Raquel Gomes, Founder & CEO — Stafi.
If you wish you had more time to focus on high-level priorities, delegating could either be a dream come true or a nightmare. It all depends on how well you approach and implement it.
Ideally, delegating frees you up to tackle tasks like strategic planning, talent development and other long-term initiatives by offloading lower priorities to lower-level employees. You may develop the sales strategy, but you don’t need to develop the sales presentation—that’s the kind of thing that can be delegated to someone below you on the organizational chart.
However, delegation without careful consideration can actually result in more work for you and the organization. If you pass a task on to someone who doesn’t have the skill, authority or resources to do it well, you could end up regretting that you didn’t just handle it yourself.
I used to have the mindset that if I didn’t do everything myself, it would be done incorrectly. This mindset led to me working excessively, leaving me with less time for my family. However, when I found the right person I could rely on, I realized that I wasn’t alone. This allowed me to strategize on how to grow my business and change my approach.
Here are some steps that you should take to make sure that you are delegating effectively.
Delegate to the right person.
Start by assessing the skills needed to complete a specific task to your satisfaction, which may require someone with design skills, communication skills, organizational skills or even all three. If you don’t delegate to someone with some aptitude in those areas, you could find yourself with a mess on your hands minutes before your deadline.
If you find that the right person doesn’t exist, look for someone who is driven, ambitious and teachable. Providing some assistance or training is fine, so long as it doesn’t require more time than it would for you to do the task yourself. By investing in someone who has potential, you ensure that you will have someone to delegate similar tasks to in the future.
In certain cases, looking to outside sources might be the best solution for delegating. Depending on the task, freelancers or virtual assistants could deliver what you need.
For example, I worked with a client who was four months pregnant and a solo practitioner, meaning that once she gave birth, her business would have to close until she could return. So we provided an intake client specialist who could handle calls and schedule consultations for when she would return. After returning to work, she didn’t have to start from scratch because someone was looking after her business.
Business owners should consider three things when determining whether to outsource: the time you have available to initiate a hiring process, the value of your time and your short- and long-term goals.
This will help you identify the areas where you need the most assistance and understand how much time and resources you may be wasting in creating job posts, vetting candidates, interviewing and training them, when you could be focusing on revenue-generating activities. By setting goals, you can pinpoint the critical roles you need to hire in order to achieve them. While budget is important, it shouldn’t be the sole determining factor. Prioritize quality.
Provide sufficient clarity.
Before you delegate, take the time to decide if you simply want the task done well, or if you want it done in a particular way. Going back to the example of a sales presentation, you may find that the person you delegate the task to prefers different colors, fonts or even a different presentation platform than you. If you have particulars that are important to you, make sure you communicate them clearly on the front end.
One effective way to manage the delegation process is by breaking projects down into smaller tasks. Ask the person assisting you to show you the template they have developed for the presentation before they start populating it with content. If you don’t like it, provide relevant and constructive feedback that moves the project forward rather than outright criticism.
If you are a leader who is detail-oriented, you may find it difficult to delegate and get out of your employees’ way, but you still must resist the urge to micromanage. Otherwise, you’ll find that delegating is more time-consuming than doing it yourself.
Keep in mind that you are delegating to give yourself time to focus on more important projects. You must be willing to accept work that is “perfect enough” rather than “perfect.”
Provide appropriate resources.
It’s also important to remember that someone lower on the org chart may not have access to the same resources as you, which could frustrate their efforts to complete the task. Make sure you delegate the appropriate authority they will need when you delegate the task, as they may need to access certain data, people, equipment or supplies.
Additionally, it’s important to be aware of—and avoid—over-delegating, as someone with the right skills for the task may not have the bandwidth to tackle it. Before delegating anything to anyone, be sure to assess their workload and make concessions if necessary.
Leverage delegation for staff development.
Delegation can be a win-win if you see it as an opportunity to help employees advance in their careers. Consider delegating stretch assignments that challenge an employee with a task that requires them to learn something new to assess their capacity for growth. Approaching delegation this way will require some extra work on your part, but it could boost your overall productivity by identifying employees who are being underutilized.
Recent reports reveal that over half of managers are dealing with burnout because of their workload. If you are among them, delegating can help. It’s a proven business tool that, when done right, can increase productivity by distributing an organization’s workload across the entire team. Follow the steps above to ensure that you are delegating in a way that empowers your organization to reach new levels of effectiveness.
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