140: What Does Done Look Like? Assigning Tasks with Clarity

Hi there. Welcome back to the Professional Creative Podcast.

Happy Tuesday.

I want to talk about a little bit of delegating today, but it doesn't require that you have anyone on your team. It doesn't require that you have, you know, an employee or a contractor that you're working with. I think it's going to apply to so many different things in your life. It's a concept that we use all the time and we got it from Brene Brown. So one of our favorite books. When I say our, I mean my team. We love Brene Brown's book called Dare to Lead. And one of the concepts out of that book that really stuck with us is this concept of what does done look like. And so I'll tell you what it looks like in the framework of a team, but then we'll also talk about what it looks like as a framework just in your life as general.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life.

But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

So when you have someone that you're delegating to, oftentimes will pass off a task. And if you're like me, sometimes we're kind of in this hurried, reactive, scrambled state and we're just like, I need help with this. And we toss it out right? Someone catches it and works towards it. And then as the creative entrepreneur that we are, sometimes we have opinions about how it was completed or how it was delivered or how the work was done, let's just put it that way. And so one of the things that we really think about is, well, did I explain clearly and very well what done looked like? So oftentimes I didn't and I got to call myself out on this one. Oftentimes I pass a task and I kind of assume that maybe they know what done looks like. They can Read my mind or that, you know, I'm sure I'll be happy with the results. And then maybe I wasn't really clear about that. And then maybe I'm a little bit frustrated that it wasn't completed in the exact way that I thought it would be, or maybe it was turned in at a time that I didn't expect. So what does done look like means? What is a job well done? What does it look like? Is there a template or an example of a perfect job or, you know, a great job well done before that, you could show me. And when is this due? Do you want it by the end of the day? Do you want it by the end of the week? Is it urgent? Is it a get to it when you can get to it kind of thing? And so this concept really also couples well with a concept from Jocko Willink, who wrote Extreme Ownership, another book that I love on leadership. And at the end of the day, the big takeaway here is that, well, everything's your fault. Meaning you've got to take extreme ownership over everything that happens under your roof, if you will, like, under your management and leadership, all the way down to, like, if you fire someone, it's your fault for hiring the wrong person in the first place. But also on the. That's kind of macro level. Well, micro level is when things are happening that aren't just right. You didn't really set them up for success. You didn't really give them a clear pathway to what done looks like successfully. So on the flip side, we give people on the team permission to always ask, well, what does done look like? Meaning if a task gets kind of thrown out there, tossed into the air, I need help. And it doesn't come with a clear definition of what done looks like. The team knows to use this language. Okay, great. I'm catching that ball. Can you tell me what done looks like? And so that is a call to action for the task giver.

Right?

Okay, let me. Let me pause and think. If we have an example of this that we've done before that they could use as a guide. Is there a template? Is there sop, a standard operating procedure that we either need to pull from or update as we do it this time, and then when is it due? When is it delivered? And so I often think about how we can do this in our life as well. Like as a mom. Right. Well, I can give a task to one of my kids, but if I don't click clearly, say what done looks like. Like, pick up your room and Then they, they pick things up but just kind of stuff it in a basket in their closet. They don't really put it away. Well, I don't know. I didn't really clearly define what done looks like. So put it away where it belongs, make it organized and have that done by dinner time.

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So I hope this helps you think about can we get clarity, even ourselves, on what does a job well done really look like? Because when you can deliver that with a task assignment, it's such a gift to the recipient. It's such a gift. Otherwise they're kind of grappling at what they think you want or how they think you want it done. And then they risk not doing it like you would maybe want it to be done, but they're so happy to do it exactly how you want it to be done. So it's really a gift to yourself as well. But clarity for the recipient of a task, you know, someone receiving a task or a delegation, such a beautiful thing to just give them the map to success. This is how you measure your success is, does it look like this when it's done? Maybe if we go back to that, that example with your children or my children, maybe we do a really jam up job on their room sometime and I take pictures of it and then we've got documentation of what done looks like. So here, here is what we want it to look like. Let's get it back to this state by dinner time or what have you. So part of this is when you have done a job well, documenting that this is the perfect way that I want a podcast outline, a podcast script. This is the way that I want, you know, lessons written. This is the way that I want a video to be edited. That way people are not wasting their time trying to figure out what you want or doing it the wrong way and having to go back and correct it. And then all you have to do is think about it once and be done. Now, side note, this should immediately go into an SOP. And so we've done a podcast on SOPS before. You can head back to episode number 49. SOPS for creatives boosting productivity and consistency in your business. Because we are a big, big, big, big believer in creating standard operating procedures and this is really where you pull in, well, what does done look like? And you can use these in your business to get help, to hire people, to bring in, you know, part time help or even an intern. Your SOPs are the way to success. So I hope this just got your gears turning a little bit. What does done look like the next time you assign a task? Whether it's to someone helping you with your house or your lawn or your kids or your spouse or your team or inside your business, you know, if you're unhappy with the way someone is packaging and shipping your. Your products, did you give them a clear, you know, look at what does done look like? Maybe you want the label to be a specific way or the insides to be packaged a specific way. Well, let's show them what done looks like and then expect better results that are actually measurable. Okay, my friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for you.