Mike

Mike had been running his electrical business for eleven years. twenty people. strong reputation in the mining and commercial sector. he hadn't taken a full week off in three years. the business had grown steadily but the growth had happened around Mike rather than through a structure that could hold it. every quote needed his sign-off. every site issue escalated to him. 

key partner relationships were personal. his team knew that the fastest way to get an answer was to call Mike - not because they weren't capable, but because that was what the architecture rewarded. he had tried to hand things over. took it back within three months every time. he told himself the team weren't ready. what was actually true was that the handover had no structure behind it - no defined authority, no operating rhythm, no clear signal that the decision had genuinely moved. the team had learned not to trust it. neither had Mike.

back-costing across the project portfolio revealed that a category of work Mike had been taking for years - a specific type of installation job he priced on gut feel rather than data - was running at margins well below the rest of the business. he knew it roughly. he hadn't had the time or the headspace to address it while fielding calls seven days a week.

Mike took six weeks off across a nine-week period at the end of the year - his busiest trading period. the business ran. no significant escalations. revenue grew from $1.5m to $8m over fifteen months as the leadership team pursued work Mike had previously been too stretched to take on. his words returning from the break: "the strangest part was feeling almost unnecessary." that is the point.

the team wasn't the problem. the architecture was. but the margin problem was real and separate - and fixing it required looking at the numbers honestly, not just restructuring the team. both needed to change. neither alone would have been enough.