Tennis legend, Andre Agassi once said, “Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement.” I couldn’t agree more. Tennis (at least singles tennis) is a lonely sport. But, I must admit, there’s something very exciting about relying on nobody else but myself to defeat the person on the other side of the court who is trying equally as hard to defeat me.
Unfortunately, lately, I’m usually the guy who getting defeated.
After a string of several bad losses, I decided to take some lessons from Chris, a tennis professional at Miller Tennis Center, a local tennis club.
When I met with Chris, he said to me “let’s start out by taking a look at your serve.” He gave me a ball and I served, he gave me another and said “serve again”. He repeated that eight more times and said nothing as he apparently was breaking down the mechanics of every movement I was making.
In the middle of what I believe was my eleventh serve, he said “Freeze!” I stopped mid swing, he said “I want to show you something.” He walked over to me and said, “Look at your forearm”.
I looked at my forearm, saw nothing out of the ordinary and said “what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?”
He said, “Look at the tension in your arm.” From where he was standing (which was about 7 feet behind me), he could see the forearm muscles protruding as I held my racket with a death grip during each serve.
I asked “Is that wrong?” He said, “It is, if you want to serve with more power.” He then said, “It’s common for players to believe that they will have a more powerful serve or even a more powerful stroke at the ball by gripping the racket as hard as they can”.
I said “that’s exactly why I do it.”
He said, “If you want to have a more powerful serve, much more powerful than what you showed me today, you need to do the opposite of what you are doing, you need to release your grip.”
“Release my grip? My racket will slip out of my hands,” I said incredulously.
Chris responded by saying, “I didn’t say to let go of the racket, I said release your grip”.
To prove to me that I can have a far more powerful serve with a looser grip, Chris instructed me to bring my hand down on the racket shaft until I had only two fingers and a thumb holding the racket.
He then said, “Now try serving.”
I was convinced the racket was going to end up on the other side of the court. In fact, I was so focused on keeping the racket from flying out of my hand, the first ball ended up hitting the ground and then bouncing into the net as I awkwardly swung. Several balls later, feeling confident enough that I wasn’t going to lose my racket, the balls began landing on the other side of the court and as I became more comfortable, the balls began landing in the server’s box.
To my amazement, the serves were going in faster and harder than I have ever served and the best part, I was swinging easier than ever before. I wasn’t feeling the strain I would typically feel in my shoulder and arm especially after the repetitive motion of practicing the serve over and over. It was amazing how much we accomplished in one 30 minute class.
At the end of class, Chris said, “Now don’t forget the most important part of the lesson - release your grip.”
Release your grip.
Many successful businesses start with one person, the owner, also known as the solopreneur. This person is typically extremely passionate about the service or product they are selling and when that is combined with the skill and expertise to match the passion, customers end up with a great experience and great results. The customers become raving fans; they tell friends and family and before you know it, the owner has an incredible backlog and a flourishing business.
All along the way, the owner is doing everything from opening the mail, to preparing quotes, to invoicing the customer, to providing the product or service, to throwing out the garbage. Eventually the owner realizes he/she is doing too much and decides to hire employees to handle some of the responsibilities.
Typically, this is where the trouble begins because the owner has a very difficult time transferring ownership of higher level responsibilities to the employees. The owner tends to be convinced there is no one out there that is as effective at accomplishing those higher level tasks so many of these tasks never get transferred to the employees they hired to complete them in the first place.
What tends to transpire is a self-fulfilling prophecy where the owner believes his employees are not as capable so the owner does not give the employee the tasks that the employee was hired to perform. The owner becomes unhappy with the employee because the owner is still performing the tasks that the employee was hired to accomplish. The employee begins to feel equally unhappy because the employee can’t perform the work they were hired to accomplish so they eventually leave. This begins a terrible cycle of very costly employee turnover and a continued belief by the owner that there is no one that can accomplish these tasks like they can.
This situation happens far too often but the owner is right -- there is no one that can accomplish those tasks the way the owner can, however, if the owner actually lets the employee perform the tasks they were hired to do, the owner would quickly realize that the employee will successfully perform the task in their own way and be just as successful or in many cases, even more successful because they have the credentials, experience and background. Release your grip.
When I began my tennis lesson, I had no idea I was gripping too hard until Chris made me aware of it. Most owners (and high level executives) have no idea they’re gripping too hard so if you’re not sure you fall into this category, here are some indications you’re gripping too hard:
You find yourself in a reactionary “put out the fire” mode
The passion you once felt about the business is no longer there
You can’t take a vacation without working (assuming you actually go on vacation)
You find yourself complaining that your employees do not take enough initiative
You complain about all the email cc’s you receive from your team on topics that you don’t feel you should be cc’d on
You don’t have faith in the abilities of one or more of your employees because you have watched them perform a task and it isn’t to your standard
You decide to continue to perform tasks that you should have others do because you believe it would take too much of your time to teach another person
You feel your team is filled with “B” and “C” level employees and not enough “A” level employees
You are the owner, you are the leader, you have created the culture that your employees learn to follow and this ultimately determines how your employees will perform their role. If the culture you create is one of fear of making mistakes, your employees will spend more of their time sending cc’s (and bcc’s) to you. If the culture you create is one where employees get blamed for mistakes, you will have fewer employees willing to take chances with taking initiative. If your culture is reactive in nature there won’t be any importance placed on process or training making it very difficult to transfer ownership of tasks and advancement throughout the company. If the culture you created is one where you see your employees as average, they’re going to be average.
Release your grip.
When I offer this advice, it’s interesting how often owners don’t like it because they hear me saying “let go”. I’m not telling you to let go of your company, I’m merely telling you to release your grip.
Start simple with transferring the tasks that are draining your energy and preventing you from being that successful revenue generator you once were. Let your employees do their job and perform the tasks their way, not your way. Let them make mistakes, let them learn and let them grow.
Many entrepreneurs look at their company in the same way Andre Agassi sees singles tennis -- solitary confinement, however, it doesn't have to be that way. By getting your employees involved you can have the equivalent of the best doubles partner in the world. All you have to do is give your employees the autonomy and freedom to perform the job they were hired to do, all you have to do is release your grip and in return, you will receive the freedom to focus on the activities that you are passionate in performing, the activities that made your company a success in the first place.
I hope you have a great day