Running a Business or Making Money? The Difference in Approach Between an Owner and a Hired CEO

#spirituality #selfdevelopment #personaltransformation

Who should manage your business?

Should it be you, or should you hire a team, people who will fully run the business? A huge number of people constantly ask themselves this question, endlessly searching—searching for people who will do things they don’t know how to do; searching for people who will lead the company to incredible results; searching for people when they’re tired of handling everything themselves, feeling strange; or, on the contrary, wanting to always be involved in their business because they think they know it better than anyone, or because they simply want to, or because they can’t find anyone else for the job.

The CEO Experience

I’ve looked at two things that have happened in my life: when I became a CEO (for example, in Megaplan, Business Molodost, GeekBrains, and others), I completely cut everyone else off from management. I took the company under my control and gained total power everywhere. Managing the company, I expanded my influence—independence from other directors, shareholders, my partners. On the other hand, in recent years, I’ve seen myself acting differently: if I join a business, I don’t take an operational role. What do I want to do?

I want to reach a state in this company where I have no control or power, where I simply exist as an owner.

The dream-owner: lying on a couch, relaxing in a lounge chair, doing nothing. That’s the feeling: if you're an owner and not managing, you're in the "couch state." It’s an interesting paradox.

I’ve been in my own business (not counting some early attempts to trade phones in my youth) since 2007, 17 years ago when I first owned something—a software development company. Over the course of 17 years, I’ve observed this: as soon as I gained power and expanded control, other partners (who should theoretically have been fine with this and relaxed according to my current logic) had a strong desire to regain control, which always led to conflicts, problems, arguments. There were always relationship difficulties, a lack of understanding, people pushing their own interests—it happened everywhere.

In 2009, we brought another partner into the company, and at the end of that year, they came to me and said, “We think it makes sense to divide the company into three parts, and each of us will manage our own, growing as both owner and CEO.” I disagreed and left the business.

In 2014, in Business Molodost, Petya Osipov disliked that I had total control over the company so much that he did everything he could to make me stop being the CEO. After that, I said, “Fine, I’ll be just an owner.” But neither Petya nor Misha Dashkiev liked that I was stepping away as just an owner. What’s the deal? It felt like I was disconnecting from the company, even though I was still the owner. They had the chance to step away before—Misha was barely visible in 2013, and Petya in 2014. So it was a perfectly normal, reasonable move.

Management in Different Companies

I had a business, AGRO24, with Andrey Rogachev (the creator of "Pyaterochka," who’s on the Forbes list). I was the CEO, controlling everything. As soon as we decided to bring in a new CEO, I said, “No problem, things will probably run a little differently with a new CEO.” We immediately had a conflict.

I managed GeekBrains. Some shareholders liked that I had total control of the company, never bothering them, never asking or consulting them, creating my own processes, teams, structures. Other top managers were irritated and frustrated, as they couldn’t stand watching it because they wanted the same level of control. Usually, nothing good comes out of this. And other shareholders thought there was too much total control, thinking that if I didn’t follow their rules, it couldn't work. What was that about?

Meanwhile, when I enter another business, people often have certain expectations that I’ll get heavily involved. I ask them, “Are you sure you want me to get deeply involved? If I do, I’ll have a lot of control, I’ll start implementing my own processes, and it’ll be very difficult for you internally. Do you really want that?” If I start getting more involved, they say I’m being too controlling, that’s not what they want, people react differently. Okay, I’ll back off. But when I’m not too involved, they tell me I’m not engaged enough, not fully present.

"You Work Too Much"

I immediately think of my mom when I used to work a lot, always waking up early, arriving at the office before everyone, and leaving very late. My mom would say I work too much, that I should spend more time with my kids. I’d tell her, "I don't work on weekends, I rest a lot, meet with everyone." Mom would respond, “You still work too much." It seemed that way—lots of meetings, businesses, tasks. But mom insisted.

Then there came a time, in 2015, when my mom noticed something else. She called me and said, “Sasha, you’re resting too much, you can’t just keep resting.” I replied, "Mom, make up your mind: do I work too much or too little? Do I rest too much or too little? Is there any middle ground, or are you always looking for something to criticize?"

The thing is, happiness for your kids isn’t about how much time you spend with them, happiness in a partnership isn’t about how much time you spend together, and results in business aren’t about how much time you dedicate.

There’s a unique way to figure out the right balance: should I be managing the business, or should this partner manage it? Should I be the owner or not?

