You hire people to "help." But they wait for your approval on every decision.
That’s not building a team, that’s collecting dependencies.
At Quest, when I stepped back to work on big picture strategy, everything stalled.
That's when I developed the 30-Day Test.
"If I disappeared for 30 days, what would you produce?"
Ask every team member this.
Then score their answer 1-10 on three things:
Specificity: Vague or precise?
Ownership: Responsibility or deflection?
Impact: Maintain or create value?
0-10: Dependency
11-20: Maintainer
21-30: Asset
What good answers look like…
Sales - Asset (Score: 28):
"I'd close the 5 deals in my pipeline worth $150K. I'd build the Q1 outreach list targeting healthcare since that's our highest conversion vertical. If I hit a pricing objection, I'd use our competitor analysis to position value."
Marketing - Asset (Score: 27):
"I'd launch the content campaign targeting 50K impressions and 200 signups. I'd test 3 headlines and kill the worst after 1,000 impressions. If we're underperforming by day 10, I'd shift 30% of budget to our best channel."
Operations - Asset (Score: 29):
"I'd implement the inventory system we scoped. Target is 40% fewer errors and 2 hours saved daily. If the vendor integration breaks, I'd use our manual backup process."
If the answers are vague, press harder:
"What specific number would you hit?"
"How would you solve X without me?"
"What would you start that we're not doing?"
Dependencies say "I don't know" or "Whatever I could."
Assets give you numbers and plans.
Ask every person on your team this question.
Score them.
Then:
0-10: 90 days to hit 21+ or they're out
11-20: Move them or train them
21-30: Give them more responsibility
If you're running a business doing $1M+ in revenue and your team can't operate without you, I'm hosting a free leadership workshop.
I'll show you the complete system to identify dependencies, convert maintainers to assets, and build a team that executes without you being the bottleneck.
This workshop is only for founders doing at least $1M annually struggling with team performance, hiring, or leadership gaps.
Register here: https://t.co/hJclmBTchI
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Since your doctor won’t help you avoid it, here are 42 sentences that will: