I have a lot of conversations with business owners who, on paper, are doing fine.
The business is trading.
There’s work coming in.
The team looks capable.
And yet, privately, they’ll say something like:
“I don’t know why this feels so hard.”
That sentence matters.
Because most of the time, the issue isn’t effort. These owners aren’t lazy. They’re not short of ideas. And they’re certainly not avoiding responsibility.
The issue is that the business has quietly become too dependent on them.
More decisions come back to the owner than should.
More problems land on their desk.
More thinking happens in their head, not in the business.
At first, this feels like leadership. Then it feels like pressure.
What makes this particularly tricky is that the signs don’t show up all at once. Revenue can still grow. The team can still look busy. From the outside, everything appears to be moving forward.
But internally, something feels off.
The business feels heavier than it should.
When that happens, the instinctive response is usually to push harder. Work longer. Stay closer to everything. Be more involved “for now” until the next milestone is reached.
The problem is you can’t push your way out of a design issue.
Most businesses aren’t designed intentionally. They evolve. They grow around clients, opportunities, and people. What worked brilliantly at one stage quietly stops working at the next.
The result is a business that technically functions — but only because the owner is compensating for the gaps.
Holding decisions together.
Carrying risk.
Providing clarity when systems don’t.
Over time, that creates pressure.
And pressure is a signal. It’s information. It’s the business telling you that the way it’s set up no longer fits the size or complexity it’s reached.
The owners I see regain control aren’t the ones who find more motivation or energy.
They’re the ones who step back and redesign how the business works.
They ask better questions:
- Why does this keep coming back to me?
- Where is responsibility unclear?
- What am I holding together personally that the business should be able to handle?
Those questions don’t get answered in the middle of a busy week. They require space, perspective, and sometimes a slightly uncomfortable level of honesty.
But they’re worth asking.
Because businesses don’t stall because owners stop caring.
They stall because the way they’re designed stops serving them.
And the shift from pressure to control doesn’t come from doing more.
It comes from doing things differently — on purpose.
By Andy Walter
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