Here is a fellow business owner to dig deeper on Active and Passive Owners.

Let me be very clear about this; there are two types of owners. There’s the involved owner, the educated “I know the business” owner, and then there’s the “I’m an interested owner, but I don’t know the business” owner. It’s an important distinction to make. The involved owner is really, for example, a board member, could be a chairman, but is very much aware of every dynamic of the business. The involved owner is an expert on the business. It is unacceptable to pose a question to a supposedly involved owner about the business, and them not know the fundamentals of the business. Ok, I would excuse that they don’t know how the market of New York is doing, blah, blah, blah, ok, great, it’s too granular. But what kind of business are we in, what’s the product and services, what are the top three challenges we face as a company, right? If they don’t know that, they’re not an involved owner. They become what I call a passive owner, which is a good role to play, but at the end of the day, I would like an owner to be an involved owner. And as an involved owner, you understand the business, you understand the challenges of the business, you do meet with customers, you do meet with clients, you’re involved in what we do and you participate in at that level as an owner, and your most important responsibility as an owner, as an involved owner is, who’s’ managing the business?