10 Nov
Power of Delegation
So when I was in high school I went out for class president my freshman year and I got the position. I realized that there is a lot of work involved! We had to do a lot of fundraising, concession stands, and all that. I was always the biggest overachiever you’ll ever meet. I really took pride in the fact of how much work I could do. I get that from my grandfather. He’s built a lot of houses and he’s always been role model in my life and he says “you should work hard and show everyone else that you can work harder than they can.”
So when I was a freshman in highschool and I got that class president position, I made it a duty of myself to go and be at every single concession stand, every game and make sure I’m involved everywhere. I took such pride in that and I showed all my peers & class mates, “Look at me. This is what you should be doing.” I thought I was being a great role model. Sure, I had great integrity and I was always on time and I was always very punctual. I always charged customers the right price and was a great role model for what you should be as an employee. But there was one thing I really missed and it took until my senior year to realize this.
During my sophomore year, I asked myself, “What can I be doing better as a class president?” A voice in my head said “Matt, you have to work harder!” I’m sure you other overachievers have this same voice talking to you all the time. But the beauty of this chapter shows that you should be working smarter not harder.
I actually dropped a few of my priorities and I put a lot more time into being class president. Yeah, we were a lot more successful because of that. Then, by the time my junior year came around, it was obvious I was going to become Class President again. It was just obvious because of how hard I work and all the work I put into that. So, got the position and worked even harder than before.
I can remember my friends going snow skiing that winter and them telling me, “Hey Matt, you should come snow skiing with us.” But I thought, “Ah man, but I’m class president. I have all my concession stands.” And I actually skipped out on the trips to be there for my concessions stands.
It wasn’t until my senior year that I realized the difference between management and employees. It is a lesson that I’m still thankful that I learned when I was 17. I see managers today who are 40-60 years old and still have no clue of the concept I’m about to teach you.
The difference in a manager and an employee is the power of delegation. When you learn how to delegate you realize that your time shouldn’t be spent on doing a task. I’ll repeat that:
If you are a manager and you are doing a task such as making phone calls, filling out paperwork, looking at inventory, etc – then you aren’t being a very good manager. Because a manager MANAGES things. They doing do projects, they aren’t an assistant, they shouldn’t have time for this because they are so busy managing others.
This is a key concept I finally learned when I was 17 and I write it in this book because so many managers miss this concept. They aren’t managers at all, but exceptionally apt employees who do all the work themselves. They may be a project manager – but not an employee manager.
When I was senior class president I utilized this concept with what I now see was my staff. I had a secretary, treasurer, vice president, etc. Before my senior year, the student council just got in the way and I looked at them as insignificant and I took pride in the fact that I could work 10x harder than all of them put together. You know the saying. I’m sure you’ve said it a thousand times yourself. “If you want something done right, you better do it yourself!” Well, this is quite naïve and I was living with blinders on when I used this phrase, myself.
Then, when I was on overload my senior year and thought, “Is this really what I have to look forward to as a business owner the rest of my life? Surely there is a different way.” At last, I changed my perspective to that of a manager during my senior year. Now, this was no easy feat in of itself, but it opened new doors and new opportunities in what I was capable of. I switched my perspective of “Move out of the way, the boss is here & he can do it better.” To that of, “How can I teach you what I know so you see how easy doing this project is, too?”
So I shifted my focus to give the staff more refined tasks, and just keep up on top of them to make sure they got their tasks completed. This has to do with creating deadlines, detailing & outlining what the project is.
So when I say you need to learn how to delegate, I don’t mean you sit back and say “you do this, and you do that.” Then you chill in the office. No, it’s about training your employees and showing you care about their success.
Most of the employees want to get into your position. They want to be the manager. They don’t want to be the employee. So help them get there and the more you help them get there, the more you show your upper management that you are management material. Or you’ll just show your employees what great people skills you have and how you can make anyone successful, not just yourself. This will be reflected in your business and the projects you create as well.
You’ll also have an edge on other businesses that don’t work so cohesively. Let’s look at my publishing company for example. We write books and we have about 20 chapters that we need edited, written, and designed, laid out, and put into book format. I know how to do all of that. I’ve written quite a few books, I know how to edit, and I can design it, put it in book format, and I can even communicate with the printer better than anyone else on my staff.
Now, I could let my ego get to me and say “If you want it done the best, then do it yourself, Matt!” But surprisingly, you only hear that from people who either have really small businesses or are employees. Really successful business owners never say that. They know that if they are the best in the business at every single thing, then that means they aren’t a very good manager or coach. That means they aren’t capable of training their staff to the point that their staff is equal or stronger than they are.
Don’t get me wrong – I still look at what I do each day and think, “Wow, I did as much work as 20 employees today!” But since I’m managing more than 20 employees, then it pays off to delegate instead of doing work myself.
It took me a good one to two years to feel like my employees were working just as much as I was. But it was totally worth it. I had to backtrack for one or two years and train everyone, but now the system is in place and as a manager, I am getting outperformed by my own staff! It’s such a great feeling to have.
Not only that, now we have training manuals that teach the employees, we have videos, and discussion groups, etc. That is all in the hopes that they will become as skilled in the position as I am or our best manager of that area.
