The Secret to Effective Delegation

In past episodes, we have defined entrepreneurship as running a business. And we've defined business ownership as having bought yourself a job. And really, when you think about the difference, really the difference is that in one, you are running your business versus in the other one, the business is running you. The difference really is in how much you delegate. And that's what my guest and I will be discussing today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experiences that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. And welcome to this episode. My guest for this episode is Business Strategist Bill Ringel. And today, we will define what delegation is and what it is not. We'll talk about why it matters and how to become more effective at delegating. I know for years, I measured my effectiveness as a leader by what I got done in a day and by how busy I was. I mean, I really felt that if I wasn't busy, I figured I wasn't working hard enough or I wasn't being effective. I really did wear the I'm so busy badge really as the badge of honor. So, this brings me to our Question of the Day. So, as a business leader, how do you know you are being effective in your business? Do you find that you are doing the $300 an hour jobs? Or do you find most of your time is taken up doing the $10 an hour tasks? I'd love to hear your comments and your feedback. Go ahead and put comments wherever you're consuming this content. Just make sure that you go ahead and hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. I'd love to be able to track what your feedback looks like. Our guest for today, as I mentioned, is Mr. Bill Ringel. He is the former Apple exec who founded Grow Business Now. Bill works to educate and inspire other entrepreneurs and small business leaders. He has dedicated his professional career to helping overwhelmed tech company managers become admired leaders, people who can help grow and scale their companies. He hosts My Quest for the Best, the podcast for ambitious small business leaders. It has over 400 episodes with top published thought leaders like Daniel Pink and Doug Conant and Dori Clark. And they share their stories, strategies, and tools with listeners. Bill, welcome to the show! I'm so excited to have you here.

It's great to be with you, Marc.

Thank you for coming. Hey, before we get into today's topic, could you just dig a little bit deeper into how you serve your So, in technical arenas such as small businesses and mid-sized businesses, managers are overwhelmed.

And what I do is I bring a set of tools in order to help them. It's both a tool set and a mindset that helps them become— make the transformation from overwhelmed, overworked managers to admired leaders.

Nice! And so, we're talking today about delegation. So, why is today's topic so important to managers today?

Oh, first of all, delegation was important even before the big shift of working from home. But since the shift of working from home, it's become even more so, more important because people have found out the weaknesses in their systems. People have found out that if you don't communicate the work, if you don't ask for help, If you're not signaling handoffs properly, things fall off the tracks very, very quickly. And I'd add a second point to that too, Marc, is I'd say that delegation is really the litmus test for somebody who's coming up through the ranks wanting more responsibility. One of the most important ways to prove it is to do well with the resources you've been given already before you're given more to advance in the company. Maybe a larger team. Maybe a bigger budget. Maybe a larger scope of authority.

Yeah, and how well people succeed in those roles with those expanded teams will define whether or not they make a good leader or that they're able to be effective in their team dynamic.

Absolutely! One of the things that people always do is they notice how well their colleagues are doing. Are your co-workers accomplishing their goals? Are they meeting their milestones and KPIs? If they are, that's something that you want to emulate. And if you're not, people are kind of forming a reputation about you and your work and your leadership. So regardless of your title, everyone in a company is a leader. And one of the ways to prove the effectiveness of your leadership no matter what your title is by being really, really good at delegation.

Nice, nice. And that's a beautiful segue because I think before we get too far into today's episode, we should really define and clarify what exactly delegation is because I think people have different mixed messages on what it is.

So, I know that you have a wide number of people who listen to your program. And I think that everyone can agree that delegation is involving others to get more done. And I would add to that another part, which is you want to build bench strength. You don't want to do it just for the one-time experience. You want to be able to think about it. If you're thinking strategically and adding more value to your company, you want to think about it strategically and say, if by involving this person in the work, am I also giving them an opportunity to learn a new skill set, to build business relationships in order to highlight their expertise to other parts of the company? All of these things come together in delegating effectively, which we all agree is just getting more done By involving other people.

