Generally speaking, small business owners are emotionally attached to their business. We build it up, sometimes from less than nothing; we nurture it, develop it and sometimes strangle it. Like any baby or child that inevitably grows up, sometimes we don’t know when to let go or we let go too much.

It’s a confusing situation, complicated by finance and entangled by feelings that are fuelled by fear. Fear of the “what if” - what if you take a step back and the business suffers, what if you run out of ideas, what if you find a challenge that can’t be defeated? What if you actually stop mothering your business and it flourishes, does that mean you were holding it back?

I have been an owner for over 25 years; I believe I have been through just about every scenario an owner / operator can experience. Tragedies, comedies, triumphs, disasters, diabolical people, perplexing finances, angst filled days and months and the usual day to day challenges of merely existing. But mothering my business has not been something I identified until recently. I have mothered my various teams for years, identified and rectified this approach just as many years ago; however I honestly believed that I had never mothered my business. This from the person who has always claimed that each business has its own soul and personality and knew what it needed to grow if only we would listen to it. They do say that pride comes before fall.

I refused to believe that my business was being mothered; I had after all stepped back. I had delegated, established procedures, organised every aspect. In short, I had a business in a bubble. I had forgotten what I brought to the business - the X factor that comes from truly knowing your business, and assumed that operations would just continue the way it did with me when I was hands on. I was the absent parent who didn’t leave an emergency contact. I had replaced me in operations but I hadn’t left them a bit of me. This isn’t an ego trip. I am not saying that I am the soul or the inspiration, but I am saying that my type of business needs a “me”. My key team needed a little bit of “me” in order to grow. This meant looking after and encouraging them to think like me about the business, to get them to look at the business through my eyes, to develop my business and make it ours.

The result: I included them in the good times (which I always had) but more importantly, I included them in the bad. I didn’t shelter them from the realities of business and how it could affect them. I had always avoided sharing any negatives, believing that it would make them unhappy and unproductive. I also believed that the business and the team were separate. I was wrong. Big fat wrong. They became more productive, shared their thoughts and ideas and actually eased my emotional load. They don’t need me to hold their hand, but I need them to hold mine sometimes.

See also Little VIVO Lady’s blog “Your Business Mother” - http://blog.vivocafe.com.au

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