When you realize, “I’m the best editor. So I’m just going to edit everything myself.” That is selfish, egotistical, and it doesn’t make your company grow. If you’re the best editor, you should be making a guide on what makes the best editor. You should be a role model for other editors to show them “Hey, this is the difference between a bad editor and a good editor. Please do _____ more often. Also, here are a few assignments that you can practice on. I will help critique you and help you become the best.”
You should be looking at longevity. You want to feel like you’re safe training your replacement. Because you’re replacing the position of an employee & you’ll actually be creating a new position in the company as the editing manager. Even if it doesn’t exist, once you become so proficient at it funds will open up and your boss will see how much you’ve helped others succeed & made the company’s bottom line grow, too.
You want to see a few years down the road that your employees or coworkers are as great as you are in every area possible. This power of delegation goes on so many different levels. Like I was saying about my publishing company. I have 20 chapters we’re working on.
So instead of spending two hours of my time designing the layout and then 40 hours of my time editing all the chapters and another 5 hours communicating with the printer, I would rather duplicate the effort. I personally love making tutorials and I love to put together maps, diagrams, outlines, and all that. This is all in hope that someone can read that and duplicate the process that I made.
So I’ll design a book and I’ll design 20 books. And after I’ve designed 20, I’ll say “You know, this is an easy process that will work for almost any book.” So I will spend 2 hours of my time making a tutorial. I will really make the tutorial as best as I can. Why am I doing this? Well, I want to delegate – I don’t want to work!
Now that I’ve spent two hours of my time creating that tutorial, anyone new that wants to learn how to write a book, I can now say “Yeah, we have a great tutorial that teaches how to write. Just watch it!”
This hour long tutorial will save you an hour of your time with each and every future employee since you spent so much time on the tutorial – anyone who needs help can simply watch it and have 99% of their questions answered.
Then, on the editing side? Exact same thing. You will want to make a tutorial here too. Now, we’re getting into the complex side of delegation. If you’ve just learned how to delegate and you just grasped the concept of wanting the best in the company then you should now have a new task of training others hands on and helping them get to the top.
The idea is progression, not perfection. So just have your employees help you progress & you polish things up at the very to make it perfect. The end goal is to have a perfect product, but with the help of others you will find even more success. You share your success with them and bring them to the top through the process of delegation. The more you delegate, the more they will come back and ask for further help.
This goes a lot further. I had an employee last week who I told, “You know… you never have been a manager or you’ve been a manager to people with an IQ over 150.” Haha
She’ll tell people, “Go here, get this, and get it back to me by Tuesday.” Then another employee she will say, “Hey, make this booklet look really nice.” And this isn’t really delegation. That is waiving your magic wand that says “YOU do this!” That isn’t a good manager in my opinion. So, how did I handle this? Scolding? No.
I gave her an example of what I would do. “First, write an outline saying: – If you want to make a booklet let’s first get a biography of the auther, then some pictures, and then some quotes. Let’s put all that together with a 500 word biography then get that to me on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, let’s get this much done. Then for Wednesday, _____.”
So, this is what delegation is – it isn’t assigning tasks, it is managing the process of those tasks getting completed.
By the time that employee has the booklet finished, then on the next booklet you can say “Hey, now you have a booklet to design and here is your topic.” At this point, they will feel like they know what they are doing since they’ve made one before and they will think, “Sweet – no problem boss.”
Now, the last thing you want to do in delegation is Delegate your Delegation! Teach your employees first how to learn from you. After they become really good at what they do, don’t have them work anymore – have them delegate. Have them create the training tools so the next people can simply read a booklet on how to make a booklet!
I can remember a perfect example of this getting accomplished in the summer of 2008. I had a few new staff members fly over from France to work in Santa Barbara. They were with me for seven months. The first month I trained them and spent a lot of my own personal time with this staff. The next four months, they did all types of work and implementing what they had learned. Then, for the last two months I could’ve used those last two months for them to work for me more, but I had a better idea. Those last two months I chose for them to create tutorials, guides, and as much as possible for the next French employees.
I spent a month of my time teaching them, then they worked for four months, then they trained everyone else for two months. I’ve gotten my company and my delegation process down to the point that once I train one time I want it to be out there in the cosmos and I never want it to come back to me and have myself have to teach again. This frees up my time to create even more projects and allows my staff to have a plethora of tutorials to learn at their convenience.
In the first stages of a company it makes sense to spend a lot of time training and delegating tasks. As a company grows, tutorials, manuals, and videos should be designed that replace your personal time of training staff. There are few jobs so customized that they need hands on training from a manager. Once you have enough employees, you should focus on training the concept of delegation. Everyone is brainwashed into doing work by themselves and they actually hoard knowledge. It is frowned upon to delegate in our workforce, but the best companies make great use of this. Look at Edward Jones which is one of the best companies to work for and has a great apprenticeship program where new wealth managers learn from the veterans in exchange for doing most of their grunt work. It’s a beautiful process and is the reason all the top doctors are out on the golf course while those learning have the scalpel in hand!
By the way, this entire book has been written based on audio recordings which were transcribed through delegation. Then an editor picked it apart who was learning how to edit their first book. Then finally after it is put together in book layout and 90% finished – it is then moved back to upper management staff to make sure all those who were learning did a great job on the project.
The public only sees the final result which has been combed over by a veteran, but this saves costs and is a great learning tool to work on live projects for our interns and new staff.
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