As business owners and leaders, we all want to be able to delegate effectively to a great team – but unfortunately, this is often easier said than done. Instead of an easy workflow to get tasks off our plates, we tend to find ourselves mired in half-met expectations and frustration.
This could be for a number of reasons, but often, it’s a case of either a) not communicating clear expectations or b) trying to put the right person in the wrong role.
Neither is likely to get the result you’re looking for.
While it is important to build a team you can easily delegate to, it’s also important to realize that this is not going to “magically” happen. It will take some effort and communication on your part, but once the system is up and working, you’ll never look back. It’s that effective.
Why Delegation is Essential
This might seem like a silly question, but I’ll ask it anyway: why should you delegate to your team?
After all, there’s a chance they may do it wrong. Or they may be late. Or they might take it in a completely different direction than you were thinking.
All of these are possible, and if or when they do happen, you’ll need to take a step back and handle it. It’s part of developing your team. But even in the midst of that, it’s still better to delegate than to hold on to it yourself.
You see, when you hold on to tasks that your team should be doing, it’s not a sign of strength. Rather, it’s a sign of fear, of not being willing to let go. Growth doesn’t happen when we give in to fear. As difficult as it may be at times, we need to be willing to hand over tasks to our teams.
Apart from that though, there are logistical reasons to delegate. Simply put, you can only grow so much if you try to do it all (or too much) yourself. The reason you hired a team in the first place was to help you handle the workload!
There is one more reason, though: when you delegate to your team, you’re showing that you trust and value their work. You’re offering a purpose beyond just handing in tasks and earning a paycheck. When you delegate with clear expectations, you’re showing them how they fit into your team. You’re showing them that they matter.
And when it comes to retaining quality team members, this makes a huge difference.
How to Set Clear Expectations
When you first built your business, you probably did a lot of it yourself. You were the Marketing Assistant, the Bookkeeper, the Salesperson, the Client Happiness Coordinator, the person servicing your clients…and behind the scenes, you did all the planning as well.
As your company grows, however, you’ll find it necessary to delegate – and in order to delegate well (and keep yourself from taking those tasks back), you’ll need to set clear expectations and systems.
In other words, just because you developed a way of doing things doesn’t mean that your team will automatically know how you want them done or why – and without strong systems and clear expectations, they will develop their own ways of doing things.
And sooner than later, you’ll have several different processes in motion, all trying to do the same thing. That’s not very productive.
For example: over the past few years, I have had a few Executive Assistants, and each time, they set up email rules for my inbox that allowed them to better help me triage my incoming mail. Unfortunately, not all of them checked to see which folders and rules were already in place – and at times, I was left with no idea where to find certain communications. That cost me a good amount of time and frustration.
I could have responded with impatience (or worse). But instead, I realized that it was an honest mistake on their part, and that I needed stronger systems. I needed to communicate what I already had, what I wanted, and why. It took a bit of time on the front end, but it has saved me so much time and stress.
If you get intentional about taking some time to document your processes and writing a quick sentence or two about why you want it done a certain way, you’ll have a resource that your team can simply run with. If something happens down the road that requires an update to your manual, that’s easy enough to discuss and do.
Today, I have a clear manual and process for training my EA, and she really is my right hand. I know that I can trust her to handle quite a few things for me, freeing me up to focus on developing my team and running my business.
What Do Clear Expectations Look Like?
When you delegate, it is taking the time to run through with the person the scope of the project and what you want with specificity. (Hint: this is made even easier with Systems but first let’s review the elements to set clear expectations.
The first step is to run through these elements with the person:
- Why are you choosing them for this task? This can help them understand that you are aligning their zone of genius with the task as well as showing your confidence that they will do a great job.
- What is the nature of the project? This type of overview helps set the stage, especially if it is part of another project.
- Specify the End Product you want! This is vital. If you don’t want to end up with a draft or a half-written project, be clear.
- Identify any resources or tools they can use as part of the project.
- Set the final deadline and at least one interim milestone so they can ask questions as they go.
- Depending on the project, you may need to define authority and/or any budget elements.
- Identify the priority level of this project.
Once you have described the project, confirm with them that they are ready to take ownership of the project!
Everything Is Made Common by Written Explanation!
Now that we’ve discussed how to set expectations for the delegated project, execution will be greatly streamlined if there are SYSTEMS that help guide the person on how you want it done.
It may be that you only have 1-2 of the 6 components of a System, but the delegated project is an opportunity to build it out further!
Simply put, It’s the WHO shall do WHAT by WHEN – as well as the HOW and the WHY, broken down into different format to accommodate different learning styles.
Because each of our team members is likely to learn in different ways, I find it beneficial to create systems that give the same information in different ways, including:
- The Policy – the “why” behind the procedure
- The Procedures – written steps (with screenshots, if applicable)
- A Checklist – to make it easy to refer back to and make sure they don’t miss a step.
- A Video
- A Diagram or Workflow showing how the task fits into the larger process – this allows each person to understand who else is involved and the overall timeline
- An Example or Template if this has been done before.
These tools provide the data points to allow a person to quickly complete the project the way you want without needing to “reinvent the wheel”!
*** If you would like to uplevel your delegation skills (or those of an up-and-coming leader on your team), you’ll find a great training inside our membership, Business Mastery College. We also have resources we’re happy to send your way – just contact us and let us know what you’re looking for!
Delegation is a skill that requires you to exercise and hone your methods so be okay with it being a work in progress. Having an Executive Assistant is a great way to practice delegating things to and to have a partner who can constantly ask what else can come off your plate and be delegated to other people!!
Cheers to more delegation … and if you need help hiring or learning how to work better with your Executive Assistant let us know, we have tools to help!