I Can't Let Go of Control - How Do I Trust My Team? - Peer Effect Post Bag

"I'm struggling to let go of control as we grow. How do I trust my team without everything falling apart?"

Elizabeth's question exposes the founder's dilemma: you can't scale by doing everything yourself, but delegation feels terrifying. James Johnson and Freddie Birley tackle the pendulum swing from idealistic trust to micromanagement - and how to find equilibrium.

In this Post Bag episode, James and Freddie explore why founders feel out of control, why that drives destructive behaviors, and how to replace control with clarity and context. They unpack the myth of the perfect culture, why hiring the wrong person can actually be valuable, and what "structured freedom" really means.

Together they unpack:

• Why founders swing from "no KPIs" idealism to micromanagement hell
• The difference between controlling outcomes versus controlling inputs
• How to replace control with clarity, context, and the right rituals
• Why hiring the wrong person can teach you what great actually looks like
• The culture choice: accepting you'll get burned sometimes versus controlling everything

👆 Struggling to delegate without losing control? Send your founder questions to hello@peer-effect.com or find Freddie Birley on LinkedIn.

About the Post Bag The Peer Effect Post Bag is where James Johnson and Freddie Birley, both founder and VC coaches, answer real questions from founders navigating the chaos of building and scaling businesses. No fluff, just frameworks that work.

More from James:

Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Peer Effect post bag. I'm James Johnson, joined by Freddie Burley. We asked for your questions, and Freddie and I are going to tackle them together. These aren't theoretical case studies. It's the stuff that's keeping up at 2 a.m. Let's get answering. Well, let's let's let's jump onto Elizabeth's question now. Amazing. So, this is a good one. I'm struggling to let go of control as we grow. How do I trust my team without everything falling apart?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

This is such a good one. And I feel like this is something that a lot of my clients and I'm sure yours can relate to. What do you see coming up in your sessions?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Well, I think this idea of control is quite an interesting one because I've I I feel a lot of my clients feel out of control. Yeah. And therefore they look for ways to to grab it, which often is not. I mean, I do think I do think that our clients should should be in control, but I think it means something slightly different as you as you scale. Yeah. And I think how you maintain that control while trusting people is a really key balance to get right. Because if you try and get that control from micromanagement or through sort of really sort of tight systems or just some micro behaviors, it can just I think tie yourself out and it can tie your team out. Yeah. Whereas actually you can do it through like invisible invisible systems and you can do it through trusting the right people and sort of um categorizing people effectively. Yeah. I think for me, I think that's the big one. It's kind of like if you've got the right people on your team and you know who you're delegating to, you can let go more and do it in a in a control thing. Yeah. And I've really seen this kind of transition with founders. Often they come in and they start being very kind of idealistic. They'll start the business and they go, Oh, in my business is going different, we're not gonna have KPIs or other stuff. We're just gonna like, I can trust people, they'll they'll hire great people, they'll do great work, and it's gonna be this paradise. And then they end up where like nothing happens, people are confused, yeah, and it's actually it doesn't work. And then they kind of flip to the to the opposite, like, oh well, people are rubbish, they suck. I need to I need to micromanage them, I need to be on top of everything. And then eventually they get to kind of this equilibrium of kind of structured freedom where it's kind of very yeah, kind of there are boundaries, you've been very clear as the founder, you you've good hiring processes, you check in on people to make sure they're not struggling and doing good work.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