Nice! Yeah, it's so interesting because we see samples of that all over the place. But yet, I see when I consult with especially small businesses, I see that people are relegating themselves to doing kind of the smaller tasks and not delegating it off. Based on our definition, what are you seeing managers are doing wrong?

Okay. So, here are 3 questions. That every manager should be asking himself or herself on a weekly basis. You should be saying, am I delegating in a way that frees me up or that encumbers me? If you're not delegating effectively, you're probably having to assign the task multiple times. Hey Judy, I asked you to do that analysis. And then you go back and revise it and it really takes more of your time when you're not effectively delegating. The second question that managers should be asking themselves is, if you look back over the past month, can you say that you have used the company's resources well? And by that, I mean the company has paid for the staff, the team members, the resources that have been entrusted to you. Can you look back and make the case, I've done well with that? And then, the third issue is kind of a future-oriented question where you ask yourself, if I had one more person added to my team, could I absorb that and utilize that person effectively? Or would I feel overwhelmed? Because one of the things that I find is true every time that I talk to a senior manager, leader, director, and they're looking to grow their responsibilities within the company is When I say to them, what would you do with more staff? People who have delegation down and have confidence and a track record of doing more with more people have a way of answering that that's very different than people who are saying, oh my gosh, I'm managing a team of 5 now. 6, I'd have to work another 10 hours a week. And that's a red flag. And it's a place of honesty that you really have to start with, Marc. You have to start with the fact if you really believe that, Now's the time to step back before you get handed more responsibility or another teammate. And look at how you can make your delegation work effectively. Because if it's not going effectively, everyone knows it. And they're waiting for you to step up and ask for help, or to get more training or skilled in that area. A lot of times, companies just don't understand how to make that change on their own.

Right, right. At the same token, people have perceptions about what delegation is. Are there any myths that you think that we need to be busting during this episode?

I would say so. I would say so, yes. So, the myth of being able to delegate and have people read your mind is one. That's one of the most common and pernicious ones. Oh, just do it. And I've got a vision but I'm not going to fully describe it because I think that would take too long. And people don't realize that it really does shorten your time the more thoroughly you could front-end load. I love that expression because it really is a sign of a skilled manager and an admired leader when you front-end load the assignment you're about to give. That's one. Does that strike a chord with your listeners, do you think, Marc?

Oh, I'm absolutely sure it does. Another myth that I hear is that I can do it better. I can do it faster if I just do it myself. Of course, there's consequences to that line of thinking, isn't there?

Yes. Every time I hear someone who's a director, senior manager saying something to that effect, well, a job done well is one that I have to do myself. I can't delegate this. It's surely the sign of someone who's not quite yet capable of growing their department or scaling their business. And when you say that, it's kind of a weird thing because the mindset is, I have a high standard. However, the limitation is you're not able to translate that to other people within the company. You're not able to transfer it. You're not able to bestow it and make sure that it's a transferable skill. And if it's locked within you, Well, the company's happy to have you do it. You'll just never be able to take a long vacation or be promoted. So, if you're okay with that, if that's okay with your career path, well, you don't need to improve. But for everyone else, you really do need to take a look at that when you feel like you can't have anyone else do that. Now, let me just add to that that there are times that you can't delegate certain tasks. You can't delegate certain responsibilities. So, anything that's legal and you have signature authority in order to authorize a particular contract, that's something you can't delegate. If there's a relationship involved and you've had a long-standing relationship, you can't immediately transfer that and say, oh, starting Monday, Mike is going to be your contact. And you lose a lot if you do that without a transition process.

Right.

And a third area is if someone doesn't have the skills. You've got to support them. You've got to bring them in gradually. You've got to help them develop the discernment and judgment that you've developed over years and years and years. And many, many times of going through the process or the interactions or the skill steps that are required to pull out your particular job.

It's so blatantly clear to me that you're more powerful when we delegate. And we can get actually better valuation of our businesses when you have effective processes in place. I'd like to delve into some strategies to better delegate. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with the founder of the Delegation Lab, Bill Ringel. Bill, What is the Delegation Lab?

