6 Steps to Effective Delegation

For new leaders, telling people what you want or even what to do is just really, really hard. There's all sorts, especially for new leaders, there's all sorts of doubt about delegating, about telling people what they need to be doing. There's this fear of rejection. There is a fear of disrupting others of, who am I to impose my will on everybody else? And that's A real fear when you haven't been trained as a delegator. And the fact that you haven't been trained as a delegator, your only experience with delegating anything is telling your siblings what to do when you were growing up or whining at your mom like, Mom, can you wash my shorts? But in the real world, delegating is so much different. It is a completely different ball of wax. So ultimately, what I want to discuss with you today is what steps do we need to take to delegate effectively. And that's coming up next on Marc Haine Live. Welcome back to Marc Haine Live where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help you work on your business, not just in your business. I'm your host, Service Expert and Master of Experience Marc Haine. And we're coming to you live Usually noon on Tuesdays Eastern Time. And so, we're here right here on YouTube each week. And of course, you can follow me on social media— Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. One of the things I will be doing this episode from this episode on is I will be putting a conclusion timestamp in the show notes. So, one of the things I noticed is that the average watch for my videos is about 4 minutes. Which tells me that A, my content is too long even though I get some really great subject matter experts and we end up going 40 minutes. I really want to keep it to about 20. But when the topic is so important or the content or subject matter expert is so great, I don't want to split up episodes. I really want to keep the momentum going because the learning is so massive and so important. So, you're going to find at the end of the show notes on a replay, I'm going to have the section called timestamp. And then, you'll be able to go to the conclusion. And just get the tidbits of information. Very, very quick snapshot of what we talked about this episode. And it'll hopefully become more valuable to you if we do it that way. I hope that works. One of the things I'd love to do, I'd love to support— I would love if you could support me and my channel. I would love it if you could subscribe here, ring the bell. That'll give you a heads up every single time I post some new content. And of course, please feel free to share this content with anybody that you think could use the information. I do know that we have a real need to train leaders. And I see that there's a lack of training out there. Okay? There are so many reasons why as a leader you should delegate. But chances are, you're not being trained how. So today, I want to give you some really valuable tips on how to delegate effectively. But first, I want to welcome my audience. Now, I know I've been bouncing around because of all the glitches we had today. I don't even know. I can't even see how many I don't know how many people are on just yet. The original link is dead. And so, I'm hoping that people are just getting this because you're followers of mine and that you are interested in the subject matter. So, welcome! And of course, I start every episode off with our Question of the Day. So, our Question of the Day is, what has been the most challenging situation that you've had in delegating tasks and responsibility? I'd love to hear your experiences. Why not share in the comment box whether or not you're watching it live or on the repeat. Share your experiences of delegation. What was your horror story about delegating? What was your biggest fear? And then, what was your reality when you came to delegating? Because I do know that the two are radically, radically different. I've seen a lot of businesses and I've counseled a lot of businesses. And in my opinion, there are 4 reasons why some leaders just fail to delegate. One is that they're too busy. And I mean, as my family will attest to, in my case, I used to work really, really long hours. I felt that the place would fall apart if I wasn't there doing the work. And so, I made myself absolutely indispensable. I figured it was faster to do it myself when I was coming up and coming in as a leader. And it was— I just figured nobody would do it as well as I could. Right? But then, my team themselves weren't motivated. They were just doing the basic day-to-day stuff. And the funny thing was as much as I was working like really crazy hours, they were working their 9 to 5. They were working their regular shift. They were working what they had to do because ultimately, I wasn't empowering them to do more. And that comes down to the second reason why people don't delegate. And that is that trust issue. You know, when you have to delegate something, it means you have to take your foot off the brake and you got to let people move. You got to let people move forward. And it's really, really tough to do. The trust falls down into whether or not the person is going to be able to complete the task, whether or not they're going to be able to do it on time, and whether or not they're going to do it as well and do it as in-depth as you can. Right? And the third reason why leaders don't delegate is because they might not know how. In fact, in a 2007 survey, 46% of companies felt that their staff were not delegators. And although 49% of them offered time management training, only 28% offered delegation training. This is the number one skill. I feel that when we promote really good performers in our businesses, we need to teach them how to delegate. Not doing so is like asking them to run a marathon by cutting their legs off. Right? And then, the 4th reason why people fail to delegate is a lack of glory. And I'll be honest. This was part of my thing is I loved being the superstar. But as a leader, your role is to make your team shine. That saying that the rising tide raises all boats is absolutely true. But I felt personally when I was developing as a leader, I fell into this whole thing called self-enhancement bias where I needed to look good. I needed to be the best at everything that I did. And honestly, as a leader, your role first and foremost is teach your people how to think critically and how to ask the right questions. This is the only way that you'll be able to keep all your hair and the world doesn't go to hell in a handbasket when you take a day off. All right. So by the way, today's show is powered by the Speaker Presentation App. Speaker Presentation App, I don't have the graphics for the