~by Haley Lynn Gray~
I dropped my oldest daughter at boarding school and drove away, leaving her behind. You could say I launched my child.
It struck me that this is what we do when we bring someone into a company as well. We’re launching a career — and doing it well looks remarkably similar.
1. Give them the knowledge they need
At home, I have frank conversations with my children about how the world actually works. I do the same at work.
That means telling employees the things nobody writes down: who works well together and who doesn’t, how decisions really get made here, which client is difficult and why, what the unwritten standards are.
Withholding that isn’t protecting anyone. It just means they learn it by walking into it.
2. Then let them do it
The launching part is only launching if you actually let go. You’ve prepared them; now they need to operate without you standing behind them.
They will do some things differently from you. Some of those will be better. Check early rather than hovering, and then leave them to it.
3. Let them fail at a survivable size
This is the hardest one, at home and at work.
People develop judgement by making decisions and living with the results. If you intercept every mistake, you produce someone who executes well and can’t judge anything — and the first time you’re unavailable, everything stops.
The skill is in sizing it: let them fail at something that costs a week, not the company.
4. Be reachable without being in charge
My daughter knew she could ring me. That’s different from me ringing her every evening to check.
The same distinction matters at work. “Come to me when you need me” builds confidence. “Let me know what you’re doing at each step” builds dependence, and then you’ll complain that nobody takes initiative.
5. Let them go somewhere better
The part owners find hardest to accept: if you develop people well, some of them will outgrow what you can offer.
Trying to hold on to someone by limiting their growth works for about a year and costs you their goodwill permanently. Letting them go well — a reference, an introduction, a genuine congratulations — means they send you people for a decade.
Being the person who launched someone is a far better reputation than being the person they escaped.
What it feels like
Driving away from that school was not comfortable. Neither is watching a capable employee handle something you’d have done differently.
But the point of preparing someone is that they eventually go and do it. If you’ve done it right, they don’t need you — and that’s the measure of whether you did it right.