The Delegation Lab is a portion of a larger program that helps people go from overwhelmed managers to admired leaders. And the lab is a place where we can experiment with several key mindsets and skill sets to help prove that choosing certain options help you become more effective. Many times, people will say, Well, I don't have time to learn more about delegating. We can help you with that because there are things that you're doing that are so reactive. You don't have time now. And I'm not going to have the argument that you do have the time when you feel like you don't have the time. You have to start doing things differently in order to change your perception of your time and of your availability. And I go back to Stephen Covey's 4x4 grid. where they're urgent and important things that are split. And when you're doing urgent and important, people have the feeling like that's where they're making their greatest contribution. Yet, anyone who's read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People know that your most valuable contributions are made in quadrant 2, where you're doing important and non-urgent work. And that's where you could step back and figure out strategically What moves you need to make, what skills you need to add, what experiences people on your team need to have to develop to go even further. And I remember working with a client and he was someone who had a growing company. He had about 55 people and he was based outside of Atlanta. And his team, he wanted his team to take on more responsibility. And he kept saying to me in our coaching conversations, Bill, I just want them to take as much responsibility as I do. And we had to have him think about it as giving them ownership, not just the responsibility for the task, but the ownership and being able to claim credit for it. And that's what allowed people to step up and really want to take that on and have the impetus or the reward of putting in the time and making the investment of the changes that would pay off down the road by changing the way they related to time. By when people would come to them and say, hey, John, someone on his team, John, do you have a few minutes? That's very, very common. And yet, it's really the sign of a lack of discipline. Because what you really want to do is you want to be able to say, listen, I'm happy to take these questions. But unless it's a red button, you know, all-out emergency. It could usually wait a couple days. And so, you schedule time and say, listen, if things are related to understanding the business requirements of what we're doing, we're going to have a meeting on Tuesday. So, save all those things. We'll put them on the agenda for Tuesday's business requirements clarification meeting. If something's related to using a particular code library, because I work with a lot of people who do software development, And you want to be able to expand or bring something in. There are discussions that take place for that 3 times a week. You don't want to just interrupt people because as you understand, Marc, and I'm sure many people listening, once you get into a flow state where you're able to do your best work, you want to be able to take that for as long as the period is that lasts. But an interesting thing, Marc, is that many people, if you actually do and track the time as we've done with You know, lots and lots of companies. You find out that people are really only productive and able to focus on their prime responsibilities. It's really, really great when they could focus at least 4 hours a day. And many times, people work longer than that but they're not doing that core effective work. And that's just a shame that they're spending so much time and effort doing this because it's cutting into things that would really recharge and rejuvenate them. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. So obviously to me, this is a core leadership issue when you have a culture where you have empowered people to do some work. People are working on a project. But yet, as to your point, they're only working half the time if they only work an 8-hour day on the stuff that is going to move the pendulum. The rest of the time is taken up with doing maintenance stuff like answering emails and answering telephone calls and having that inevitable knock on the door to say, hey John, do you got a couple of minutes for me? So, from a cultural perspective, what does the leaders need to start looking at in order to shift this a little bit?

So, there are so many different ways of doing this. But the one thing that people should focus on to make the biggest difference is to start to model not working past work hours. And it's the one big leverage point. When you have leaders who are answering emails at 10, 11 o'clock at night, it sends the message to the rest of the team and everyone else in the company understands this, that that's what's expected of everyone. So, it's not really setting a good precedent even though you might think that you want to be responsive. You might be thinking, oh, I want to be helpful to this person. And here's a trick for how to do that effectively. You might be answering questions while you're watching Netflix at night and the laptop is sitting there on the sofa with you. Answer the email so it's off your plate but schedule it so it doesn't get delivered until 8 or 9 o'clock the next morning. And just by doing that, within days, people in the organization are going to start to get the message. Oh well, I really don't have to check email at night because I'm not going to get any messages or replies to things. You always want to be thoughtful about the impact of your communications that way.

Yeah, and it's interesting because saying that, I see that from an onboarding perspective, you need to formalize that as a policy on the get-go. Because then, when people do have this nature of wanting to send out emails because they just thought of something and they're reaching out to a subordinate or to a co-worker and saying, oh Steve, first thing in the morning, we need to handle this. And if poor Steve has his laptop open, then that creates that level of pressure. So, at the same token, we need to have a culture that turns around to that and responds no differently than you would respond to any other bad employee behavior. Yeah.

And I think it goes back to what you were saying earlier and thinking about what type of standard you want to set within your company and how you want your culture to communicate to your current employees and the employees you want to bring in. Do you want to be in a culture that says, we work hard during the work hours and then we really want to release people to have a rich social life, a rich family life, a rich recreation life? When you do it that way, you attract higher quality people and you maintain your rising stars and your high performers because you have a culture that doesn't burn them out.

It's so magical that you said that because we went from work-life balance to now work-life integration. And I think the stats said that on average, people were working 6 hours more a week because they were working remotely. And to me, that's just— and so, this idea of this work-life integration part of it. And we've had episodes in the past talking about early risers versus night owls and how people can, if they're remote working, they can actually work within the scope of what fits for them. But only if the leaders within the culture allow that to happen and be able to use the delegation process and the follow-up and accountability process to cater to that.

Yeah. So, I'm smiling because I was thinking about when I was at Apple. And I had realized that we were all working really hard and accomplishing things. And there was such a sense of purpose. And we felt so supported in order to do things. And we made mistakes and all of that. But I suddenly realized when I was traveling, and I traveled all over the country, all over the world doing briefings and conducting training classes, I suddenly realized no one's ever told me to not work. And I talked with some people about this as we were doing a large training camp one time. And over some beverages and refreshments late at night, somebody says, just offhandedly, but it was such an unguarded comment that contained so much truth. It's always stuck with me. And this guy who was a senior manager said, listen, when we're all expecting you to work 80 hours a week, we just don't tell you which 80. And so, it was perfectly fine for people to go and watch a piano recital of their children in the afternoon because they're going to come back and get some stuff done before the next day. Everyone met their marks because that was a high-standard environment. It was a high-performing environment we were working in. But you were allowed to take time out in order to do things, to have that richness in your life, and to have that balance. The sooner that people realize that no matter what company you're working for, no matter who your boss is, you can't give away that power. You've always got to be the one who's thinking, I'm in charge of my life. I'm responsible for monitoring whether I'm on a roll or whether I feel like I'm under a wave and I've just been overwhelmed by all the commitments and overcommitments I've made this week. So, that's important for people listening to keep in mind.

Yes, yeah. And it's interesting because we're talking now. We're talking about kind of workloads and what the expectations are. Because to your point, nobody— maybe I could be wrong. But nobody's ever come to me and said, Marc, you have to work 80 hours a week. No. When I get hired, I get hired for 35 hours, right? And there's an expectation. This is you come in from this time to this time. And that is the expectation of the hourly commitment that we're making. So, if they're not telling us to work more hours and they're not telling us not to work overtime, then ultimately, that is a self-control thing that needs to be addressed.

And let me share with people listening who have held this idea from a very early age that has got reinforced that if you're working hard, That's to be admired. I absolutely agree that focused, dedicated work, especially in your zone of genius where you're really focusing on what you do best and how you make the best contribution to your organization, that's where you want to be. Yeah. However, I'm not alone when I say that if I notice somebody working, even if they're a general manager, even if they're a senior vice president, if they're working consistently week after week, month after month, After hours, on weekends. They've sent me a message. I haven't responded to it. I haven't even read it on a holiday. But if they're sending messages on holidays like I've gotten from July 4th holidays, that's inefficient. That's not work style to be emulated. It's setting a lousy example for your team. And I'm not alone in making that evaluation.

