AB: All-Round Nice Guy

As of June 2006, there were almost 2 million businesses in Australia, and almost 2 out of 3 of those are single-person businesses - the solopreneurs, if you like. A proportion of these businesses must be contractors working for a company as a contracted employee, but the vast majority are people like, well, you and me - soloists who have a niche, and are actively making a go of their business…

…but what happens when soloist turns into… soloist, plus one?

Obviously, you’re doing something right, so my hearty congratulations - but suddenly, some major selling points of being a solo businessperson turn into a real surprise: whereas before, you didn’t have to have meetings with yourself, or write down internal memos from your marketing department to your accounting department - now, suddenly, you have to hand stuff over to your new employee. Very scary stuff.

But how do you get your knowledge out of *your* brain, and into the hands of your new staff? For that matter, this is just as important if you’re in a client/service relationship or even if you’re in a parent/child relationship - so take heed all ye bosses/clients/parents!

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Three ways to handover: Verbal briefs, Brief briefs, and the Long brief.
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Verbal briefs are both a good thing and a bad thing: the good thing is that, if understood correctly, the person receiving the information by definition *has* to be able to grasp it to be able to run with it. To explain it another way, when I’m conducting training, I hand out comprehensive notes, but these notes are almost always for later reading - when I’m training a class, if I can’t get the concept across verbally, then no amount of follow up notes will ever help. Summary: if you can make a verbal handover ’stick’, then it should always ’stick’.

The danger of the verbal instructions, however, are 1) that if the person you’ve just given a brain dump to has nodded their agreement, when in fact they didn’t understand a word you said, that’s a problem. And 2) if there was a shortcut to be had, or something you didn’t make really clear, be guaranteed that the person receiving the handover will find that loophole, and explore it. In the choice between conspiracy or stuff-up, those kind of ‘loophole explorations’ will almost certainly be of the ’stuff-up’ kind, but since it wasn’t written down, you’re the one in the wrong.

Brief briefs begin to get across the salient points in written form, but never overbearingly so. Sometimes, the back of the envelope sketch is enough to convince a client that you’re on the right track with their project. More often, a few pages of honest and plainly-phrased text can outline a process to your staff, or a tender pitch to a client - that can win you admiration for your own clarity of thought, and win you acclaim for your bravado in not writing an overly technological or marketing-speak novel…

…which leads me into the final option - the Long brief. I’ll assume you already know where I’m heading with this one, and simply say that if you feel the need to write a 100-page response to a small tender, or a 40-page corporate safety manual for your first employee, then maybe you’re a little over eager. There comes a time where if you can’t get your message across in a few pages, then adding an extra 30 pages might not be of any more assistance.

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Don’t be a Helicopter Parent/Client/Boss
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What’s a Helicopter Parent/Client/Boss? Answer: someone who ‘hovers’ over their child/design studio/staff member and who swaddles them in so much cotton wool, that it’s impossible to actually get a result from said child/design studio/staff member. It’s a buzzword, sure, but it’s a really vivid reminder whenever you ask someone to do something - to then actually let them go and do it!

Here’s the important lesson of the day: for the expanding solo business person; for any/all parents; or for a business using another business in professional service role - there’s a reason why we’re the ones doing the hand over, and there’s a reason why we chose the person we’re giving the information to.

The reason why *we’re* the one doing the handover is so that we can move on to the things we really do best. For small business owners, that’s to start to detach yourself from *being* the business, and begin to *grow* the business. For a business using outsourced professional services, your main aim is to keep your focus on your own core speciality, and let your professionals come in with their own speciality. And for parents, well, that’s just as simple: the plan for you is to give your kids the best advice possible, and then to let them go and explore the world themselves.

The reason why *we chose* somebody to assist us with our business is because we saw some important skills and work ethics that we liked in that person or team - we hired them, so now we should trust them, and enjoy the fresh perspective that they can bring to your business. Sure, your junior staff may play different music on the radio than you usually do, and a new professional service provider will do things in a different order and manner than the last one - but as long as you can keep yourself focussed on your niche/skillset/core business, and you can consistently and concisely handover your ideas to your staff/team/firm or child, then you’re on the road to becoming both a good manager, and a successful businessperson.

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Yes, I know - and if all else fails, there’s always the Post-It note on the computer screen to really get your message across. 300 sheets for $2.47 this week at Officeworks, if you really must know.

AB out