One idea to Build your Business, one idea to Scale your life. Every Wednesday.

Welcome to Winformation Weekly. My 13 years’ experience of growing a business from £0-£100m, and the life that goes with it. All wrapped up, in one winning weekly email.

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Business

Netflix CEO's Secret to Success: 5 Game-Changing Tips from an Unexpected Book

A few years ago, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was on stage at Stamford University in America. A question from the budding entrepreneurs and future CEOs in the audience was “if you were sat where we were now and you wanted to build a huge impactful business, what is the first thing you would do?” His answer? “Memorise the first 86 pages of the book Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 by Jim Collins”. But before you raid the library for it, here are my top five takeaways from that very book: 

1. Discipline is your friend, not your enemy. Success, when boiled down to its core, is a matter of conscious choice and discipline. When thoughts and actions are guided by discipline throughout an organisation, then businesses can become great.

2. Recruit well. I would say that, wouldn’t I! But it’s true. Your team needs to share the values of your business. By hiring well and retaining good people, it becomes easier to move forward and succeed together.

3. Visionary leadership. While day-to-day work and the details within that are key to all businesses being successful, Collins points to the importance of being focused on achieving a legacy. It means setting a clear purpose for the business and inspiring those working in it to very much come along for the ride. This requires leaders to be able to effectively create and communicate a compelling vision, that can be used to guide decisions.

4. Consistent actions. Collins talks about the flywheel concept, in which he highlights how small, consistent actions build momentum and exponential growth, and that focusing on this rather than putting energy into quick, easy wins is better for your business in the long run.

5. Stimulate progress. Consistent action and discipline doesn’t need to be dull, quite the opposite. Within that stable environment, it’s about always looking to innovate. Again, you can still be guided by your values, this is about continually thinking how you can improve and adapt.

Life

5 Tips: Learn How to Delegate Like a Pro and Watch Your Team Thrive

I was once a terrible delegator. Terrible, as in, I never delegated. I thought that by doing things for my team, things they could be doing, I was saving them time, and also me an awkward conversation to ask them to do something. The penny dropped around five years ago when a team member questioned if I trusted them. I was shocked, because of course I trusted them, but when reflecting on this it turned out I was doing 90% of the tasks I should have delegated to them. They actually wanted extra responsibilities. When I realised this, my whole outlook...and outcome changed. Here are 5 steps to delegate effectively, release yourself of the stress and allowing the team to develop.

1. Focus on your strengths. If you hate compiling spreadsheets and aren’t much cop at it either, then give the task to someone who is and enjoys it or could enjoy it given the opportunity. Your days should be filled with what you excel at, what you enjoy and what the best use of your time is from an ROI perspective. Anything else needs to be delegated.

2. Still provide support. Delegating doesn’t mean washing your hands with that piece of work, it doesn’t mean micro-managing team members either. They want the autonomy, with some support on top, so best to set time aside to review how your colleagues did with a set piece of work. It enables them to be accountable, and gives you the chance to provide feedback to enable them to further develop.

3. Forget the to do list, because delegating is less about ticking a box and more about trying to achieve a set outcome. That should be what you delegate. While you may give some guidance, if necessary, on what the boundaries are in achieving that outcome, the delegated work will be more rewarding and likely to provide better results when framed this way.

4. Set clear expectations. From the off set, make sure you are crystal clear on what you are asking for when you delegate. This means the person understands the desired outcome required, the resources available to them and the deadlines involved. If they still have questions, make yourself available to them.

5. Think on who you delegate to. Every team will have someone who can be trusted to rattle through work, but that doesn’t mean they are always the right person to delegate to. Going down this route means high performers could fill their time with low level responsibilities. Ask yourself if anyone else could benefit from being delegated to.

…Plus More!

The Biggest Lie of 2024: Why 'Putting Yourself First' Won't Make You Successful

Maybe it’s just my algorithm but it seems that every other insta caption these days follows a very similar theme. We’ve all seen them hundreds of times by now. To be successful, you need to focus on you. Saying no to others, being selfish with your time, filling up your own cup, etc, etc on and on. It really is my belief that this is one of the biggest mis sold theories of 2024. The world simply doesn't work that way. I have built what I’ve built by being of total service to others. You need to serve your clients, your team and everyone you come into contact with for a decade or more before that value comes back to you financially. It’s exhausting, it’s tiring, people take advantage of you, but in the end? Worth it. The people that post all this 2024 “put you first” stuff that the nation seems to be buying into are usually one of two people. They are either 10-15 years into this journey and already very wealthy and can now naturally pick and choose what they commit their time to. If they are you need to copy the behaviors that got them to the top, not their behaviors once they go there. Or, secondly, they (and this is the most common one) haven't built anything of any real note and simply don’t understand the relentless process that’s required to win long term. When it comes to taking advice from this second group, just scroll past.

Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!