As your business grows, so too will your responsibilities. In order to help you manage stress and stay sane, you will need to learn the art of effective delegation. Business owners who are able to hand over some of their responsibilities have more time to tackle the larger issues associated with growing their business, see a greater life-work balance, and develop their people beyond their current capacities.
It sounds simple, so why do people have such a hard time delegating?
Entrepreneurs have a hard time giving up control because they think they can do almost everything better themselves. They also think they are the only ones with enough knowledge to do the job properly.
Let’s say, for example, that you have always been in charge of payroll. What are the pros and cons of continuing to do payroll as your company grows? You might have a tried and tested system in place that allows things to run smoothly, so you think to yourself, “It’s much easier for me to continue to do payroll than to try to find someone else, who can do it as well as me.”
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it prevents you from handing over tasks that eat up a lot of your time—time that you could be spending on more critical aspects of your business.
Why do you need to let go?
Delegation is often difficult in the short term, but the long term benefits will make your organization much stronger and make YOU a better leader.
For starters, you will give your workforce access to new skills and experience. By developing others through delegation, you will open the door to new perspectives and solutions that you wouldn’t have had if you continued to do the task by yourself.
Most importantly, you will have more time and energy available to focus on growing your business. Too often entrepreneurs become enslaved to the day-to-day operations of their business. This prevents them from seeing the bigger picture, and can actually harm their business in the long run. Just think of how much more time you would have for creative and strategic thinking if you weren’t caught up doing payroll, accounting or whatever?
Try this:
Take out a blank piece of paper and draw a chart with two columns. In column A, list the jobs that you do that no one else can; in column B, list the jobs that you do that someone else could also do. Then, make a delegation timeline for yourself out of column B. Think through how you might delegate 25% of the activities in Column B in the next 3-6 months, and 50% of them within the next year.
Don’t delegate everything at once! Start slow, LET GO, and watch your business grow.
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