You can’t do it all – so let go and delegate for cryin’ out loud
You may have a background in web design, and be capable of completing the task, but it’s worth it to delegate. A professional website designer will get the job done right, in a timely manner, and make your website look professional while you can focus on growing your client list.
Questions to Ask Yourself
• Does delegating make sense for me to grow my business?
• Does my business have the revenue to delegate? If not now, when?
• How much time am I spending on tasks that are slowing my growth?
• What should I look for in employees/contractors?
• How would I feel to not have to do administrative tasks or things that don’t directly relate to generating revenue and growing my business?
Big-name businesses didn’t get to the point they are at today by the owners or executives doing everything themselves. They implemented the art of delegation when the time became necessary to take their business to the next level. Delegation for business owners is the ideal way to grow your business without having to take on more responsibility and sacrifice your personal time with your family. The bottom line is that delegation always makes sense.
Common Tasks to Quickly and Easily Delegate
Common Tasks to Quickly and Easily Delegate so you can focus on your highest payoff activities that put you in the highest probability position to achieve your goals.
• Answering Phones/Returning phone calls
• Sending/returning emails
• Performing research
• Bookkeeping
• Filing
• Scheduling appointments
• Website design and maintenance
• Some aspects of marketing
• Writing articles and blogs
Generally speaking, administrative tasks should always be delegated to an assistant. While answering the phone and responding to emails is important, your focus should be on the tasks that directly increase the growth of your business. For instance, your energy should be focused on conducting seminars, creating new products or services, networking, meeting clients and prospects in person, talking to strategic alliances or centers of influence, expanding into new markets, etc.
The common tasks mentioned in the above category should not require your attention. Hire an employee or virtual assistant to take full responsibility for their maintenance. These sample tasks are simple tasks that almost anyone can do, but other tasks that require a specific skill set should also be delegated to experienced professionals.
The Art of Delegation for Business Owners
Delegation for business owners is a must-do for success! When you can hand over your administrative tasks and projects off to an able assistant or employee, you can focus on more important tasks that only you can do to grow your business and increase revenue. The art of delegation is an essential part of establishing a growing business.
Why Delegate?
There will come a time in your business (for most business owners, this comes sooner rather than later) when you feel overwhelmed. You may find that you have too many tasks to accomplish without enough time to get them done. It is when you come to the realization that delegating the small or low-priority tasks to an assistant would make your life a whole lot easier, that it is time to do it.
Delegation allows you to eliminate the low-priority tasks so you can free up time to focus on the high-payoff producing tasks. Clearly, this can allow you to focus on increasing your revenue, and it can also free up time to center your energy towards expanding your business. When your business continues to grow, eventually reaching another plateau, you may find it necessary to hire more assistants or outsource more tasks.
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Global Awareness
To retain a competitive edge in any organization, entrepreneurial management needs to keep their finger on the pulse.
Management needs to not only identify technological shifts, it also has to recognize and rapidly respond to changes in client sentiment.
Top-heavy, bureaucratic management processes impede an organization’s power to respond instinctively and take appropriate action.
Self directed teams who understand the company’s vision and processes enable the organization to react responsively and implement strategies that will improve overall performance and productivity.
Client focus has become a strategic imperative. A dynamic company structure needs to clearly understand exactly what their client demands and know how to deliver the best product available.
Regardless of whether employees directly interface with clients, the workforce as a whole needs to be able to define their client characteristics: who they are, what they want and how to deliver productively.
At the same time, employees need to also focus on any barriers that may exist which prevent full client satisfaction and work on eliminating them.
Breakdowns or barriers in the company’s processes that impede productivity need to be identified rapidly and actioned immediately.
Global Awareness
To retain a competitive edge in any organization, entrepreneurial management needs to keep their finger on the pulse.
Management needs to not only identify technological shifts, it also has to recognize and rapidly respond to changes in client sentiment.
Top-heavy, bureaucratic management processes impede an organization’s power to respond instinctively and take appropriate action.
Self directed teams who understand the company’s vision and processes enable the organization to react responsively and implement strategies that will improve overall performance and productivity.
Client focus has become a strategic imperative. A dynamic company structure needs to clearly understand exactly what their client demands and know how to deliver the best product available.
Regardless of whether employees directly interface with clients, the workforce as a whole needs to be able to define their client characteristics: who they are, what they want and how to deliver productively.
At the same time, employees need to also focus on any barriers that may exist which prevent full client satisfaction and work on eliminating them.
Breakdowns or barriers in the company’s processes that impede productivity need to be identified rapidly and actioned immediately.
Personal Productivity of a Highly Productive Workforce
A highly productive organization is the result of a highly productive workforce. Every member of a team needs to contribute to the overall productivity process. This means there is no room for people who sit around waiting for direction. A highly organized and well structured work team knows their responsibilities and understands how their productivity contributes to the success of the company and its goals.
Each employee requires training in plan management techniques. They need to understand the principles of goal setting, time management and prioritizing activities so their time is focused on achieving the critical tasks rather than the trivial demands of the day.
The reality of working today has changed dramatically over recent decades. Increasingly, employees are learning to become more empowered to make decisions independently and accept full responsibility for the functionality of individual processes that form a part of the greater picture.
As dynamic enterprises move towards more autonomous decision making processes to keep pace with rapidly expanding marketplaces, the flow-through effect encompasses increased productivity, a more creative and inventive workforce as well as improvements in the timely delivery of new technologies, products and services.