I think we're seeing this shift now because the baby boomers were the generation that it was like, work your buns off no matter what. I mean, that's how you got ahead. You just did all the work and you just worked as hard as you possibly could. And then, now that we have multiple generations now in the workforce, we're seeing that there's less of a focus towards that and more towards more towards a more balanced aspect. It was interesting as you were talking. I was thinking about this one operator. He had a restaurant and he got the restaurant as a cook. And so, his role was to be in the kitchen and he was the one making the pizzas. And he was working 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, nonstop for 3, 4, 5 years.

Wow!

And to your point, that is not sustainable. So, the big question is when it comes down to delegating, does it really matter who does the work?

There are certain tasks and responsibilities where it does matter. Yet, I think many people who have never evaluated their responsibilities don't realize how much of what we do day to day can be delegated. So, the first place I'd encourage people to think about this is I'd say, make a list. Keep an audit for a week of just every half hour, jot down what you did in the previous— on the hour, write down what you did the previous hour. So, just an hourly log would be great. And then, start to look at the categories. Is this something that is involved with leading meetings? Is this something involved with writing code? Is it something involved with working with vendors? Start making some general categories and think, if I wanted to get something off my plate, how could I bring someone else on the team up to speed so that you could easily delegate this? And especially for people who are running small businesses, there are many times when you're making your own flight arrangements. Buying a ticket, it doesn't matter who has purchased the flight. If you can delegate effectively, if you could think about what airline you want to take, when you need to arrive by, and my preference is always the fewest number of connections the better. If you could give that kind of information to an assistant, again, a person who's a $300 an hour versus someone who's earning $10 or $15 an hour, if you could delegate that task and just take 15 minutes off your plate, A couple times a month. If you could take 5 or 6 of those off your plate, you could suddenly have a couple more hours a week that you could then spend thinking about how to strategically contribute to your organization. And that makes a huge difference.

This is fabulous, fabulous, fabulous mindset. I love this. Bill, if somebody wanted to reach out to you, if somebody understands now that they do have a challenge, how can they get hold of you?

Easiest thing is to follow me on LinkedIn, and if you're particularly interested in this delegation stuff we're doing, go to growbusinessnow.com/mhlive because we've got a special offer of a delegation bundle of resources, all these goodies for listeners of Marc Haine Live, and I want to share with you things that help make a difference in the way that you delegate. Because I have a framework that I've created that really makes a difference. And it's something you could implement starting tomorrow if you start to understand it.

I love it. Thank you so much. That worksheet sounds so valuable. I will make sure it's in the show notes so people can click on it and download it. You mentioned something about people coming to the realization about this idea of delegation. I've also met people who use their job tasks and use what they do as their point of pride. That this is, I am the best at doing this and this is what I love doing. How do they start getting that ego out of the delegation process?

I would look at it and see what their responsibilities are. If they're meeting them, I would look at their job satisfaction and see if they're happy doing this. I'm not going to interfere with it. But if they want to release some of those responsibilities, if they want to have time in their life for other pursuits, if they want to go on vacation, things like that, then I would encourage people to start to break down their work. And everybody has a role with responsibilities. Start to look at those responsibilities and we start to break them open. And you think of different Aspects of the work. And I think of it and say, okay, what's needed to prepare for that work? What's needed to begin that work? What's needed to follow up from that work? And if you can start to look at those 3 categories, you can start to see who you could bring in to help you with the preparation. Maybe who could help with the follow-up. Those are the easier ends to deal with and then work your way towards the middle. Many times, people start to ask someone to do something right in the middle. And that has the greatest threat to their identity, And to their sense of pride. And I say, no, no, no. Let's keep that in place because they are skilled at that. And what we need to do is start to define what it is, find out where it helps to give them some help and offload some of that time. And then, do it so it's a win-win-win operation from the get-go. It's a win for the person. It's a win for the person who's starting to assist them. And it's a win for the ultimate customer. who receives the output of their work in that area of responsibility, whether it's an internal customer or an external customer.

And how much more efficient would your customer think your service is if you're not— you yourself aren't being bogged down trying to do it all, right?

