To Delegate or Not to Delegate, That is the Question!
You’re an entrepreneur in a growing company and you just realized that you can’t do it all. What should you delegate? What tasks require your personal touch? So far, you’ve done it all, and it feels like one integrated whole. There are no clear-cut rules on how to dissect everything you do so you can get some help.
If you have individuals you started the organization with, there may already be some general lines of responsibility drawn. “You handle the Sales, and I’ll handle the Vendors. We talk weekly about paying bills and anything else that has come up.” This works fine while the business is small. Once the volume of your business increases you need to consider delegation.
As a first step, list all the high level categories of tasks you are involved in. Do you have responsibilities for creating your product or service? Are you responsible for generating any of the “sales” personally? Did you take on all the technology decisions for your organization? Are you everyone’s go to person for every question? Something has to give!
Once you have this list, share it with any persons you have already in the decision making process at your company. Maybe there are items they can handle and take off your plate. Even if they meet your list with one of their own, it’s best to get it all out where everyone can see the whole gamut.
The next step is to assign a value for the amount of time each activity is currently taking you.A quick time study may help you understand where your time is going. Things you enjoy may really be taking longer than you estimate while things you don’t enjoy seem to take forever!
As a next step in the delegation decision, add a second value to each task / category for how long you think it would take someone else to do each task. Remember you’ve been doing this since it was a small thing, you know it inside and out so when you are estimating seriously consider a value for how long you think someone else will need to take this on. There will be a learning curve, and if things are going well, there might be an increase in task volume. Don’t depend on the time requirements going down once the person / persons are fully trained and up to speed.
Now that you’ve gone through the list twice, you’ve probably identified a few tasks that you can’t even consider someone else doing. That’s okay. There is a reason that you started this company! There will be things where you are the best resource to accomplish some tasks and you shouldn’t stop doing those things that bring success to your organization.
Some tasks can be alliviated with software. It’s usually less expensive to invest in software than to hire staff. The next decision is – do you have the time and expertise to set up the software? While this is a one time investment, if you’re already at the edge of your capacity taking on one more thing may be more than you should attempt. Only you will know if that “light at the end of the tunnel” feeling of getting relief in the near future will be enough to offset the additional effort of being the project manager on the software implementation.
If technology isn’t the full answer, then it’s time to look for specific skill sets required to take on some of your tasks. Would an engineer that concentrates on improvements to your product be a better use of resources? Maybe you need to remain the point person on the biggest customers, could a new resource follow up on the additional business being generated? Could an outsourced resource be responsible for your off-business hours phone calls? Should you investigate a resource to take on more detailed financial monitoring? Would a resource that concentrates on maximizing your marketing be a beneficial trade for some of the time you’ve been investing? Each of these items can be encapsulated in a summary of tasks and expectations. Hiring outside specialists is a great way to get the expertise you need without the additional expense of having a full time resource on your payroll that may not be fully utilized.
Remember when you delegate that you need to be very clear on what you need done and your expectations for quality, reporting / deliverables and costs. You may be offsetting the actual tasks, however you don’t want to add another full time job following up on resources (internal employees, outside contractors or software issues) that aren’t getting you the results you anticipated. There is a complimentary bonus with hiring expertise, those resources will bring more knowledge about best practices to the project than you had time for and there could be additional conservation of time and therefore costs.
If considering your tasks allows you to see where you can get relief, take action and make it happen! If you have questions, GCM Enterprises can help, contact us for a quick consult.
