Kia ora,

The inspiration for this week’s issue comes from something I’m still figuring out myself: how to delegate effectively.

Typically I’ve never shared my two cents on something I’m still learning - the classic “who am I to be sharing advice on this topic when I’m not perfect at it myself?” pops into my head.

But the problem is then I forget what it was like to be a ‘learner’ and so never share what would otherwise be helpful advice to someone. So here’s to ongoing learning and sharing where we’re at, before we feel like we’re ‘perfect’.

Estimated Read time: 4 minutes 12 seconds

The Deep Dive: How To Not Stuff Up Delegation

What do buffet enthusiasts and over-achievers have in common?

They both love loading up their plate.

Okay, that was terrible - but the premise is true.

Being proactive and productive are highly praised and rewarded behaviours, so it’s no wonder why the temptation to say yes to lots of work/tasks/opportunities is so strong. 

But the problem is, the more tasks you effectively deliver, the more tend to come your way until you are beyond capacity.

As I spoke about last week, I found myself feeling burnt out 1 week into the year, and have had to have a very hard look at what’s on my plate (and sadly, it’s not buffet food) 🍛.

Being truly effective in life is a mix of strategically saying yes or no, and delegation.

The problem is, delegation is actually pretty hard for the following reasons:

1. It can feel slower than if we were to just do the thing ourselves

2. We feel someone else won’t do it right

3. We don’t want to lose complete oversight of a task

Here are some of the mistakes I’ve made when it comes to delegation and how I fix them now:

1. Not delegating

   1. “It’ll be quicker if I just do it myself” - this way of thinking will keep you stuck. Yes, you could do it quicker, but lots of quick tasks could come at the cost of more important strategic tasks.

      How I fix it: by investing in clear communication (taking extra time to write one banger of an email will save you so much time down the line), and building SOPs for high frequency tasks.

2. Being too prescriptive/going into too much detail pre-delegation

   1. If you’ve done 100% of the thinking before delegating, you’ve already done 80% of the work.

      How I fix it: If you know you are delegating to someone capable, be clear on your desired outcome, but let the person you are delegating to do the thinking and own the process. People love the opportunity to shine and figure out how to deliver an outcome well.

3. Losing oversight

   1. When I hired my first team, once we’d gotten past the teething issues of teaching people how to do their required tasks and building out SOPs, I was so relieved to have everything off my plate that I actually lost oversight of some key tasks. This meant that while I was frequently giving feedback on individual pieces of work, I didn’t have a clear vision of how each piece strategically fell into the bigger picture.

      How I fix it: This time around, I’m building processes to keep across how everyone contributes to the overall strategy. My current system involves having running notes in OneNote of our daily standups and weekly 1:1s.

4. Being too negative or too positive with feedback

   1. If you’re too nitpicky on things that aren’t actually a big deal, people feel disheartened and are less likely to want to work on tasks with you in future. Similarly, if you’re too positive and aren’t honest about things that DO need to be done better, you deprive the person of a learning opportunity and make additional work for yourself on fixing the thing.

      How I fix it: When I’m giving feedback on a task I’ve delegated, I ask myself the following questions: have they hit the brief? What have they done well? What could do with tweaks? I ensure I have good answers to all of those questions to ensure any feedback I give is honest, encouraging, and growth-oriented.

Action of the Week:

What can you delegate?

Whether it’s a work task or a home task, it’s good to practice with something that feels like the stakes are low (i.e. cooking dinner or a minor work deliverable that’s not due for a while).

Be clear on the following:

1. What the task is

2. What the desired outcome is

3. How you usually go about it (but also let the person know they are welcome to try it a different way if they think it could be done better)

4. When you are needing it done by

Once you’ve delegated, the most important thing is to let go of the HOW. Micromanaging does nobody any favours. By all means, check in on progress where necessary, but the big thing to practice is relinquishing control.

Inspo & Recommendations:

LinkedIn post: “Goal setting, what works and what doesn’t”, by Latesha Hearth

Podcast ep: What to Do When You’re Feeling Stuck by Rise & Conquer Podcast

Tech: Kobo! Like a Kindle, except you can read library books on it. I’m reading so much more now that I can just take my e-reader everywhere.

Money: Need a new internet provider/power company/phone provider etc.? Search the names of a few different companies in Ad Library to see what sign-up deals they’re offering in their retargeting ads.

Love from your business-minded friend,

Elise