Delegate

The owner is often the barrier to achieving success with the business. One of the main causes is that she does not have enough time to do everything that needs to be done. The last post dealt with some tips on how to find more time. Now we are going to deal with the biggy ~ delegation.

If there is one thing business owners are really bad at it is delegation. They either refuse to delegate on the erroneous belief that they are the only ones who can do everything to the quality they want. Or they delegate badly and so it doesn't work, which reinforces the belief that noone else can do it as well as them. So today we will cover Delegation 101.

The first step in successful delegation is to identify what should be delegated. For this we have the Strategic Focus Delegation Worksheet. It is a simple tool that works! Picture 4 columns. The first (and widest) is called Activity; next is one headed Me!, followed by a column headed Delegate? and finally one called To Whom. List the activities you do over a number of days so there is a good chance of capturing 90% of the things you do. When you think you have captured everything work through the list putting a tick mark in the Me! column next to the activities that only you can do. Then work back through the list and place a tick mark in the Delegate? column.

When this is complete you will have a few activities with no tick marks; they are probable ones that can be discarded. To those activities that you have decided to delegate assign a name of a person or a job title in the To Whom? column. You are now ready to delegate! For purposes of this blog, which is all about delegating successfully, we will bypassing the topic of recruitment and assume you have in place the person who will be the delegatee. This is what you:

1. Clearly identify and agree on your "expectations"
2. Show the person how to do the job
3. Watch the person do the job correcting where necessary
   
4. Let him do the job and you check the results
5. When you are satisfied that the job is being done to your expectations you have delegated!
6. From time to time check the results

Follow these simple steps and you will soon be delegating like an expert ~ and finding time to do the things you love to do ~ and achieving the success you want with your business.