As business partners we usually attend quarterly seminars to refresh our skills and to learn new insights into how we can effectively and innovatively impact the businesses that we serve. This quarter, our learning focused on measuring impact and how so many of us as individuals and businesses either don't measure impact, or only measure impact at the surface level so we never really know how we're doing. The truth is, if we're not measuring, we're selling ourselves and our businesses short.

One of the topics discussed during our seminar was being ready for the year ahead and the organization that we attended the training at said...Are Your Ready? I thought it was catchy and yes, the title fits well with most anything. Are we ready for the year ahead? Are we ready for change if we lose an employee? Are we ready to succeed when we set our business on a different course? Are the people working in our business ready to take on new responsibilities and are they equipped to handle them?

If you are a new manager or if you have ever managed people, you have probably had those feelings that every manager has in their career and question whether or not you are speaking a foreign language when delegating work to your staff. The truth is, this frustration doesn't have to leave you pulling out your hair or questioning your ability. What you can do is employ the skill of empowering people so that they carry out your delegation request.

Often our first inclination as managers is to do the work ourselves because a) we can get it done with fewer headaches, b) we can get it done quicker, c) we can get it done right the first time, and d) we don't want to be seen as the "bad guy", or for women, the "B" word. The issue however, is that by doing the work ourselves, we don't empower people to do the work that we have hired them to do, and they get the opportunity to only do the work that they are most comfortable with or enjoy.