job so that they and you are really clear about that it's not just about effort or doing the task at hand or helping you get something done, but that you actually, if you want people to take the lead on something, if you want them to own a result, you need to tell them what that is. And it needs to be measurable because the thing about results is that if they're not measurable, they can't be managed not by you and not by them So what my first suggestion to him? 

It was Zack who I was talking to I've worked with Zack for almost five years now and he started this business about five years ago and he's just about at that point where He's really as you know, he's really Unable to have all these things go through him anymore and he's really developing his team to take on more so that he can focus on marketing and business development. 

He can focus on systems and process. And the other thing I reminded him of is that at this point in his growth of his business, that his job is really changing. That his job is changing from one of managing and making sure that, being the technician of making sure that all the work gets done.

that the job changes as our businesses grow and we shift roles from being a technician to being the one who actually leads and develops people in systems and processes. Because that's the point at which you start to be able to have a business that can grow. That's the point when you have the ability to have a business that can function without you being in the middle of the mix. And where you can focus your time and energy and effort into other things that are better serving to help you grow your business. 

So this first step of defining what are the results you're after are really important so that they and you know, well, what am I managing to? So as an example, we talked about a project manager. And I said, for a project manager, when you think about it, we live in the world of construction, which is all about on time, on budget as promised. So if it's a project manager, they're top three key deliverables, which is always a good place to start in any position.

Choose the top three most important things that they need to do to be successful at their job. So that is managing cost, managing a schedule, and managing the client. All right, so it's on time, on budget as promised. So managing schedule is critical. And so you then decide, okay, how often should our schedules be updated by that project manager? That's the first thing.

Second thing, cost to complete, knowing in terms of the cost of a project, where have you been, where are you now, and where are you headed? Always that those three things are critical. And the same thing goes for a schedule, right? That that's what a schedule and doing cost to complete is going to allow you to do. And the third piece is maintaining that open communication with the client, keeping them informed, staying in front of change orders, staying in front of managing their expectations.

So I said, that's an example of somebody in that position. I said, if we were talking about a foreman as an example, a foreman, those key deliverables might be doing a two week look ahead, making sure that they're lifting their head up from just the day to day, looking up and going, all right, what are the critical things that need to happen in the next two weeks? What schedules need to be subbed? What inspections need to be done? What... You know, what selections need to be made? Is there change orders that have to be signed? Like, what are all the key things that need to be done in the next two weeks? That is what a two-week look ahead does. 

Which, by the way, I'll leave a link below for a free resource that you can download that's a template for doing a two-week look ahead. So two-week look ahead, I said critical for a foreman. I said the other thing is managing labor. So there's two elements to managing labor if you're the foreman who's running the operations on the ground every day with the field.

is looking weekly, two week log heads by the way get done every week, looking weekly at, all right, where are we now in terms of hours burned against the budget? And then how many hours have we got left? And where are we in terms of production? And are we gonna be able to meet our target or not? And how can we get back on target? And then the third piece is, are we setting up at the beginning of every week and every day the crew so that they know here's what our goals are. Here's what we need to get accomplished today or this week or whatever. So those were a couple examples that I gave them. I said, you you want to define what the deliverable is, is the very first step. And then you really need to get a position agreement or job description in place that you and they agree on those key deliverables.

Because when you have agreement with somebody and they understand that that's their job and they've agreed to do it. understand me that sometimes we give people titles and we pay them a paycheck and we say that's your job, but we don't actually define for them what's the criteria for success in that job. And that's the purpose of position agreements or job descriptions.

Is to define that. And when you know the key deliverables, right, step number one, define what those results are that you want. And step number two, get it in a position agreement that they have agreed to and signed off on that has them and you on the same page about, what are we going for? What's the results? I said the third piece is you need to have good feedback. So if you want somebody to be accountable for job hours, then you need to give them that feedback every week to let them see what that is, right? 

So having feedback in place and feedback systems so that that person can manage themselves that part of their job, you need to give them the feedback to let them know how they're doing. I said the fourth thing that you need to do is make sure that you have really clear ⁓ meeting schedules with your team. If you want your team to own the results, you can't just go, Hey, okay, you do it. Cause this is the thing that freaks us out, right? Like we go, like I gave it to them, but I don't know if it's getting done. And, and how do I know if it's getting done right?

