The delicate art of delegation

When you want something done in your business, it’s only natural to assume it’ll be done quicker if you do it yourself. Ann Andrews suggests otherwise. Welcome to her school of delegation.

As a boss, manager, owner, yes, it probably is quicker to do things yourself. Sadly, the challenge is that as long as you think that way, you’ll always have to do it yourself.

If you want to have a successful business (and a life), then doing everything yourself will have some very predictable outcomes:

• In the long term, it will affect your health.

• It will slow down the growth of your business.

• It could actually cause the demise of your business in the long run.

• It could affect your marriage and your family (or significant relationship).

• It prevents your people from learning and growing.

• It sends the message that you don’t trust anyone.

• It says to your staff that they will never be as smart as you.

• The smart people will eventually leave and go elsewhere, possibly even moving to your competitor!

• The not-so-smart people will stay!  

Not delegating and not trusting is what I call a ‘but’. ‘Buts’ are fears and the only way to overcome a fear is to discover a WIIFM – what’s is in it for me to do this differently? Think about that. 

What could you be doing differently if you had half a day or even a full day a week free of operational problems? Do you think your bottom line might significantly improve if you were:

• Out in the marketplace talking to key clients?

• Dealing with disgruntled clients face to face to make sure you don’t lose their business?

• Working on finding new clients and/or markets? 

• Brainstorming and trialling ideas for new products and services?

• Talking to other business owners about possible alliances or synergies?

• Taking time to find cheaper or more reliable suppliers?

A better use of your time? Absolutely. 

Most owners and managers are terrified of delegating because they fear their people will make mistakes. And they probably will to begin with. After all, how did any of us learn to do anything? We learned on the job by making a whole lot of mistakes and then correcting them. 

So delegate the easy stuff first; something that won’t cost an arm and a leg if the person does make a mistake. That way your people gain confidence and you can progressively start handing over the more complex things as your people grow.

So where to start? 

You start by making the decision to hand over one small aspect of your job to one valued employee. A great benchmark for deciding which jobs/tasks to delegate is to consider the hourly rate of that task if you were looking to employ someone to do it. It never fails to amaze me how many owners and managers get bogged down in doing the $25-$30-an-hour jobs. 

I worked with one small business owner in the building sector. He would be greeted first thing in the morning with a phone running hot – customers wanting to know where their installers were and/or installers wanting to know where their supplies were. Meanwhile, his factory staff stood around waiting for the day’s jobs. 

Solution? Put one of his older installers on the phones for the first two hours of the day to take the heat off him. This provided an opportunity for someone who was no longer as physically able to do the hard jobs but had amassed a lifetime’s knowledge about the building trade. In turn, this gave the owner time to give out the day’s instructions. He could then get back to any calls his older worker couldn’t take care of. 

In this case, the natural progression for this older worker was to take over more of the admin side of the business. He took over rosters; phoning around to find temps when someone didn’t show up. He also chased up unpaid invoices and ordered supplies.
So simple. 

Slow and steady

Please don’t confuse delegation with abdication. You must be willing to support people through the learning process – to coach, guide and mentor. Then when the first task is safely handed over (and don’t be surprised if the person ends up doing the job far better than you ever did) you are ready to hand over one more task to one more valued employee – and so on until you have your half day a week or even full day a week to yourself. Then as an owner/manager/team leader, you will be working where you need to be working – on the strategic issues of your business.  

It’s as simple as that. 

Yes it will take time. Sometimes we have to take small steps backwards to gain a giant leap forward. Just keep remembering your WIIFM – big chunks of time spent doing more important things more effectively. 

Be prepared to be staggered at the results too. You will live longer, be happier, stay married longer. Your people will be happier, more skilled and more motivated. And, as if that wasn’t enough, your bottom line results will have grown considerably because you are doing the things you should be doing. Working on, not in, your business. 

Trust in your people – in my experience, they will never let you down.