Do You Really Want to Be the One-Man Show Forever?
This is not a business management question. It is a question about life. Do you want to be the one who always stands at the front, knows everything, decides everything, carries everything? Or do you want a business that keeps breathing even when you happen not to be there? I was very young when I first looked inside a business that consisted of exactly two people. An owner who worked. His wife, who kept the numbers in order and managed the customers. Nothing more. Even then, a shiver ran down my spine. Holiday? Difficult. Illness? A catastrophe. Freedom? Nowhere to be found.
The decision
That day, a decision was made: if I ever went into business for myself, it would be differently. I started with three employees, taken over from my mother. Manageable. Personal. Controllable. But I knew: if I didn’t want to fall into that two-person trap, I would have to grow. Not just in heads on the payroll. But in mindset.
Entrepreneurial thinking starts in the mind
Entrepreneurial thinking does not begin with owning a business. It begins in the mind. It is not about who owns the place. It is about how everyone in the team thinks and acts. For the greater whole. Not for their own chair. I began early to involve staff in strategic questions: market changes, investments, pricing structures, processes. Not as an alibi. But seriously.
Those who showed promise for the future were given responsibility. Those who had ideas were given space. I remember clearly how at that time I soaked up the support from the “business management revolution corner” (through Dieter Schneider’s “Marktlücke”) like blotting paper. And when I occasionally look at his later books today, I see they are still quite modern.
When the team thinks along
The team came forward with suggestions: “Boss, we should …” “Why don’t we …?” “I’ve noticed that …” You recognise opportunities. You solve problems. You think beyond your own job. You understand the market, the competition and the brand. A brand is strong not when it depends on the owner, but when it depends on the system. On people who take responsibility. Who are creative. Flexible. Solution-oriented. Who involve even the youngest team members, so that efficiency and scalability are no longer left to chance.
Why this is decisive
Because resilience is not a product of chance. Because innovation does not arise on instruction. Because crises like a pandemic are only survived when many people think along. Businesses with entrepreneurially minded employees react faster. They stay close to the customer. They stay competitive. Not because one person knows everything. But because many people share the responsibility.
From practice
From practice. From mistakes. From further training. We send our apprentices straight to our supplier’s private school. Not for the sake of nice product displays. But for the sake of mindset. Those who learn early to look beyond the horizon think differently. Act differently. Grow differently. Today, my wife and I only fine-tune the controls. Impulses. Corrections. The finishing touches.
True freedom
The engine runs by itself. The team drives the business. Not out of duty. But out of conviction. And that is precisely the true freedom of the entrepreneur: not to do everything yourself, but to create structures in which others think entrepreneurially.
