I was clearly reminded of an important lesson reminded to me by my teacher, that even well run growing businesses with great managers get hurt if the manager is not on site or present. Sometimes the damage or mistakes will show up in a few days, months, or years but there is a real cost if the manager is not engaged or present on the job. This seems like an obvious concept, but great managers sometimes can cause a false sense of comfort. That everything will continue growing and running smooth if I am not on site, this is not true for extended periods of time. You even see it with iconic businesses like Dell computers and Starbucks when there founders walked away for a while only to return to rebuild the company.