screen on this time. But I created the Speaker Presentation App to help speakers and presenters who want to develop great stories and compelling presentations without ever breaking the fourth wall. The app is available on iOS and Android. And it's at the App Store and on Google Play. So, go ahead and visit www.speakerpresentationtimer.com. I will have the link in the show notes below. It's a free download. for the light version. And then, if you wanted to upgrade to the pro, it's nominal cost. So, let's get into it. So, why is being able to delegate so important? We talked about why they didn't. But why is it so important? And the quick answer, your success depends on it. There's an old African proverb that says that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. It's absolutely imperative that once you learn how to delegate, your team, your department, and you will be able to be more confident in handling bigger challenges. You'll be able to take on more because you have all those shoulders to take that weight off you. Right? You have to realize that you can't do it all. As much as I tried as a developing manager, as much as I tried To do it. I cannot do it all and neither can you. Trying to do it all is like trying to put your foot on the brake as you're trying to hit the accelerator. It's exactly what I talked about before, right? What happens if you put both feet on the pedal? Let's say you gas it. You're going to burn out. You're going to burn out your car. So likewise, without you delegating, you're going to burn yourself out. And another reason why you need to delegate is you need to focus your time and energy and aspects on What is what you need to be doing and to move your objective forward? And I had heard this one particular example of what is your time worth. So, my background, I'm in hospitality. So, running casinos, running hotels. What is my time worth? If I'm doing the job of the people I'm responsible for, I am lowering my value And my productivity value. So for instance, just as an example, if I decided to go out into the restaurant as a restaurant manager and start serving, I am now doing a $15 an hour job, not the $60,000 a year job. So being able to do it is one thing to provide the support. It's another thing entirely to do the work. You know, if you're head of the company and you're working on marketing, but you have a marketing person Who are you paying that to? Who are you paying to do that productive work? And so, that is something that you need to consider when you're looking at something is, are you using the time most effectively that represents your wage and your component, your capacity? Effective designation— designation, sorry. Effective delegation gets your people more engaged and more involved. When you do it, you do it together. You get buy-in of not only Their hands. But you're getting people's hearts and minds as well. And that's so important because that builds engagement. And of course, you have a chance to develop your team. And again, this idea of, I don't have time to develop my team. I don't have time to— how will you find the time to do it all yourself, right? By taking the time to develop your team, it's again, it's the feed the man fish metaphor, right? You give a man a fish, he eats for the day. You feed him, you teach him how to Fish and eats for a lifetime. Your team will learn to take initiatives. They'll learn to brainstorm. They'll learn to share ideas. They'll learn to work together. But if you make all the decisions yourself and only your ideas have merit and you take the wind out of their sails, they are no longer motivated to do anything except wait for you to give them direction on how to do it. And then ultimately, you end up like a lot of owners. You end up pulling out your hair thinking, my goodness, nobody can take initiative! Which is really the wrong way to go. I hope this makes sense and is of value to you. I hope this kind of resonates a little bit. Again, please feel free to share your comments or your questions below. I'd love to hear what you have to say. And if you know someone who could benefit from this information, please, please, please go ahead and share this post with them. So, let's go ahead and break down delegation into 6 essential steps. But before we do, There's one thing I think I need to outline for you. I need you to realize that delegation is not a solitary practice. Now, I realize that some people look at this and go, but Marc, I'm the manager. Of course, it's my job to delegate, to tell people what to do and where to go. And you're not a traffic cop. Delegation is what you do with your team. It's not what you do at your team. Does that make sense? You do it with your team. And so, as I go through my 6 components, I'd really love to kind of break that out for you and what that means. And I think you'll see as we go forward that it will be clear that you need to be able to do stuff with your team, not at your team. So, the very first one is you need to outline your objectives and the context of what you're trying to delegate. And this means sitting with your team, going through what are you trying to accomplish? What are your challenges? Why is this so important to you? Right? You need to be able to sit down with them and get the people around you to understand where you're going. If you and I are going to go on a trip, to Denver from Edmonton. And I say, let's just get in the car and drive. Who knows where we're going to end up? But if we sit down together and we say, okay, well, why exactly are we going to Denver? Why there? What are we out to achieve? Are we going to a conference? Why are we going? And so, we together would work out the objective and the context. Number 2, define what needs to be done. Define the timelines. Define what you expect to get done. So, you have absolutely this idea that we have this project. The end result looks like this. And so, we must get here. And you define how you're going to get there and your results. And this is the perfect time to start this idea of brainstorming with your team. It doesn't mean that you have to be ruling from the roost. Use your team. Tap into their experiences. Here's the problem. Number 1, here's the problem. Here's what we need to achieve. And then, here's what needs to be done. And if you can bring people together, maybe somebody would have an idea that's a little bit different from yours but could save you time and money. The other thing that we have to do is determine number 3. Let's put up number 3. Determine the criteria for success and standards. How will success get measured? There's this thing called SMART goals where you define exactly what it is you want. What is the end result? Set up the