Better Delegation: The Key to Increasing Your Team’s Productivity While Reducing Your Stress

April 10, 2015
Category: Achieve Consistent Business Success,Be a Highly Effective Owner,Build an Accountable, Self-Sufficient Team,Business Tips

Would you like to increase the productivity of the people on your team and reduce your own stress and frustration in the process? Who wouldn’t, right? But How?

Become a better delegator.

When I talk to contracting business owners like you, one of the biggest complaints I hear is that when you ask folks on your team to do something, it seldom gets done on time, or the way you want it to be done. And sometimes, it doesn’t get done at all! Do you have this problem too? And because you don’t trust your team to follow through on the tasks that you assign them, you feel the need to manage them closer than you want to, or you just do it yourself. This eats up time that you should be devoting to running and growing your business.

But the problem may not lie within your team. In many cases, when your team doesn’t follow through on assigned tasks, ineffective delegation by you is the root cause. Here are a couple of common examples to illustrate my point.

Many owners give assignments to their employees informally whenever they think of things that need to get done. You probably do the same. I call this “drive-by delegation.”

You catch a member of your team on a job (or as they’re heading out the door at the end of the day) and you say: “While I’m thinking of it, I want you to do a better job of billing clients at the end of a job and you also need to keep better control of employees misusing equipment.” They shake their head and say “OK,” and you’re both off to the next thing. Problem solved, right?

No!

What typically happens to these delegated items? Nothing! They never get done.

In reality, your employee never really accepted responsibility. In fact, he probably forgot what you asked for as soon as you left, or he thought that you’d forget by the next time you saw him, so he didn’t bother to add another task to his already over-filled plate.

Another common place where I see ineffective delegation rear its ugly head is in meetings with your team. Here’s what typically happens: You and your team discuss a problem that you’re having in your business. You have a great conversation. Lots of good ideas are discussed and everyone’s excited. It feels like you really made progress. The discussion ends and you move on to the next subject.

A week or two later you’re frustrated and angry because nothing was done to implement all the good ideas that you discussed in the meeting. You wonder, “What’s wrong with my team? Can’t I trust them to do anything?” Nothing is wrong with your team. More than likely, there were no clear assignments and due dates given, so no one accepted responsibility to follow through. Again, ineffective delegation is the culprit.

Follow these 4 simple steps to delegate more effectively

Here are four simple steps that you can take to improve the effectiveness of your delegation and get more things done through your team with less stress and frustration:

1. Clearly define the delegation “take-aways”
   For your delegation to be effective, you and the person you are delegating to need to define clearly:

1. What they are going to do
2. When it will be done
3. How they will let you know that it’s completed.

Having clearly defined takeaways helps summarize what you’ve discussed and ensures that you will get what you want done when you want it.

2. Make sure that the person you delegate to agrees to take responsibility for the delegated item.
   Your delegation isn’t complete until your team member agrees to take responsibility for getting
   the delegated item done.
3. Write down what you agreed to and make sure that the person you delegate to writes it down too.
   This keeps whatever you delegate from falling through the cracks!
4. Use a tracking system to hold people accountable for all of the things that you delegate.
   Keeping track of all of the things that you delegate can be overwhelming! You need a tracking system to ensure that the items you delegate don’t fall into the “Delegation Black Hole.” Your tracking system can be as simple as keeping a running list of delegated items in a notebook, or more sophisticated, like using a task management system, (like the task function of Microsoft Outlook or Todoist) or project management software (like Asana or BaseCamp).

And because everyone will soon come to know that you keep track and follow up, your tracking system will help you hold your team accountable and ensure that whatever you delegate gets done. Magic!

Follow these four simple steps to effective delegation and you’ll see dramatic results! Your team will get done what you ask them to. You’ll begin to trust your team more, so you can loosen up on your tight management, which will give you more time to run and grow the business. Your stress and frustration will melt away, the birds will sing, the sun will come out and you’ll be whistling a happy tune! Really! Give it a try!

Tweet