Oh, especially for the head of an organization, for the founder, for the CEO. You never can really become the bottleneck in that area. I remember a chief operating officer and a founder who had written a newsletter for the longest time and he operated a— Tom operated a high-tech recruitment agency based out of Washington, D.C., and he had grown up, he had built the organization around this newsletter and he was so proud of editing it, yet it took 8 to 10 hours a month to assign the articles, to review them, to proofread them. And I said, Tom, what if we just added a day a week to your time? What would you be doing differently? And he started, he blinked a couple times and then he said, there's so many things that we could be doing differently. We could start to invite people more in advance to some of our events. And we could, I could have more time to make personal one-on-one calls. that only I could make. And so, I said, let's make a list of things that you're doing now. And we started to categorize them. And sure enough, the newsletter rose to the top. And he had on his staff one of his project managers who had an English Lit degree, who was perfectly capable of running the newsletter. But it never occurred to him to delegate that because it was what he'd always done.

Interesting! I posted something on Instagram today talking about the fact that we have people on our teams who are more capable of doing what their job descriptions allow them to do. And that's a perfect example of that, right? It's a perfect example of doing an audit and finding out what people can do within your organization to help you out.

Exactly.

Yeah, I'd like to talk a little bit about when it comes to delegating, what should people watch out for? And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with Business Strategist Bill Ringel. And as you can tell, we are super passionate about helping businesses and owners and their teams excel. If you belong to an association or an organization that is planning maybe a leadership retreat, or a conference, or just need some training, feel free to reach out to us. Our contact information is in the show notes. Before we get into some cautionaries, Bill, One of the things I was thinking about is what's the one thing that our audience members should remember about delegation? If they take nothing else away from it, what's the one kind of check that they need to have in order to kick themselves in the bum if they see themselves falling off the train?

I think that you always want to approach delegation from the standpoint of getting more done And building bench strength within the organization. And you want to approach it from that standpoint. In order to do that, you need to be doing it in a time zone where you're working on important, significant stuff, not trivial stuff, because there's nothing that will repel the biggest, most talented people, the biggest performers, the most talented people in your organization than trying to get people to do something that is low level rather than something that is engaging and exciting and really moves the the ball down the field. And I think that if you take that into account and you start to say, how could I build strength? Not only will you get more talented people involved in your organization, not only will you get better results from the delegation that you're doing, but your reputation within the company will rise. Not because you're doing it deliberately but because it's such a smart thing to do is to involve people in getting tasks done. in a way that builds strength and accomplishes more.

Yeah, yeah. At the same token though, as you were talking, I was thinking, do people understand what the difference is between delegating responsibilities and delegating tasks?

So, I break it down and I call— I like the word assignment. And an assignment can be something as straightforward as a task. And to me, as a task, that's something that requires Very little special training and very little time. A task is, like we said before, booking an airline reservation or a hotel reservation. A task is maybe gathering information on the internet. It doesn't matter who does that. And then an assignment is something more involved. An assignment means that I'm asking you to do some analysis. An assignment means that I have coached you or mentored you to think about things from a certain perspective. So, keep that in mind. Difference between task and assignment. And then, there are other things that we delegate. Projects, processes. But that gets more involved. Make the distinction and involve people by delegating assignments more than tasks on a regular basis. If you find yourself delegating a lot of tasks, find out what that responsibility is. That's the umbrella responsibility. And see if you can delegate that entire responsibility. So, someone else is responsible for all the tasks as well as the output of that. That's a really big step for many new managers to take, or managers who have been promoted during the pandemic, or people who just haven't been trained in this at all. Marc, do you know that most people are asked to take on some sort of leadership role? This is a Harvard Review study I came across. They are asked to take on a leadership role Sometime between 32 and 34 years of age. And you know when they receive their first training in how to be an effective leader or an effective manager? Closer to 40. So, we have people who are being asked to do things that have significant responsibility for at least 5 years before we give them any training in that. To me, that's just crazy. Crazy and wasteful and dangerous. that organizations are doing this and not introducing them to the most effective methods, the most effective mindsets, and the most effective tools early on.