benchmarks for success. How are we going to get there and how do we measure as we move forward? And of course, give people the authority. This is probably the number one issue is people don't like to give away their authority. But we have to be able to remove Remove the red tape. We must empower people to be able to fly. And as the great philosopher— well, I'm not going to tell you what the great philosopher said. I'm just going to show you. As much as I like Mindy, it's against intergalactic law to eat fellow space travelers. Fly! Be free! Exactly! As a leader, we have to encourage people to fly and be free. We give them, we empower them to move forward. Every member of the team should know who has what authority to do what. We have to take our foot off this metaphorical brake and help give people the authority to move forward. Let them know that they're trusted, that they're absolutely trusted in what they're going to be tackling. Right? So, any comments? Right now, I don't see any comments or reactions in the window. So, that's absolutely fine. We'll move on. Again, if you're gonna find— if you find this worthwhile and you find that this is a good little checklist, then please feel free to share it. But number 5, you are the coach. You're the one Who has to provide support. You have to sit down and again, with your team when you're sitting down going through this work, you have to predefine every foreseeable roadblock. And your job as a leader is to remove them. I've said it before in previous podcasts. Your job as a leader is to take the stress off your team. You take the stress off their shoulders. And you absolutely have to make sure that they have all the resources they need to be successful. I hope this makes sense. This idea of coaching and support goes hand in hand with the previous 4 points because this will give you the ability to sit down with your team member and measure all those SMART goals that you've made. It'll measure, help you figure out if the criteria that you determined was correct. Are there any other roadblocks in their way and so on? And so, by being the coach, by being on the sidelines to be able to help them Develop and help them overcome their challenges, you will become a more effective leader. All right. I hope this is working for you. As always, I'm going to just do my little offer pitch here because every episode, I have always said that if you would like 30 minutes free of my time with you and your team to brainstorm some stuff, whatever your angst is at the moment, I am here To service you. And absolutely free with no sales pitch, I promise. Look, no fingers are crossed. Absolutely no pitch. 30 minutes on the phone. Love to hear what your challenges are. Love for you to share with me some of the things that you're doing and even some of your best practices. But the only proviso is it has to be you and your team. I don't want this to be a solo thing. I don't want to sit down with a leader of a business and he tells me the problems. We brainstorm stuff and then they just Take it and walk away. I think that by doing it together as teams, we create accountabilities as well. And that really feeds into my number 6, my number 6 point, which is get commitment. People are more inclined to deliver if they do more than just smile and nod in the development process. If you can get them to get passionate about how they're going to be contributing, they will be more engaged. Let them help you define the steps, goals, and outcomes. Give your team members a voice. And the better the voice that you give them, the better that they will be able to take you through and help you achieve your goals. I look at how buildings get built. And you have an architect who designs the building. He has all these specifications. His plans are his communication tool. And then, you have the foreman who tries to drive All that detail. And that detail is really super important. The actual minutiae of the day-to-day stuff is absolutely important. But that's not necessarily your job. A definition of a great leader is what happens when he or she is not around. If you feel that you have to be over people's shoulder every day, every minute of every day to make sure things are going right, then there's something wrong with this particular picture. Effective delegation is freeing for you and your team. So, if you find that you spend more time micromanaging and having to tell people because, oh well, if I leave them alone, they're not going to do what I told them to do, then it's time to maybe take a look at how you're delegating and take a look at that particular process. I implore you to write these 6 down. I'll give it back to you. Put it back up on the board for you. So, number 1 in effective delegating, outline your objectives and your context. Number 2, define what needs to be done, the timelines, and the results you expect. Number 3, determine the criteria for success and standards that you have for success. Number 4, give people the authority to be able to move forward. And this is not in a back room, by the way. This is— you don't give people authority in the back. Okay, John. So, I'm going to I'll put you in charge of the team. No, no, you do it in front of the team. You let everybody know that this is the game plan. Number 5, you are the coach. You're there to provide support. There's a reason why in a football team, the coach is on the sidelines, not on the field. Right? So, you need to be that person. You need to be that person to be able to guide your players, guide your actors, guide your employees. Provide that level of support. And number 6 is get commitments. Get all the commitments down. Who's going to do what? When are they going to do it? What is their role? Well, that's all the time that we have for today. I'd love to know what you think about today's episode. So, please drop a comment in the box below. And if you think you know someone who could use this information, please again, please share it. Information is power. But you know what? If we just hoard it all in, if we're just on the sidelines taking in all the information and not doing anything with the information, Then, it is for nothing. And hey, if you have a topic that you'd love me to cover, please do let me know. I'd love to uncover a topic that is of service to you. If you haven't done so yet, I'd appreciate it if you would subscribe to this channel and ring the bell so you'll be in the know whenever I bring you some fresh and fabulous content. My name is Marc Haine. I'll see you next week when I bring you some more fabulous content. So, bye-bye! Bye-bye! I hope to help you run your business. I hope you will stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception. Thank you.