Effective Delegating
As a business owner, one of the key skills required to grow your business is the ability to delegate. As business flourishes, sales improve, and your team grows, you simply will not be able to do it all. So you must learn and practice the art of effective delegation.
To delegate means to “entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person, typically one who is less senior than oneself.”
There are a number of barriers (often excuses) that we use in order to prevent the need to delegate tasks or projects to another member of the team.
How many times have you thought, or said aloud:
- “It is quicker if I do it… by the time I explain what to do, I could have completed it”
- “ It is my business, I should be doing it”
- “ There is no one on the team who can do it as well as me”
- “What if they do a better job than what I can do”
These thoughts are related to our own limiting self-beliefs and not the team’s ability which can result in a high level of micro management which is time consuming and not congruent with growth.
If you are able to delegate effectively, not only will you have a productive, strong team but also your own credibility as a leader will improve.
The main reasons we delegate are to:
- Free up time so you can focus on growing the business – Stop being a busy fool when you have a team willing to step in and step up.
- Staff development – through delegating your team will learn new skills, gain more knowledge and they self-esteem, loyalty and value will increase, especially if you are following up with them.
- Improve efficiency – not only of your team but also of the business.
- Encourage teamwork – your team will establish new contacts and build their network. You will find team members communicating more with others both internally and externally.
Ask yourself, what’s the cost of NOT delegating!
So how do we start to delegate?
There are 3 main things to consider when delegating.
- Decide what you are going to delegate and to whom.
It is vital to make sure that you provide a clear picture of what it is your want to be achieved. Communication is very important at this stage to make sure you have a clearly articulated task.
Ensure that you have clearly defined processes and policies so that the staff can deliver. If they know and understand the processes and policies, they can also use them to make their decisions.
Check that your staff have the right training and skills and if not, put a training plan in place.
Provide a time frame so members of staff know when they are to have completed by.
- How are you going to follow up?
Set milestones in your own diary to check in and follow up whether the task has been completed, and if it has been completed in the time frame.
3. How are you going to follow through?
The following through on a task is critical. If you delegate, set time scales and then don’t follow up and through with your team, you run the risk of not being taken seriously and if the task isn’t achieved, then your team may feel this is ok and bad habits may start to form.
If all has been achieved effectively and within the time frame, make sure you praise your member of staff and feed forward as opposed to feedback.
Top Tip! When thinking about delegating, ask yourself:
“What’s the worst that can happen?” and if you are ok with the worst – it is probably ok to delegate!
