One of the hardest things for fairly new business owners and managers to do is to delegate work and to do it effectively. This is about more than just doling out tasks. It’s about taking tasks that you’ve been doing yourself and giving them to other people (and hoping they do just as good of a job.)

I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who feel like they are in a whirlwind of chaos, either occasionally or most of the time, because they have so much to do, not enough time to get it all done, and they know they’re not having enough time for the business activities that allow their business to make more money.

Delegation

Some business tasks need to be delegated because your time can be spent more profitably in certain activities. Once you are able to identify the activities that bring you the most profit for your time (both directly and indirectly), you can also figure out which activities are on your schedule that don’t bring you much profit in the long run.

Perhaps there are also some tasks you handle that, when you think about it, are really your weaknesses. For example, are you really good at accounting and entering transactions into your QuickBooks program? Can you do it quickly and correctly just about every time? If not, that is something better delegated to someone else.

Sometimes managers and entrepreneurs delegate some of their own work, but find that the people, though very qualified, couldn’t do the work very well. This is because, in some cases, they need to take delegation one more step and turn it into duplication.

Duplication

People I know who are devoted fans of the TV show Desperate Housewives ever since it first aired loved the first season. They raved about it. In the second season, however, I heard many of them saying it wasn’t as good as the first season. It wasn’t as funny. The stories weren’t as engaging. The writing wasn’t nearly as good as the first season. What happened?

The producer of the show, Marc Cherry, wrote the original programs and lead the writing team in season one, doing most of the writing himself. I’ve heard that producing an hour long show involves long hours, 12 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week. So for the second season, Marc delegated the writing to highly qualified writers. However, these new writers didn’t write similarly to how Marc writes, so the fans saw a show that didn’t keep the same flavor of dark comedy that kept them TiVo-ing the show in the first season.

Marc should have duplicated himself when selecting the writers by choosing people who thought, dreamt, and wrote like he does. By duplicating himself, rather than merely delegating the task, he could have ensured that the “Desperate” fans loved it and remained loyal viewers.

“Delegation” and “Team”

When you delegate or duplicate, you can give tasks either to an employee or you can outsource to a vendor.

While your employees certainly are a part of your team, you also have a team of people you pay to handle other aspects of your business. These folks include your financial advisor, accountant, attorney, tech/PC person, coach, printer, insurance agent, etc. Regard these people as team members, too!

I’d like to come back to that topic of “team” in a future issue, in regard to how you can best use the help of non-employees to be a part of your team to your advantage.

Meanwhile, what tasks are on your plate that could really be delegated to others?

How can you make it happen?

Are there any activities for which you need to find someone who would do the work like you do it?