Delegation. 

Most people either… 

1. A) Hate to delegate or 
2. B) Are delegating incorrectly

Most business owners, or entrepreneurs, absolutely hate to delegate things because they are the, “Just get out of the way, you are slowing me down”, and the, “It will be faster for me to do it than it would be trying to explain to you what you need to do”, kind of people. Or if they have gotten to a point where they do, in fact, delegate, they do it wrong.

When people choose to delegate, they tend to be horrible at the follow-up. What you absolutely cannot do is delegate something off of your list and assume that it is going to get done correctly. You have to assume that whatever task you delegated is not going to get done, or on the off chance that it does get done, it’s going to be half-assed. Delegation requires follow-up. There has to be more micromanagement, not less.

Being the owner or manager, you take pride in your work so you will do it to the best of your abilities. Once you delegate, the pride that you hold in your work has now been cut in half simply due to the fact that the person you delegated to does not care about what they are doing as you do. Now you are probably thinking, “Uh, delegation sounds like more work! I’ll just keep doing it myself, thank you!”. 

Stop that. Stop that thinking right now.

If you ever desire growth, delegation is necessary. Delegation at first can be rough, but you have to go press through the growing pains to have the desired outcome that you want. The growing pains of taking time to teach someone how to do a job that you do not need to spend your time on anymore. The growing pains of creating a checklist and systems so that the speed of training can be doubled in the future. In the beginning, the delegation will feel like it is taking up a lot of your time, but in the end, it is setting you up to be free to do what you want to do.

What you are going to WANT to do is start delegating all of the tasks you don’t want to do and just assume that they are done and done correctly. You cannot do that. Once you start delegating things, you HAVE to follow-up relentlessly until you know that the task is done.

Pro-tip for you, do not just ask your employee if it is done, have them SHOW you that it is done. People will say things like, “Yeah it is for sure done!”, but then ask for them to show you. Watch what happens. More often than not, they will say, “Oh, well I meant that I was just about to finish it”. 

This only happens 

Every.

Single.

Time.

Delegation (once done correctly) is so vital to the growth of your business. It frees you up to do the things that you are great at, which will be the best use of your time. It allows you to work ON the business and not just IN the business. When you are stuck in the trenches doing a job that someone else can do, it is putting a lid on your company’s growth. It is keeping your company from thriving and you from thriving.