u/FieldOps_Mike

Not talking about a bad week or a difficult client. I mean the kind where something breaks and you realize your whole operation depends on one person, one system, or one assumption you never questioned...

Mine was losing a key crew member mid season with no backup plan. No documentation of what he knew, no one else who could step in. Jobs scheduled, clients expecting us, and I'm scrambling to rebuild something I should've systematized years earlier. The business survived. But those two weeks taught me more about how fragile my operation actually was than any good month ever did. Curious what yours was and whether it changed how you built things after.

Asking bc I'm in the middle of this right now and it's uncomfortable.

For years my default was: problem comes up, I fix it. Fast, clean, done. And honestly I was good at it. That's probably why it took me so long to realize it was the problem. Every time I jumped in and solved something, I was basically telling my team consciously or not... that I didn't trust them to handle it. So they stopped trying. Why would they?

Started forcing myself to sit on things for 24 hours before stepping in. First week was painful. Couple things didn't get resolved the way I would've done it. One situation got a little worse before it got better.

But my team started making calls they never would've made before. For those of you who made this shift, how long before it actually felt normal?? And did you ever find a situation where you genuinely shouldn't have held back???

Not just another pair of hands. Someone who could actually make the call when I'm not reachable. I've got decent people. Work gets done. But the moment something unexpected happens, it still comes to me. Always. Last week came out of back to back meetings to 6 missed calls. Nothing on fire. But every single one was someone waiting on me to decide something they probably could have handled. How did you know when the right person was ready? And did you promote from within or bring someone new in?