And that's where you want to, that's where you want to get to.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, a hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. I I see that pendulum switch as well. And then this kind of equilibrium in the middle almost, which is dynamic and ever-moving. But I think when you replace control, that desire to control things that are fundamentally out of your control, which is generally like people and their behavior and their output. You can't control what they're doing, but you can control inputs like hiring for competence and hiring for uh behaviors that align with your organization or your company or your team. Um, and I think about switching up the control more for clarity. So, how can you create a sense of clarity in your team around what great looks like, exactly as you described, rituals that allow you to check in with people in a way that's empowering as opposed to disempowering. Um, but also that sense of context. So, why are you doing what you're doing? Why is it important? How do they feel like do they feel connected to the broader mission and the purpose of the company and the purpose of their role? So trying to switch up control for clarity and context, and then being really strict with yourself about controlling your controllables. So you want to like invest, give your best energy to what's in your control, but then actually their performance and their outputs are actually out of your control. And so then it's it's acknowledging that and then giving feedback where feedback's due. Sometimes it's performance management, like, but that those systems you can control, but you you can't control a lot about people.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, so you all you can control is yourself. Totally. Right? So are you being clear? Yeah. Are you holding people accountable? Yeah. Like, have you brought in good people? Yeah. Are bad people leaving? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

So actually, often the starts like kind of that thing when, oh, my team, I haven't got the right team. I haven't that they're not doing what I need them to do. Yeah. And I think the question always starts, okay, well, start if it starts with you, what what can you do differently? Yeah. What can you control? And it's there, I think there's a lot more we can control in terms of how we set up our week, how we communicate, like how we set up the team, the operating rhythm of a business.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That increases our chances of success. Yeah. But I agree, you can't you can't control his behaviours, their lives. Like, yeah. And therefore that if that's your expectation, you're gonna be spending a lot of time like looking at people's emails and doing all sorts of stuff that is really probably not gonna build a company that you want.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

A hundred percent. And just taking like full responsibility for those conditions almost, um, and then adapting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Well, I was I was having this conversation with this client yesterday around how you what what are you willing to accept as a culture in terms of you can set up your culture and go, okay, I want to control everything. Or do you go, okay, well, I I I accept I can't control everything, but I'm I know the benefit that I get from empowering the right people. Yeah. It means occasionally I'm gonna get burnt though, because someone sometimes it's gonna be the wrong person. Yeah. And they're gonna come in and they're gonna misuse the freedom and they're gonna and actually they're gonna but you need to trust yourself that actually the benefit from the culture that you want is greater. Yeah. And that you can course correct and change that person when you identify them.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

It's so true. And if you have the right processes in place or the right uh structure in place, even when you do have a challenging performer or someone who's very culturally misaligned, often it can be a great it they can bring gifts with them too, of like helping you understand what great looks like and what you don't want to create, and also giving the team an example of what's misaligned and what's aligned, and it can be quite a helpful almost like sense checker. Yeah. Um, and also it calls parts of it's hard managing challenging people in your team and kind of fighting the nuance of is it bad enough? Is it like where like that? I I think often it really challenges you to become way more self-aware and way more clear about what you really want and what's important and what works and what doesn't work. Um, but it can be quite a brutal process moving through it.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

I totally agree, Freddie. This this has been I've really enjoyed this episode of Pure Effect Postbag. Um I hope you keep on sending in such good questions. I mean, I think those are three really good ones.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

They're really rich, and I think questions that a lot of founders are going to relate to. Um, I also learnt a lot from what you shared, so thank you.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Me too, Freddie, as always. Um, so if people want to send us the questions, uh they can get in touch with me, like James at PeerEffect.com or with you.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, so Freddie Burley, or um that's actually probably the best place. Yeah. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Um what's been your sort of big takeaway from today?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Um interestingly, like sitting in the nuance of um some of these questions around burnout or around um letting go of control. It's not it's not just one framework that can help you get through things. It's it's like sitting in the nuance um and and trial and error and growing through that process. So yeah, I've really enjoyed it. Thank you. What's your takeaway?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I think it's just that you you hear these that one question from someone, you probably hear that question like repeatedly throughout the year from different clients. But each each time the question comes up, there's a there is a different nuance to it, there's a different backstory to it. So it's never really it's not really a cook over, oh this happens, do this.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

There is just found all founders are going through a similar experience, but they're ex what they're experiencing there is very different.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, yeah. And always that in coaching, always reminded of how similar we are, like the fundamentals of humans are so similar, but then the way it manifests in the world is so different. So, yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

My pleasure. Look forward to seeing the next one.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yes, we do.