There comes a time in every entrepreneur’s life when there are more tasks than energy and time. If you don’t delegate tasks in time, then either your business will get stuck, or you will face overload and burnout. To avoid this, you have to start delegating and spend your free time doing nothing, like playing at the Amo casino or going out with friends. How do you learn to delegate your function to others without fear that everything will collapse?
Why It’s so Hard to Share Tasks
Delegating is a key competency of a manager. It’s a natural stage of business growth when you need to expand, rethink your structure and management principles. In theory, every entrepreneur will agree with this.
But in practice, many find it difficult to let go of processes. Here are four reasons why entrepreneurs delay the moment of delegation:
- “No one will do it as well as I do it myself.”
- “I like to do it myself.”
- “It’s quicker to do it myself than to explain to someone else how to do it.”
- “I don’t trust those around me, no one to delegate to.”
These four fears of the entrepreneur are not entirely unfounded, according to the expert. When one is deeply immersed in the process, it is hard to explain in detail how one does something. Besides, at the initial stage, the entrepreneur is often limited by the budget for personnel and cannot attract the best and most experienced employees to the project.
At the team-building stage, the entrepreneur usually does not yet have a managerial mindset – he only has to develop such managerial skills as problem-setting and controlling the result. But it is a must if he wants to move to the next level.
When It’s Time for You to Delegate
If you’re not sure if it’s already time for you to delegate, you can ask yourself a few questions.Take a look at your last week or month. What of the things you planned did you get done? What didn’t make it? What did you spend time on – strategy or routine? When there’s no time for strategy, it’s time for the manager to take on assistants.
Being able to think about where the business is now and where it will be in a couple of years is a key trait of a successful entrepreneur. If you do not engage in strategy (and in a large flow of operational tasks it is difficult), it is extremely difficult to succeed.
How to Learn to Trust Tasks to Others
Experts agree: delegation is not possible without a good team, because it is important for the manager to feel that people will support him and will be able to perform the work well. In order to delegate tasks you should fully trust your colleagues.
The hardest part of delegating is learning to fully trust the team in terms of the level of elaboration of tasks. At first there is a desire to do everything yourself, because then the result will be better. In such a situation you get even more tired, and employees, on the contrary, relax.
To avoid the fear of delegation, choose the right team. Look not only at professional qualities, but also at the coincidence of values. If you are a hyper-responsible person, look for the same.
What It Means to Select People for the Future
For example, you have an online store, and you are looking for an assistant with purely technical functions – to take and collect orders, to contact customers, to arrange for courier delivery. Everything else – planning, bulk purchasing, warehouse logistics, site development, marketing – you’re on your own for now. But sooner or later you need someone with whom you share these tasks. Not the fact that by then you will be able to attract an experienced professional with a competitive salary. Introducing the new person into the nuances of your business isn’t a task for a couple of weeks. It will be easier to gradually grow such an employee from the assistant you are looking for for simple tasks now, and then take his place to take another.
So, already at this stage, look for someone who is not just an executive, but capable and promising, interested in growth. Gradually entrust him/her more and more of your tasks. Explain and show how to cope with them.