Yes. And we talked about this with Jane Halford who talked about that CEOs who get put into positions, like a third of them don't survive past 3 years because of the lack of support when you're putting people into new positions. And we've talked about this Endlessly when we talked about promoting your high performers. They're a high performer because they're doing that particular task. But then, it's incumbent upon the organization to train them with the skills they need to be effective leaders. As we go forward, are there any— there's some people who might be saying, that's it now. I could free up some time. I'm going to start delegating tomorrow. Are there any cautionaries for those people who want to jump on this bandwagon and just say, I'm going to delegate this, this, this, this, and this.

Yeah. So, I would go back to the delegation framework. And what makes this framework— let me tell you the story of how it began. I was at a mastermind retreat for business owners and entrepreneurs who were looking to build their businesses and go from— to enter into the 6-figure per month So, I was sitting down at a lunch at one of these beautiful outdoor patios. And you remember what it's like to actually network with other sharp people and the kind of conversations that you have on a regular basis, Marc. That's just so fun. And I remember sitting there with a woman to my left, Pamela. And she was saying something that we had mentioned before. I said, well, it sounds like the way to scale is just to add 1 or 2 more project managers. And you'll be over $120,000 per month. And she says, oh no, if I— every time I add someone, it takes another 10 hours of my week. And I said, Pamela, talk me through the process that you use to onboard them and then to manage projects. And she started going through all these elaborate steps. And I said, hang on a second. And I got a napkin. I said, why don't you try this? And on the napkin, I drew 4 columns. I said there's a planning column, there's a doing column, there's a checking column, and there's a done column. I said in the planning column, you're going to make one important agreement with the person you're delegating to, and that is you're going to define the work and ask them if they agree that they could take this on, accomplish the task, and meet the deadline. If they make that agreement, then they signify that they've accepted That work assignment. I said, and she said, wow, I don't do that. I said, now, here's the next step. They're going to work on it and you're going to explain to them, work every time you work on it. I want you to move it over. Imagine like a big whiteboard and then sticky notes that everyone can see. So, move it from column 1, which is planning, to column 2, to doing. And I could see that you're working on it and I'm really happy to see you're working on it. But it may take a couple days to do. So, when you finish the time that you've allocated to work on this, move the task, the sticky note back from column 2, which is the Doing column, back to column 1. So, that lets me know that you're planning to work on it further. And that decision is really important because you're communicating progress. And then, the third decision comes when the person that you've assigned to work to finishes what they're doing in the Doing column. And they don't move it to the Done column, which is what 99% of the entrepreneurs and business leaders out there do. They say, when you're done with the work, move it over to Done. I say, create a Checking column. And when you move it from Doing to Checking, you're now signaling that you've taken it as far as you can. Maybe you've asked some questions. But you've created the expectation that now you're asking for feedback and evaluation On your completion of the assignment. So, you build in that opportunity to have that conversation, get feedback, and either one of two things happens. Either it moves to the right to the Done column or it moves back to the Planning column. And when you have those 3 levels of decisions taking place, it builds a more collaborative environment. And people could get this idea really quickly. You could download the template that I've got. We've got all these resources for you on there on the growbusinessnow.com/mhlive site. So, I encourage people to do that because maybe that visual will be helpful.

Yeah, and it's what a cool way to kind of outline it. I do know that there are tools out there like Trello and so on. And as you were saying that, it's like, oh my goodness! This is what I have to implement because we create all these projects in Trello. But then, the expectation is somebody's gonna— my VA is gonna go in there and just do the work. And we're not moving it anywhere. We're maybe putting a thumbs up to say it was done. But from a visual perspective, I don't know if she's stuck. And so, at the very least, if she keeps going from doing to planning, back to doing, back to planning, and it's taking a little bit longer, I can then reach out and say, hey, this one particular task that you were working on, this particular project you were working on, it seems like it's taking you a while. I keep seeing it going back and forth there. Do you need any help? Likewise, by moving it forward to the question stage, question?

Checking column.

