It was a few years ago when I had a client that threw up her hands on our zoom and said “I just want to go to a remote island and not have to deal with all of this maddening delegation management.”
What you don’t see is, in this moment, she was really telling me that she was burned out. And that she didn’t feel like she had the right team to take the reins and get her out of the weeds.
And more than anything she was tired of doing two people’s jobs, hers and trying to figure out what the team should be doing day to day. Which is also a player vs worker bee symptom but that is something for a different day.
I don’t know if you have been there, but, oof, I have definitely been there. Many moons ago when I was going through the growing pains of business.
Once I let her vent her frustration, I asked this question ‘what is the real challenge for you here.’
She was silent for a beat, then sighed and said, “I don’t know how to delegate and manage my team effectively. I’ve been doing this work for so long, I am really struggling with how to effectively convey how it all works and at the same time I just want all this stuff off my plate. I am exhausted.”
And there it was. The truth, and the struggle that, mmm 75% of my clients struggle with too.
Wanting to be free from the trenches and what I call management minutia, yet not sure how to actually effectively extricate yourself without the team feeling like you just abandoned them to their own devices (which we all know, never works).
So how does one become a great delegator?
This pill might be a hard one to swallow so buckle up..
Your business has to work like a machine WITH you before it can work like a machine WITHOUT you.
I have been in hundreds of businesses over my past 14 years and I feel like I have seen it all, but the most common challenges I see is trying to step out of the business and delegate things that are not just proven or predictable.
I liken this to trying to build a plan and take off at the same time.
When I see delegation and extrication go really well is when there is clarity, predictability, AND proactivity.
If your business is reactive, with a lot of muddled SOPs or systems, or even worse, not predictable from a revenue, profit, and resource perspective, then it will be very tough to delegate effectively.
And more so than that, it will be much more tempting to abdicate than to effectively delegate because you’re burning the candle at both ends.
To be a good delegator you have to be clear. Clear with goals, expectations, accountabilities, and the definition-of-done
For me and my clients, the key objectives of business should be to simplify as much as you can, make it as predictable as you can, and shift from reactive fire-figher to strategic, proactive leader.
That’s when the magic happens. That also happens to be the time that some businesses burn down because you get bored.
This is a whole other topic for another time but your business should be boring.
Sporadic, last minute, reactive, (insert all the adjectives here) doesn’t scale.
Predictable and simple scales.
You can have fun and excitement doing the things you love, while the foundation of the business is wash, rinse, repeat level boring.
That scales, and interestingly enough that makes you a lot of time and money.
With all that said, the next time you might want to throw in the towel with delegation, ask yourself why you are tempted to abdicate and if your business is really ready/set up for success with your team delegation.
It takes the trifecta of mindset, leadership skills, and identity work to really get out from under your business.
These three are the ones I love working through the most with my clients so take some time today to see where your gap is and how you can bridge it.
And if you need support or want to talk though something around your business pop into office hours with me tomorrow. No rules, no agenda, just pop into my virtual zoom office anytime between 3:30 and 4:30pm CT tomorrow.
Here’s the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErd-CqpzopH9MVPHI7vsVxG6tWFpiFnYdV
Until next time.
Lauren
