Are we “muppets”?

It’s a great acronym thought up by business professor Paul Nightingale to describe chronically runty companies. It stands for “Marginal Undersized Poor Performance Enterprises”.

Britain produces quite a few muppets. In 2015, according to The Economist,* there were just over 608,000 new start-ups in Britain, which is impressive.

The thing is, though, hardly any take off. Fewer than 4% of UK start-ups have ten or more employees after their first decade in existence.

Compared to Britain, America does better at creating high-growth companies, defined as companies with more than ten employees that grow by at least 20% over three years in revenues or staff numbers.

Why is this? I think it’s a delegation problem. From decades in business and business coaching, I see so many executives down in the weeds of others’ detail, checking, policing, monitoring and fixing.

Instead of looking up and latching on to exciting, stretching goals, they’re burning themselves out propping up the status quo – and disempowering their people by limiting their accountability.

(I observe the same dynamic in underperforming teams within companies.)

Delegation is about unleashing the talent that is already there around you, so that great things start happening, even if it’s not you doing them.

More on the art and potential of delegation here.

* “Time to end the muppet show”, The Economist (2016), December 10–16.