Are You Holding Up A Quality Act?

In our training programs we regularly see people squirm when we talk about delegation. As John Maxwell says, "Most of us are either clingers or dumpers when it comes to delegation. We either hold onto everything or just dump the entire task in someone's lap." There are a number of reasons we don't delegate well, but I'll save that for a blog for another day. What we can agree on is that our unwillingness to delegate things to other people often limits our ability to get to what is most important at work.

Brett Martin and Thanos Papadimitriou have a helpful blog entitled, Are You The Bottleneck In Your Organization? Among their most important tips are:

Push decision making down. If you're making all the decisions, you're only holding your company back. Push decision making down to the lowest level possible.

Accept that mistakes will happen. Sharing responsibility with others means things don't always go according to plan. Prepare your employees to avoid mistakes by being clear about your expectations and giving them the tools they need to do their jobs well.

Build your bench. Making yourself comfortable with giving up control requires having people you believe in. Invest both your time and resources to develop your star employees.

A Round "To It"

Have you ever delegated a task to someone only to have them say (verbally or non-verbally), "I will do it, when I get around to it?" Or, has it been awhile since you gave an assignment and it still hasn't been completed? Here is a solution. Create a sheet of round stickers that have the words, “To IT” in the middle of the circle. Next time they say, "…when I get around to it," hand them a sticker and say, "Here is a 'Round To IT,' now will you get it done?"

OK, that might be a bad idea. You might end up with the sticker on YOUR forehead, because you can easily offend someone that has too many acts in their circus at the moment. The point is, when you delegate a task, it is important to set expectations and do some negotiating of when the task can and should be accomplished. Don't expect someone to guess when you expect something to be done. Let them know what type of priority it is and where it might fit in an already large list of demands. Remember, you are the ringmaster of the timeline. They are the ringmaster of the task.

Delete and Delegate

In the spirit of keeping things simple, try just two ideas as you begin planning for next week.

1) Delete the unnecessary. Look at your list of "stuff" to do. What can be deleted? What projects are just not important and can be gotten rid of? Sometimes we brainstorm tasks that can be done and forget to ask the question, should they be done. Remember, there is no shortage of acts for your circus. You can't do it all. We have to pick, choose and prioritize.

2) Delegate. What can be given to someone else to do? Who has excess capacity that can help out? Who can you budget to pay to take care of some less than productive tasks that will free you up to accomplish more critical things? Delegate or die! Let others be part of your circus.

Focus on these 2 ideas next week and see what kind of a difference it makes in what you are able to accomplish. You might just find you are getting more standing ovations from yourself.

Trading a Good Act for a Better One

Many times managing our busy schedule is not a matter of getting rid of the "bad acts" from our circus – it is having too many good acts going on and piling up. One key strategy is to figure out what it would cost to delegate certain acts to someone else (outsourcing) and compare that with what we could gain by doing something other than that act.

For example, paying a neighborhood youth to mow the lawn. What would that cost and what could I gain by doing something else (time to work on that novel or more time in my relationship ring?)? A good friend of mine figured out that he could make more money by working and hiring someone to do a remodeling project than by taking time off and doing the project himself. He actually made money by hiring someone. Now, the key here is to make sure that by outsourcing you are taking advantage of that saved time and doing something more productive.

I also realize that doing activities like mowing the lawn and remodeling can be therapeutic as well – an intermission. Just remember that being able to let go of some acts will help you to schedule in the most important acts and reduce your stress level.

"OOFing" Their Way To Greater Results

The Pfizer corporation conducted internal studies to determine how much time their talent was losing to support tasks instead of focusing on higher level responsibilities. The results, to me, were interesting:

• 20-40% of their work load was "support work" which could be outsourced to other individuals or groups.
• No level of the organization was immune. From VPs to Directors to Managers, the amount of time lost each week was 5-15 hours.
  

Following the study, Pfizer decided to take action. They decided to enlist the services of groups that would complete these responsibilities and tasks at a much lower rate than those who were currently doing them. It's part of a program called "OOF" or Office Of the Future.

What about you? What are some tasks you are currently completing that would best be delegated to others so you could focus on "the bigger acts" that would make a more major impact on the success of your circus.

Read more about the Pfizer program at http://21cvision.blogspot.com/2008/01/pfizer-oof-office-of-future-program.html