And, and, you know, we worry that if we let go of control, if we stop micromanaging, that it's not going to be done the way we want it done or the way that we would do it. Right. That's, this is where the whole rug came in. And this was, you know, Zach's question this morning. And, and I said, so when you define what... what the results are you're after. You get agreement about it. You look at what's the feedback that needs to be in place in order to be able to have them be successful at doing that. And then you meet with them regularly. Every week you have a meeting that at the same time, non-negotiable, stake in the ground. We meet and we go over this. And that person comes prepared to the meeting. If I'm talking about a foreman, every week you have a meeting with the foreman.

The foreman comes to the meeting prepared with a two-week look ahead so that that foreman has thought about and given consideration to, all right, what's going on in the job in the next two weeks that needs to happen? What do I need help with? What do I need input on? What's, you know, so that when you go into the meeting, first of all, you have an agenda. Always, when you go into meetings, have an agenda. And the agenda comes first before all of the drama. And secondly, that
everybody knows how to come prepared so that they're successful in those meetings, take less time. Now, here's the thing. 

Here's what Zach brought up next. He goes, my gosh, well, we do meet. We're not very consistent. Sometimes I cancel, sometimes they cancel. He goes, and it's usually like, it's a fire drill. Like it's all about like all the drama and all the things that are going wrong. I started laughing. go, yeah, that's what we call the eye of the needle.

The eye of the needle is you have to understand that once you start doing this, the drama doesn't all of a sudden go away. Everything that caused the drama in the first place is still gonna be there, but you have to have this process of beginning to plan ahead because when you start to plan ahead, you know what happens? The drama goes away. And I've seen this time and again.

That as business owners that when we learn to do this, when we stop operating out of urgency and emergency, but we start operating from a more planned place and looking ahead, then you stop having the drama, you stop having it all be about emergency. I said, so what you gotta do is just take a deep breath and you need to understand that persistence and consistency is really key and be patient with the process.

And this is where I said, here's step number five. Step number five is your job is to understand that your job is no longer about being the great, awesome, fabulous technician that you are. And your job is to be a mentor, a leader. You got to realize that the process of doing those first four things is a beautiful opportunity to be able to mentor, coach, train, and develop your staff.

So rather than looking at it like, I'm going to do this and then it's going to be, it's going to be different. It's not, it's going to take a little while. It took a while to get the way it is. It's going to take a while to change. So, so number five is be patient with the process because when you're patient with the process and you just take one thing at a time, like maybe one position at a time, and then maybe one process at a time, just be patient with the process and be consistent.

So the five steps we shared, right? So step number one, if you want to develop your team and you want to get out of the middle of the mix of all the major decisions happening with through you, and you want to make sure that you are getting the results that you're looking for when you step away, right? You want to be able to develop your team. Here's the steps. Number one, be really clear about what's the results you're after in that job.

Start with the first three key deliverables. The three, and when I say key deliverables, I mean, if they did nothing else, if they just do these three things, those three things are critical. Two is to get buy-in and agreement with them. And number one also includes, maybe it's start with a position agreement for a foreman. ⁓ That's step number one. Number two, get buy-in and agreement with them so that...

They've agreed to and you agreed to, yeah, that's the job of a foreman. That person has agreed to doing that job. Number three, make sure that you're giving them the feedback they need to be able to be successful at that job. If it can't be measured, it can't be managed. It cannot be managed if it can't be measured. So you need to have it be that there's measurable results that they and you can look at and know if it got done or didn't get done.

And the more clear that is for somebody, the more you're going to empower that person to be able to be successful. Soon as you fall into the realm of kind of vague sort of kind of maybe it's different every time, that's not measurable. So get clear about what the deliverables are. Start to define the top three and then ideally a position agreement. Number two, get buy-in an agreement. Number three, have feedback in place so that they and you can manage by results.

Number four, have regular meetings that are scheduled with that person, your key people, whether that's your project manager, your foreman, your office manager, your estimator, your designer, your marketing person. Have consistent meetings where they show up with the results about what's working and what's not working in hand. Here's a little key about when we talk about deliverables, we talk about results, we talk about feedback.

Ideally, you want it to speak to where you've been, where you are, where you're headed. Because the more that you're operating within the realm of not just looking at historical, which is like looking through a rear view mirror on your car, having feedback that lets you see where you're headed before you get there is the way to be able to create the future that you want, as opposed to always hoping that the past was different.

So feedback, critically important, and then have those meetings scheduled. That's number four. And be consistent. know, part of what I said to Zach today is like, okay, great, you guys schedule those meetings, sometimes you make them, sometimes you don't. The most successful contractors I know, they have a meeting scheduled and they all have an agreement with each other that's called, unless you're sick, your wife's sick, your kid's sick, your mom's sick.

