Trust is the big issue when it comes to delegating. When all is said and done, delegating is a big risk and for many entrepreneurs, trust does not come easy.
Peter Biggs, managing director of advertising agency Clemenger BBDO, says it’s a delicate balancing act because the company is moving from tight control to a looser structure. It just needs to monitor it and know when to pull things back in.
“It becomes extremely loose and enormously free which requires unbelievable trust,” he says. “It’s massively and incredibly risky.”
“What I love about leading a creative workplace is negotiating and manoeuvring between these two tensions of high control and high looseness.”
Lendich says it’s about balance. “It’s a constant tension between knowing what’s generally going on in the organisation and not over-managing and micro managing to the point where you are not giving people the leeway to do their job.”
Thomson says that’s the time business owners need to adopt what he calls the “80% rule”.
“A lot of business owners and a lot of entrepreneurs get into this mindset that nobody can do it as well as them,” he says. “It’s a real hold up for them.”
“You have to find somebody who can do at least 80% of what you can do. Now, they are not going to get to 100%, nobody can do it as well as you. You are the expert. You designed this particular task.”
“But if you find somebody who can do 80%, you work on the theory that you are going to be paying them a lot less than what you’re worth and therefore you will be in front in the long run.”
It doesn’t all have to be done at once. In fact, sometimes it might be better to do it slowly so that people get used to the responsibilities and build confidence. The trust will flow from that.
“I can delegate to someone a small task,” says Dwyer. “I tell them the outcome I want, I tell them when I want it, I tell the resources they can have and I tell them to report to me every week. Then I could delegate to someone else and tell them this is the outcome we are after, I want you to go away and come back for a chat. Then go and analyse where we are at and come back and tell me how we can get to where we are after. Then I want you to go away and do the plan of how we are going to get there, then come back and have a chat. Then I want you to go and work out the resources required to execute, then come back and have a chat. Then I want you to execute.”
“So I am delegating bigger pieces than I was before, I am not delegating everything.”
Thomson says it is a process that needs to be carefully managed. Executives need to be careful about how much they delegate.
“People try to do too much or they do too little,” Thomson says.
“The key is to get it right by letting go a bit, then checking, then letting it go further and checking again, then letting go a bit further and checking again.”
Regular feedback from both ends is crucial. With a small company, it only has to be a phone call or Skype session once a week. Larger companies require more complex systems.
Lendich says managers just can’t afford to handball responsibilities over and just leave it. That is a recipe for disaster because nothing will be done.
“You have to understand what you are delegating and what resources they will require and how you will manage and measure what is being achieved,” Lendich says.
“You can do that with special meetings or general meetings, depending on the task. I might say to you, for example, that I want you to report to me every week or every month on these key indicators. Then we can canvass whether it’s going well or not, whether we need to allocate more resources or maybe we need to redefine the task.”
Thomson says he has a system that starts with daily meetings that run for a couple of weeks. Then it becomes a meeting twice a week. After that settles in, the entrepreneur and manager can meet once a week.
The critical thing, he says, is that each meeting should have a clear agenda. “There needs to be an action plan with key performance indicators. The action plan written out at the end of the meeting should set out what each party has to do at the next meeting so it doesn’t become another talk fest,” he says.
As a rule, many companies delegate administrative things first like, for example, bookkeeping. That’s easy because most people hate doing it themselves. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hold on to those things,” says Bruzzaniti.
But entrepreneurs and business leaders are more likely to want to hold on to strategic and creative assignments. They have a strong sense of how those tasks should be handled.
“I would say that getting really close to the business and having a really good handle on core strategic things is the most important thing,” Bruzzaniti says.
Still, there is a way of delegating strategy without actually letting go.
Lendich, for example, opens those functions to teams of people but he remains in charge. “You involve the teams in those activities without delegating it to them,” Lendich says. “Lots of good ideas come from a wide range of people so that the whole process of arriving at a strategic plan needs more people involvement rather than you sitting in a corner dreaming things up yourself.”
But Dwyer says there is nothing wrong with delegating strategic activity to people if that is one of their talents.
“Basically you delegate anything you can delegate, and the can delegate bit comes down to the competence of the people,” Dwyer says.
“I would delegate all of our design work in vocational training because I have competent people who can do it and I don’t add anything of value in doing that. I add value in the strategic thinking space but if I have someone who is a really good strategic thinker, then I might give them something to do in that strategic thinking space like a new avenue of business for us, for example.”
“The reason you do it is that people need to feel empowered.”
Thomson says many companies fail to delegate administrative tasks, like for example, bringing in an office manager or appointing a general manager. He says this is a pity because some entrepreneurs lack management skills. “Often I see that people have been very good at growing their business and they have grown it to a certain point but when it comes to being a good people manager, they often suck at it,” he says.
“They struggle to give over control of the business to a good general manager. Generally a good general manager doesn’t have the entrepreneurial flair, that’s why they are looking for that type of role.”
Lendich believes delegation is the best way of stretching people and teaching them new skills so that they can move on to more important positions in the organisation.
“There is no hard and fast rule but it’s really about assessing the capability of your people,” Lendich says. “Sometimes you want to stretch them.”
“So you give them tasks with a view to see how well they perform, both as a developmental experience and potentially testing them for a new job. You give them more difficult tasks with time and resources to see how well they perform. It’s a way of developing people and seeing where they are and what they are capable of achieving.”
“So for example, with someone who is a loner, you might want to test them to do a task that involves a lot of people so they are forced to work with others. Then you see how that goes.”
Dwyer says that delegating without authority is one of the most common mistakes companies make. It is something that should be avoided.
“I might give you a job and tell you I expect you to deliver this outcome,” Dwyer says. “But you don’t have budget to do it, and I am always pulling you in.”
“That means I have delegated in name only. I have never given you the authority to actually do it. A lot of people delegate that.”
In the end, it comes down to the personality types. You cannot expect every employee will be able to take on more responsibilities. Business owners need to look out for likely starters.
Bruzzaniti says people who take on more tasks and do it well tend to be more independent and they ask intelligent questions.
“These are the ones who can grasp things really quickly and have a high level of competence,” he says. “It’s great to have a self-starter but the most important thing is competence. The more competence they have, the more confidence you will have because you know it will be done well.”
“The ability of the person to take initiative helps enormously.”
In the end, effective delegation is an art and science. Thomson even goes so far as to run personality profiles on employees to see whether it’s the right fit.
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