7 Ideas to Engage and Motivate Your Staff
Sarah gets to work at the same time every day. She sits down at her desk and starts doodling on her desk pad, playing computer games, surfing the internet, or texting friends. Unless she is interrupted by a phone call or correspondence that requires her urgent attention, you know she will spend the bulk of her day doodling on her note pad, playing computer games, surfing the internet, or texting friends.
So why is it that the only thing that appears to motivate Sarah is the clock ticking over during the last 15 minutes of her office day?
Sarah is not unlike hundreds of thousands of other employees in corporate America. She is, or has become, one of the “unmotivated masses”.
Luckily, the success of your organization isn’t dependent on the singular input of employees like Sarah, but what needs to happen to generate a positive and motivational environment for all your employees, Sarah included?
As a business leader, the most important lesson you can learn about motivating staff is that what motivates you may not necessarily motivate Sarah or any of the other employees you are responsible for.
Motivation means different things to different people. As a business manager, it is an integral part of your role to observe and learn what inspires and motivates each and every member of your staff.
However, having said that, recent psychoanalytical studies on what influences employees to become engaged and proactive yielded a defined methodology that proved to be universally effective.
How to Engage and Motivate Your Staff
1. Reward Immediately and Frequently
In the study, one of the primary influences that affected the motivation of employees was recognition and reward. It was shown that small rewards offered frequently and as soon as possible after the performance had the most impact. So the gift of two tickets to the cinema was more rewarding than the promise of a promotion at some indeterminate time in the future.
Conversely, inappropriate or incorrect behavior must be noted as soon as it becomes evident.
While it was noted rewards are seen as more motivational when given in the presence of other team members, bringing a staff member to account for an oversight or error is best performed in private.
Further, as a leader it is important to check for improvement in a timely manner and compliment employees if a positive change is evident. Otherwise, staff may be left wondering why they should bother if changes are not acknowledged.
2. Share the Vision
Employees are seen to be more motivated when they believe their contribution is making an impact on the overall success of the organization.
So it is important to share the company’s mission statement and vision with the entire staff. By allowing them to share in any improvements and successes the company experiences, you ensure they feel like an integral part of the team.
3. Chart a Career Path
The majority of employees have a perceived career path they would like to follow.
Not only is it vital as a manager to be aware of the staff member’s vision for the future, it is also important to clearly define how management views their career path. The qualities and expectations required by the employee to achieve their career goals must also be clearly defined.
4. Lead by Example
A good leader must illustrate to his or her employees the correct procedures and processes required. If you want your staff to arrive at work on time, then you will need to follow suit.
Lead constructively by being a great role model so staff knows what is expected of them.
5. Communicate Openly and Honestly
Staff who are kept “in the loop” are more likely to remain motivated than those who have no idea what is going on.
A great leader always maintains open channels of communication so his or her staff feels comfortable about discussing any relevant issues.
Inappropriate behavioral practices as well as the need for conflict resolution can be kept to a minimum if managers maintain an open door policy.
6. Invest in Staff Training
Staff feel valued when you spend the money and time investing in their knowledge and skills.
Regular staff training sessions, seminars and group training experiences not only improves your employees’ skills, they also enhance your employees’ motivational levels by improving their self esteem.
7. Create a Stimulating Environment
It’s okay to have a little fun once in a while.
You will find that 30 minutes once a week engaged in some sort of competitive game, competition or quiz will repay itself 10-fold in productivity by increasing employees’ self worth and therefore their motivation.
Schedule games for the end of the day so your staff can leave the office with a renewed sense of well-being.
Another alternative could be “casual dress Fridays” or the opportunity to leave work 15 minutes early thrown in from time to time.
Add any of these ideas into your business to help increase the motivation of your staff so you can experience even better results from them. They will appreciate you thinking enough of them and their abilities to implement these in your organization.
Delegate to Significantly Increase Your Success
Delegation refers to the assignment of responsibility to another person in order for that one to carry out a chosen project. What’s important to realize is that the person who delegates the assignment is actually still accountable for its outcome. The person in authority is handing an opportunity to a subordinate in hopes that he or she will make proper decisions and reflect well upon the authority’s name.
The benefit of delegation is that it allows staff members to develop their skills to full potential. In a way, it is about entrusting authority to someone else. You, as the authority figure, are giving that person the right to act independently, under the power of your name and your firm.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean that you should continue to do it. Learn more about how to work with people, both superior and subordinate, and to make educated decisions that will help you on the road to success. Delegate as much as you can so you become more effective and efficient at those things that only you can do and are best for you to do to be more productive and successful. As you begin to release control one-by-one, you will start to experience how great it feels to just do what you are good at and work only on those things that produce the results you want.
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What is an ‘expert’ really?
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, defines an expert as someone who has devoted a minimum of 10,000 hours to becoming skilled in a single narrow field, such as; tax accounting, estate planning, money management, or financial planning, etc. Gladwell’s definition is as good as any and makes sense to me the way he lays it out in his book.
How many hours have you devoted to your skill, to your career, to what you really enjoy doing? When someone tries to tell you how to do your ‘job’ do you have the confidence to share with that that you are the expert in this field and they need to take your advice and do whatever it is you are recommending (said nicely and with confidence)?
When you are looking for an expert in a certain field, would it be important to you to know how much time they have invested in their field to be that expert that you are considering hiring? When someone devotes 10,000 hours of their life to perfecting their skills, I would suggest that they are probably an ‘expert.’
What do you think about this?
