First, I’m going to assume that you do delegate, and I want to say congratulations!
I find that some business owners struggle with delegating because they believe they can’t afford someone or that the task wouldn’t be done the way they want it to be.
Recently I worked with a couple of clients who were pretty good. They recognized that the work they dreaded doing needed to be delegated. The problem was that they delegated it to someone by the process of elimination, in other words because he was there.
And guess what?
They remained frustrated because it was still creating more work for them to manage.
You see here was the problem. The person they chose was someone in their company who appeared to have room on his plate for more work. They passed on the assignment, but they didn’t pass along the rest of details that were in their heads.
Moving one problem to another area doesn’t always fix the problem. It just moves the problem.
So, here are a few tips to help you avoid making this same mistake as you delegate in your business.
- Create a list of the tasks that you want to delegate.
- Outline the skills required for these tasks. What are the must-haves? If you have a list that is mainly would-be-nicethen you may find that you’re getting too picky and you’ll be disappointed when it comes to finding someone.
- Remember the Big C.
- Communicate:Provide a procedure of how to do the task and what the expected outcome is to be. Don’t just hand over the task and expect that it will get done.
- Communicate:Review how it’s going. Schedule the time in advance to do a review of how it’s going. This can be done weekly or monthly, in person or on the phone, depending on the assignment – just make sure that you’ve clearly communicated that you will be doing a review, and that the intent is to review.
- Communicate:Ask them if they see a better way to handle the assignment. This may shock you to hear this, but your way isn’t the only way to do something. Someone else may see it a bit differently and have a great suggestion that you never thought of.
If you have more than one employee and you have several assignments to delegate, consider asking them what they would like to do. I have found that employees are very willing to take on new assignments if you ask them instead of tell them. They take ownership in the responsibility and are more likely to do good work as they have a sense of pride that you trusted them for their opinion!
Don’t be afraid to delegate in your business. It does take some practice. But the more you do, the easier it will get. And if you follow these tips you’ll find that you are able to delegate more efficiently on a regular basis, and in doing so will free up more of your time.