For everything we don’t like to do, there is someone out there who is really good, wants to do it, and will enjoy it. — Josh Kaufman
As entrepreneurs, we wear our packed schedules like badges of honor. We pride ourselves on being involved in every detail, making every decision, and solving every problem; but if your business can’t function without your constant involvement, you haven’t built a business. You’ve built a prison.
The truth is, complexity is the enemy of execution. The more you try to do everything yourself, the less time you have to do the things that actually move your business forward. You become a bottleneck. Growth stalls. Innovation dies. And you? You’re exhausted.
Less than a third of employees are truly engaged at work, and it’s costing us all over $9 trillion a year. How engaged are you in the work that only you can do?
What Would You Do With More Time?
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine this: What would you do if you suddenly had ten more hours each week? I mean, can you imagine?
Would you spend more time selling and closing deals? Would you build and nurture your team? Maybe you’d have deeper, more meaningful conversations with clients, or research new opportunities and markets. Perhaps you’d dream big about where your business could go. Or maybe, just maybe, you’d simply be still.
Those ten hours exist. They’re just buried under tasks someone else could, and should, be doing.
This is exactly what we explore in the Women’s Entrepreneurial Fellowship—the 10-Year Shift takes you out of the day-to-day and helps you think ahead. Instead of being buried in operational tasks, you start focusing on where your business needs to go, not just where it is today.
Building a business that runs without you isn’t just about freeing up time. It’s about positioning yourself to lead with vision rather than react to every fire that needs putting out.
But here’s the thing: you can’t step back if there’s no one to step up. That’s where finding and developing the right people becomes the most important work you’ll do as a leader.
Finding the Right Talent
Lisa Cooper, founder of Cooper People Group, joined us the Women’s Entrepreneurial Fellowship this month to share her expertise on building strong teams and navigating the hiring and onboarding process. With years of experience helping businesses find and develop the right people, her insights are ones any business owner can put to work right away.
The solution isn’t just working harder. It’s about building the right structure and finding the right people. Structure first, people second. Before you hire, get clear on what roles your business needs. Where are the gaps? What work is essential but not getting done because you’re stretched too thin?
Finding great people doesn’t happen by accident. Look internally first. Leverage your network. Build your employer brand. Tell a compelling story about your company’s purpose and what it means to be part of it.
Top candidates are interviewing you harder than you’re interviewing them. The moments that matter most are your job post, your first response, the interview itself, your hiring decision, and how you close the loop with every candidate.
Hiring is just the beginning. The number one goal of effective onboarding is to ensure your new hire feels that joining your team was the best career move they ever made. Connection and community create belonging, and belonging is what keeps people.
Maximum Impact
Once you have the right people in place, your role shifts from doing everything to enabling everything.
Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance. As a leader-coach, your job is to care for your teammates, organize them into their sweet spot, align them around the organization’s purpose, challenge them to reach their full potential, and help them reach their goals.
Keep your team aligned by consistently communicating purpose, plans, progress, and problems. People want and deserve feedback. Most teams don’t fail because people are lazy—they fail because expectations are fuzzy and consequences are inconsistent. But equally important: catch them doing it right. Reinforced behavior gets repeated.
When you invest in your people through coaching, development, and genuine care, the results compound. Culture strengthens. Engagement rises. Retention increases. Your business becomes sustainable.
The question isn’t whether you can do something. The question is whether you should. Just because you started your business doing everything doesn’t mean you should continue doing everything.
Your business doesn’t need you to do everything. It needs you to do the right things. The things only you can do. Everything else? There’s someone out there who is really good at it, wants to do it, and will enjoy it.
Let them.
Lisa Cooper of Cooper People Group was the speaker for the February WEF Session. She spoke on building strong teams and strengthening your hiring and onboarding processes. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.