Something disaster has happened unless that one of those things have occurred you're at that meeting both you as the as a manager and them as the employee and Honestly, here's what I'm gonna just tell you I see that the business owners are the worst at this and it's not the employees if you want to get people to produce consistent results you want them to take more ownership start showing up and keeping your agreements with your team start showing up at those meetings like they're the most important thing I guarantee you this will make a huge difference.

Number five, all of this is such a beautiful opportunity for coaching, mentoring, training your team to be able to rise up to their next level of greatness and be able to take on more, to have a greater sense of satisfaction, belonging and mattering in their work, which understand we all fundamentally desire to have. But here's the cool thing.

What you're going to find is you start to develop a team of people that start to take more ownership and give you the foundation on which you can grow your business. People and systems are the two things that are your greatest ability to be able to grow. And part of that process is getting us as leaders out of the middle of the mix so that everything isn't running through us.

And so if you apply those five things in your business, even if you just start with one position, you're gonna start to see a difference. And when you find yourself like, how will I know it got done? Ask yourself this question. What is the measurable result that lets them know that it got done? And how do I have them noticing and paying attention to that?

When I had a conversation with somebody a couple of weeks ago about this, another general contractor, and we were having the same conversation that I had with Zach earlier today, and I said, so, you know, he goes, but I see things that they don't see. I said, that's a great opportunity to create a quality control checklist. I said, how could you do that, right? I said, sometimes what it means, it's getting what's between our two ears.

onto a piece of paper that somebody else can go through and go, yeah, did I do that? Is that flush? Or even a job site cleanup checklist. like, that's an easy one. the cords tied up and is the debris picked up or whatever, right? We seem to sometimes think that, well, people should just know that. Well, people just don't always know that. And so that's part of how we help them be successful in their job is by creating those systems and processes. 

I hope for you, as you're looking to grow your business and you're looking at how do you get out of the middle of the mix, I just want to remind you to consider and think about these things, right? First of all, if you want other people to produce results and you want to know when you can let go, define what those results are.

key deliverables, three key deliverables to start with, and then a position agreement that outlines what's the criteria for success in your business for that job. Second, get by in an agreement with them. It seems like a simple thing. You go, it's their job. Like you're an employee, but you know what? The more you can get by in an agreement with them and get their input on it, the more successful they are going to be in doing that job.

And the less pushback you get, and quite frankly, the easier it's going to be now to get it to stick. Because if they haven't bought into it, it's like pushing a wet rope uphill. Third, get feedback in place. Make sure that you have feedback systems for them and for you to know, is it on track? Is it off track? Is it working? Is it not working? You getting it done? You're not getting it done. Fourth is to make sure that you have regularly scheduled meetings. Don't.

Don't make them negotiable. They are non-negotiable. They happen the same day, same time, every week. Figure out what that is for you and your business and just do it. Fifth, approach this entire process like it is the number one job that you have in growing your business is developing your team. And all of these things are beautiful opportunities to be able to do that and to not go into it like, well, I told you once, how come you're not doing it that way?

It's all an opportunity for refining, for training, for teaching, for coaching, for helping people again, rise up to their next level of greatness. ⁓ I wanna offer to you, I teach a course that's called Build Your Dream Team. And the course is available online. It includes a one hour coaching session with me where I will help you ⁓ kind of tailor how that course goes for you.

so that you can apply it specifically to your business and your positions. Happy to talk with you about a strategy for starting to write position agreements. But it goes through how do you think about key deliverables? How do you write position agreements? How do you get by in an agreement with your team? How do you set up those deliverables and that kind of reporting? And I give you ideas for every position of things that you want to be looking at for every position in your contracting business.

And then there's another module that's about how do you do employee reviews? How do you give them feedback and how do you tie it back to those position agreements? There's a link below. Feel free to check it out. If you have questions, make sure to pop me an email and I am happy to ⁓ answer any questions that you have about it. ⁓ That system and that process of that course called Build Your Dream Team is one that I have used with clients for many years now.

And I am telling you, it has created huge success and has answered and addressed this issue that Zach and I were talking about earlier about how do you develop your team? How do you get out of the middle of the minutiae, in the middle of the day to day and trust that things are getting done? And that's really what this whole course talks about. So feel free to check that out.

And if you like this video and if you want to hear more like it, make sure to hit the subscribe button and feel free to share it with other people that you know. And thanks for listening. Thanks for being here, part of this community. And I look forward to seeing you next time on the Profit Builder Unscripted.