I have a mentoring group called V100—there are 100 people, and I launched it three months ago. You can ask me endless questions there; the monthly subscription isn’t expensive.

When to Decide to Leave the Business?

One person asked a very good question: when is the right time to decide to step away from operational activities?

He had built his business as an owner, loved doing it, but in the last few years, it hadn’t been bringing in money. Should he put in a team, a manager, or continue doing it himself? You have to do what you want.

It's important to understand: you managed the business—it made money. Now you’re managing it—it’s not making money. You can keep managing it—it might start making money again, or it might not. If you put people in charge—maybe they’ll do a better job than you, or maybe they won’t.

First and foremost, look at your own state and realize: if you want to work and stay in the business, if you want to keep running it, you can be less competent than any director working for you, who may seem to do a better job than you.

That’s your right, it’s your business. You can be the least competent employee there.

But if you don’t want to run the business, if it makes you feel miserable, but you’re the best director getting results, why continue if it makes you feel bad? Unless you’ve decided that you absolutely need a zone where it doesn’t matter if you feel miserable in the business, as long as it brings in money. Then accept it, stay calm, and earn money through it. On one hand, it makes you feel bad, but on the other, you know you have to do it because some businesses are made just for money, for the sake of having a business and a source of income.

Business for Money or for the Work Itself?

Last week, I was walking with someone here. I live in Silicon Valley, USA, just south of San Francisco. I have four kids, three of them go to school here. We were walking, and he has more than 50 businesses he’s invested in. I remember six months ago, he didn’t want to be in the US. Now I see he has a desire to stay here. But this desire isn’t connected to the country itself, it’s about how he feels: he’s searching for himself, not for a country. It’s important not to confuse the two.

He has a new business idea, and the feeling that he can create something interesting, despite having many businesses as investments, none of them involve his personal engagement, where something exciting is happening. And it’s not hard for him to find this because he’s very limited in his perspective, very set in his ways. He has good results and achievements—this isn’t a good or bad thing, it’s just a strong trait. Plus, he’s 53 years old.

The mere desire to create something that brings results already creates a feeling of inner strength. He wants to do this not because he’s a super-businessman or manager, but because he wants to find something fulfilling. The essence here is no longer just about money. Although, of course, money is always present in terms of fear, illusions, and all the rest.

So, the first thing you need to do in deciding whether to stay as an owner or step into operations is to ask yourself why you’re doing this business at all. What do you want from it? What is your priority, what’s important to you? What are you willing to sacrifice, and what won’t you compromise on? Are you okay with being the owner while the CEO gets all the recognition and success? And you can’t even brag at a business club about how great a businessperson you are?

Notice that in business clubs, people don’t actually look for amazing business owners—they look for people who’ve made a lot of money. In reality, whether you’re a great manager or not doesn’t matter—people will always choose money. Maybe I’m being too blunt, but unfortunately, people choose money. It’s not about how hard you work, how big your vision is, or how much you expand your business—it’s about how much wealth you’ve accumulated. People are far more interested in those who happened to buy land that increased in value or found a mine when prices were rising. They care less if you did something during a downturn—though it doesn’t mean you’re a bad or good manager. The fundamental question is, what’s your most important goal? What will you focus on, and what won’t you?

I have a real estate business in the US. My partner says, “Sasha, I want to be the public face of this business.” He plays the role of CEO. I tell him, “Great! I don’t want to be the public face of real estate, so you become the most well-known figure.” I want to be known in business and human development. I’m interested in large-scale spiritual growth, not real estate development. “You take the spotlight, and I’ll watch from the side, helping where I can without destroying things as an owner.”

A huge number of owners hire a CEO, but then limit their authority so much that the CEO can’t even move. Then they say the CEO was bad and fire them, deciding to manage things themselves. But you were managing things yourself anyway—nothing changed. You just put someone in place to shift some of the responsibility. Moreover, you hired this person, gave them authority, and said they were ready to become an owner, not just a CEO. Why did you do that if you weren’t ready to let go of control?

Here’s a simple, practical step: sit down separately as the business owner (or if you’re the CEO and need to free yourself or make agreements with the owner or partners) and clearly write out simple responsibilities for the CEO, for the owner, or for each owner. Define the roles for each and limit them based on the goals you want to achieve in the business. It’s surprising how many people don’t do this. It’s amazing how diverse our lives and businesses are.