I’m not such a big fan of that word actually. Management is understood by many to signify a guiding hand around the shoulder, some gentle advice about which direction to take, or maybe some constructive feedback on what could be improved. That’s all textbook “Management 101.” Well, you might as well throw that book out of the window for all I care. 
Too much caring guidance, gentle advice and constructive feedback and you have turned into a dictator. You hire great people, and then you mould them in your own image. That can’t be a good thing if you want a healthy and progressive business, but it isn’t half good for the ego to have an army of “mini-me” clones to do your bidding.
No, there is another way, and it doesn’t involve your business descending into anarchy. 
It all starts with getting the right characters in the door. People pay lip service to recruitment being a crucial piece in the corporate jigsaw puzzle, but many don’t take it anywhere near seriously enough. If you take on the right people for your business, you will have far less managerial “challenges.” Not every hire turns out to be a superstar, but if you don’t aim to take the best people on and let them loose to do the best possible job, you will never fulfil your potential as a business.
Once they are in the door, you need to ensure that they are free to learn from each other and that they in no way feel compelled to follow your lead. The buzzword of the current decade is disruption, and when people are empowered to think for themselves, there is a possibility that a few of them will come up with better ideas than you. Trust me, that is no bad thing. Letting go of the destiny of your business like this is far from easy, but it is my firm experience that the returns are worth the loss of “control.” People have so much more fun when they don’t feel like puppets on pieces of string. When you have fun, you get stuff done.
Now for the “sanity check.”  People can’t just fly off on their tangent into orbit, there do have to be a few guidelines and strategies agreed to ensure that the company remains on the right path, but if the employees own these plans, then they will grow organically as the company requirements change. When people are allowed to fly, the company flies with them.
This might mean that I am not aware of the minutiae of everything that goes on, but frankly I trust people to do the best job for our company to the best of their abilities. I will still adjust the tiller of the yacht every now and again, but I do feel blessed to have some of the best crew in the business.
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Richard Prime is one of the former directors of SThree and co-founder of a recruitment finance provider challenging the banks. With 15 years of field experience in recruitment, Richard went on to set-up Sonovate to overcome the barriers involved with financing and running contractors.