Delegation Rule of Thumb

I recently picked up "The Making of a Manager" by Julie Zhou. It was a delightful and practical guide for anyone in management! While I had several takeaways, her advice around figuring out delegation was spot on.
She says to "spend your time and energy on the intersection of 1) what's most important to the organization and 2) what you're uniquely able to do better than anyone else."

This rule helps with one of the biggest hurdles I see for solopreneurs and small businesses that are growing: when strapped for time, owners don't know what (or how) to release and often hold on for too long. If you can’t immediately list out several tasks or processes that answer #1 above, I encourage you to spend a few minutes brainstorming those items. Then go back over that list and highlight the ones that you’re uniquely able to do better than anyone else.

How do you know if you’re the uniquely able person? Try these criteria to narrow it down:

• Do you love this task?

• Do you have strong feelings about HOW it should be accomplished?

• If this process failed, how problematic would it be for your customers?

Now that you’ve got your list of things that can be delegated, you’re ready to hand off some new responsibilities to your team OR reach out to me to see if we can outsource those tasks effectively.