Issue 162, Part Time CEO Newsletter
Hey, it's Dhiren 👋,
Years ago at Cloudscape, I was doing everything.
Every client call. Every proposal. Every decision, big or small.
I had a team, but I didn’t trust them. Not fully.
They hadn’t built this. They didn’t know the clients the way I did.
So I stayed in everything.
I told myself it was quality control.
Told myself it was leadership.
I was exhausted. Resentful.
Couldn’t take a single day off without my phone lighting up.
Missing family moments.
My body was carrying it all, tension, fatigue.. the kind of tiredness sleep doesn't fix.
My coach kept telling me “You need daily huddles.”
I resisted.
I’d do a week, then stop.
Show up distracted.
Run them ad hoc.
No consistency, no presence.
I didn’t have the capacity to take anything else seriously.
And that was the real trap:
Too burned out to do the one thing that would stop the burnout.
She didn’t let go. Every session she asked:
How long was the huddle?
What worked?
What didn’t?
What are you committing to this week?
She kept pushing until I finally gave in.
And when I did, I realised I'd been getting something fundamentally wrong.
🧠 Delegation vs Abdication
We hear "work ON the business, not IN it" and interpret it as permission to vanish.
Skip meetings.
Avoid the day-to-day.
Check in once a week, only when something's already on fire.
Then we're confused why the fires keep coming.
There's a difference:
Delegation = handing over the work but staying connected to the rhythm.
You see patterns early.
You know what’s stuck before clients feel it.
You’re in the cockpit without flying the plane.
Abdication = handing over the work and walking away.
No visibility.
No rhythm.
No early warning system.
One is leadership.
The other is running away from the problem.
I wasn’t delegating at Cloudscape
I was gripping everything because it felt safer; convinced nobody could do it like me, too drained to let go, and frustrated the team wasn’t stepping up while I was still blocking them.
Some founders I coach do the opposite.
They “step back” so hard they become strangers to their own business.
They only discover problems when clients explode.
Both are traps. Both come from the same place
Not trusting the rhythm.
🧠 The Fix: The 5 minute Huddle Changed Everything
When I finally committed, really committed; it took a few weeks.
Then one morning, my ops manager flagged a client issue in the huddle, something I hadn’t seen coming.
By the time I asked what we should do, she said,
“Already handled.”
I didn't need to do anything
That was the moment.
They got it
They'd always gotten it.
II just hadn't let myself see it.
The huddle is stupidly simple:
Five minutes. Three questions.
- Win from yesterday
- Priority today
- Where I’m stuck
No solving. No stories.
This is alignment, not reporting.
Here's what it actually gives you:
Pattern recognition
Three days of “stuck”? You catch it before it becomes a client fire.
Emotional pulse
You hear tone. You see energy drop.
You catch problems before they quit or explode.
Trust
When you show up consistently, not to micromanage, just to witness; you start to see your team actually gets it. And for the first time, you relax.
That's what happened to me. The huddle didn't add work. It released me from the need to control everything.
Your Turn
I’ve been on both sides
Gripping everything almost broke me.
Disappearing breaks founders in a different way.
Both are avoidance.
Both cost you.
So be honest with yourself:
Where are you gripping? Where have you disappeared?
Start a daily huddle this week.
Five minutes.
Show up every single day for two weeks.
Simple, consistent behaviour beats complicated, inconsistent behaviour.
Every time.
🧭 Know a founder who needs to hear this?
Forward this. It could be the push they need.
📢 Dhiren’s Updates
It's the long weekend for the UAE's 54th National Day. I'm in Mumbai with Shweta and Prisha! Slow mornings, good food & nowhere to be.
If you're off too, I hope you get to switch off properly. Rest. Be with the people you love.
You've earned it.
📌 Dhiren’s Pick of the Week
📘The One Minute Manager
If this issue makes one point, it’s this:
short, consistent leadership beats long, inconsistent intervention.
The One Minute Manager explains that better than anything else I’ve read.
It’s a simple book about a simple truth: people don’t need more meetings. They need clear expectations, quick check-ins, and fast feedback.
It’s the original blueprint for why a 5-minute huddle works.
ps: did someone forward this to you?
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Cheers,
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