Checking column. It allows you to be able to get that accountability as the one doing the task. You get that analysis and that evaluation off the top without saying, okay, I've done the task now. There it is. And then, they come back to you a week and a half later and saying, this is really terrible. You need to fix it. So, I can really see that it has got such a lot of power. Are there any other cautionaries, Bill?

Let me offer you another refinement that you'll find personally helpful, Marc.

Sure.

We both publish 2 podcasts. And I say that a podcast edit should never take more than 2x the length of the podcast. So, I set that expectation. And I say, if you've gone through and you've listened to it and you've taken out any pauses or ums, verbal tics, we call them, and you've written down all the resources and put them on the web page, that's it. For a half-hour podcast, it shouldn't take more than an hour. If it's a 45-minute podcast, you could take up to 90 minutes. But I give every project manager that I work with these 2 pieces of advice. One is you can continue to work on something, and if you're stuck, spend 15 minutes trying something else, maybe looking online for resources, Or even posting a help ticket on a particular tool that you're using. But after 15 minutes, then go to whoever your manager is and say, I'm stuck. I need help. Move the, move the card, whether it's in Cello, whether it's in Trello, Asana, Basecamp, Jira, whatever project management software you're using. Move it over to checking, but flag it and say, need help. And the other thing is that I set expectations, first of all, to only work on it for 15 minutes. If you get stuck, then move it over to checking and then start working on something else. The other thing is I always set expectations like I said at the very beginning. This is the task, and because it's something that's a known process, here's the expectation of how much time it should take. And if you both know that from the beginning, you could monitor and be better self-evaluators of the progress of that project.

Very good. And I think delegators need to understand as well though, when you're first delegating something brand new to somebody, there is an expectation it's going to take them longer the first time around to do it until they find their flow and they find their routine in order to get those tasks done.

Yeah, delegation. One of the primary axes of delegation is the difference between control and support. If you have too much control, you're only giving out very, very tiny tasks and people never feel empowered by it. By support, you may give them a lot of leeway but they could also trip up and hang themselves if you don't give them the structure that's needed. So, you need to be able to have the balance that's appropriate given the task, given the complexity of it, given the person's experience. Given the timeline. And with those 4 variables, you'll be making different decisions. But you'll have good guidance. And both you and the person or people you're delegating to will have a really clear idea as to what's expected and how they're going to be able to meet those expectations. Because you want everyone to win. That's always the bottom line. You want people to play together and win.

And move things forward. At the end of the day, to move things forward. This has been absolutely fantastic. This has been such An extremely high-value conversation. I just love this. And I'm hoping that the people watching it are taking tons of notes. Do you have any last thoughts about what we're talking about today?

Yes. And I would say that if you are in an organization working for a small or mid-sized business and you have a level of responsibility where you're able to delegate, and I think everyone is, but if your delegation is a part of your everyday activities, The way to excel fastest is by recognizing that you're being paid and rewarded and recognized for not only doing the work but communicating your progress about it. Remember to look down at the— look at the people who are your direct reports, how they're delegating, and know that people who you're reporting to are also looking in the same ways at you. And always be ready to communicate Communicate, communicate when you need help, when you finish early, or even when it's very common when you might be taking longer than what you initially agreed to. Communicate that early because that's a part of being an admired leader and going from an overwhelmed manager to an admired leader.

Love it! This has been so great, Bill. Thank you so much. Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Sure.

Follow me on LinkedIn. Go to growbusinessnow/mhlive for Marc Haine Live, special for these listeners of this video on YouTube as well as the podcast. And also, I'm on Twitter. So, follow me there as well. Love to hear from you. Love to hear about the results that you've had implementing one or more of the tips from our discussion today.

Bill, thank you so much. I really appreciate your generosity of spirit to be here today. And to share your passion and your knowledge with all of us. Thank you so much for doing this.

My pleasure.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, please feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to this podcast? That'll give you first dibs whenever I bring you the fresh content that will keep you working on your business, not just in your business. It'll help you work towards creating those show-stopping, jaw-dropping experiences your customers and your employees deserve. My name is Marc Haine. I hope that you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.