Learn to Delegate

I’ve written about delegation before, but I continue to think about it because so many small business owners don’t do it very well.

Entrepreneurs often like to pull all the significant levers in the business and push all the important buttons. They built the business and know the critical parts of it better than anyone, so they don’t hand off any core decisions, responsibilities, or activities to anyone else. Yet by failing to delegate, the owner is unable to keep good people and unable to grow the business beyond his or her personal limitations. In the end, it’s a trust issue. What if I do hand off something important to someone else and they screw it up?

Here’s a way to limit your risk and gradually learn to delegate effectively.

Divide the all the company’s identifiable, distinct decisions, responsibilities, or activities into three categories: A, B, and C. When you assign an A responsibility to someone, instruct that person that this responsibility is theirs and theirs alone. They should just go ahead and carry it out. Don’t call, don’t write, don’t report to me when you’ve done it. Just do it.

When giving out a B responsibility, you instruct that person that this is still a responsibility that is theirs, but you want to be consulted before they pull the trigger on it.

You can show your subordinates a list of C responsibilities, but you don’t give those out. Those are the decisions, responsibilities, or activities that you will continue to reserve for yourself.

If this is done in a clear, well-defined way, you will have drawn very effective boundaries for your people. You shouldn’t have anyone going off the reservation and doing things they have no authority to do. In short, you maintain control. But better yet, you begin a process of delegation that can grow over time. Again, this is a trust issue. So you build trust as you see how effectively your subordinates handle the responsibilities you’ve given them. Then more of your C responsibilities can become B responsibilities and given to someone else. Likewise, a B can be transformed into an A.

This is an evolutionary way to build delegation into your company’s culture. Ultimately, your subordinates will be doing the things they are qualified to do, and you’ll be left with only those things that truly belong on your plate.

For more small business blogs, visit my website and www.rocksolidbizdevelopment.com

Get a Life!

“If your business keeps you so busy that you have no time for anything else, there must be something wrong, either with you or with your business.”

Do you have time to do things you want to do outside of your business? Or, said another way, do you feel you have good “balance” in your life? Obviously, there are times when business activity is high and things can get a little hectic, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Over the long term, are you so consumed by your business that you don’t have time for other things that are important to you?

If the answer is “yes,” you almost certainly have a problem delegating authority to others. Small business owners tend to keep all the important levers and buttons of the business under their own control. In most cases, they simply don’t trust anyone else to handle those critical functions. Yet if the owner continues to hoard all the important stuff for him or herself, there are usually some negative consequences.

One such consequence is a drain of talent from the business. People want to work where they can learn, grow, and get increasing amounts of responsibility, and if they believe they are not getting that at your company, they’ll go somewhere else.

Another consequence is owner frustration. The owner has rigged the game so that nothing of importance gets done without his or her fingerprints all over it. So s/he can never get away from work for any length of time without everything coming to a grinding halt.

The growth of the business is stifled. If the owner tries to do everything, the business stalls when it reaches his or her personal limit. There are only so many hours in a day and only so much one person can do, right?

But failing to delegate ultimately damages the value of the business. For most small business owners, the exit strategy at retirement time is to sell the business. Even though the business may be profitable, a would-be buyer will look very closely at how well the business will operate when the former owner is gone. If the buyer decides the old owner is the business . . . that he holds all the key relationships with customers and vendors, and that he is the “go to guy” for operational issues . . . the buyer will be unlikely to pay much for the business because, after all, with the old owner out of the equation, there really isn’t much of a business left. On the other hand, if the place runs like a top whether the old owner is there or not, the business will command a premium price.

So if you are in this predicament, the only way out is to begin grooming others to take on important roles of authority and leadership. If you don’t have them, find them. Bring them on board. You’ll be happier, your people will be happier, the business will operate more smoothly, and it will have greater value. What’s not to like about that?

For more small business blogs, visit my website at www.rocksolidbizdevelopment.com.

Delegating Effectively

“One of the greatest challenges as a manager is how to delegate so effectively that once you have gotten the monkey off your back, your employees don’t return it to you . . . with instructions for its care and feeding.”

An important part of leadership, delegation, is growing the people who are under the leader’s care. It takes time and it takes effort, but it’s the only way to develop a strong, effective team.

Picture this. You’ve just given one of your direct reports an important assignment. Soon the direct report returns with questions, lots of questions. In the back of your mind you’re thinking, “I could do this myself in just a fraction of the time it’s going to take me to explain everything.” If you give in to that thought, two bad things happen: the monkey climbs on your back again, and you miss a growth opportunity for your direct report.

So how do you move the assignment forward and still keep the monkey where it belongs?

First, you need to invest the time in your direct report. And that’s what it is. It’s not a waste of your time, it’s an investment in growing one of your people. Second, to make this a learning and growing opportunity, don’t spoon feed your direct report with all the answers. Make him/her come up with his/her own answers. For instance, when your charge says, “I’m not sure if we should do X or Y.” Don’t say, “Let’s go with X.” Instead say,

“What do you think?”
“Why do you think that would be a better choice than the other?”
“Have you asked any of your colleagues for their opinions?”
“Have you talked with others in the organization who will be affected by your decision?”
“Have you talked with stakeholders outside the organization who may be impacted.?”

The point is, don’t be the answer person. Be the question person who helps draw out of your direct report the excitement of creativity and discovery. Yes it will take some time, but you’ll end up with a more effective, self-confident employee. And the monkeys will stay where they belong.

For more small business blogs, visit my website at www.rocksolidbizdevelopment.com.