Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

January 15, 2026

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published Monday to Friday, equipping you to achieve your professional goals faster and without burnout or overwhelm.

Stop carrying everything yourself

Hello ,

Today is Thursday. How has the week been?

Did you protect your focus? How about those meetings? Did you do better with them?

I don’t expect you to get it perfect. Honestly, that’s too high a bar. Especially, when you are still have a lot of people you report to.

It gets easier as you go higher. But that’s not a cop-out excuse for you.

For example, I have a rule not to have meetings between 8am – 10:30am. But I don’t own all days.

My CEO fixed a permanent Monday meeting for 8:30am to about 11am and we have an office learning session on Thursday from 8am – 9am.

I don’t complain about the days I don’t have control over. I focus on using the days I have control of as best as I can.

You get what I mean?

With that out of the way, now let’s move to the part most professionals resist: letting go of control.

Here's the pattern I see constantly:

Smart professionals who could multiply their impact by working through others instead keep carrying everything themselves.

Why? Because it's faster to do it than explain it. Because nobody else will do it exactly right. Because you've always been the person who delivers.

And that's exactly what's capping your move up faster.

The shift:

You can't scale yourself by working harder or longer. You scale by designing collaborations that multiply capacity.

Not "delegating tasks." Not "asking for help."

Deliberately structuring how you work with others so the total output increases without your personal workload increasing.

Here's how:

1) Get specific about ownership. For any shared work: What do you own? What do they own? What does "good" look like? Vague collaboration produces vague results.

2) Clarify decision rights upfront. Who decides, who executes, who gets consulted? When this is unclear, work expands and timelines slip.

3) Install a weekly check-in. Fifteen minutes. Three questions: What's done? What's stuck? What decision is needed? This prevents weeks of drift.

Your Thursday Action:

Identify one project where you're doing too much solo work.

Who should share ownership so the work moves faster and you carry less?

Message them today. Set a 20-minute conversation to define ownership and decision rights.

Tomorrow: how all three pieces fit together.

Keep winning at work and in life

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategic Workplace Mentor