The Parachute That Never Opens
Years ago, I met a small business owner who proudly told me, “Nothing moves without me.” He meant it as proof of his dedication. Two months later, he was hospitalised after an accident. The business didn’t just slow down, it stopped. Suppliers weren’t paid. Clients panicked. His employees, loyal but helpless, stood in the office like passengers in a plane where the only parachute had just been ripped away.
THE WHY: Relevance for Micro and Small Businesses in the Netherlands
If you’re running a 3–20 person company here in the Netherlands, odds are high you are the operational spine. In governance terms, you are the Single Point of Failure. In Dutch business culture, this often hides behind the phrase “Ik regel het wel zelf” , “I’ll handle it myself.” It works until it doesn’t.
This isn’t about ego. It’s about structural exposure: tax filings that hinge on your signature, client relations stored in your head, supplier agreements only you understand. In the Netherlands, where regulatory deadlines are strict and penalties unforgiving, a two-week absence can cause damage that takes months to repair.
THE NUMBERS: The Cost of Inaction
Consider a 10-person consultancy in Utrecht:
- Unpaid invoices for just one month can choke €40,000 of liquidity.
- Missed Belastingdienst filings trigger instant penalties starting at €150, plus interest, plus reputational flags with banks.
- One key client lost due to slow response? For many microbusinesses, that’s 20–30 percent of annual revenue.
Multiply that by your recovery time, and the “I’ll handle it” mindset becomes the most expensive insurance policy you never bought.
WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU: The Myth of Control
The deeper truth is that being the Single Point of Failure doesn’t make you indispensable, it makes you replaceable. If your absence collapses the system, a rational buyer, investor, or partner will see not value but fragility. It’s not “you are the company”; it’s “the company is trapped inside you.” That trap is invisible until you try to sell, take investment, or even bring in a senior hire.
DECISION COMPASS: Questions to Ask Today
- If I disappeared for 30 days, what exactly would stop working?
- Which documents, processes, or contacts exist only in my head?
- Who could legally and operationally act in my place tomorrow?
- Which decisions truly require my judgment, and which don’t?
- What’s my plan to test this before life tests it for me?
FINAL REFLECTION: From Hero to Architect
Your job is not to be the parachute. Your job is to design the plane so that no matter who jumps, the chute always opens. Governance isn’t about replacing yourself, it’s about ensuring the business you’ve built can breathe without you. That’s the real measure of control: knowing you can let go without watching it fall.
Co-Creator of Xtroverso | Head of Global GRC @ ZENTRIQ™
Paolo Maria Pavan builds systems that balance rules with freedom, clarity with transformation. In his third life, he writes and speaks openly about markets, governance, and risk, not as a trader chasing price, but as a reader of patterns, behaviors, and distortions. A serial entrepreneur shaped by failure and reinvention, he sees governance as a living force for trust and progress, and refuses to avoid the hard conversations that make it real.
