When you're an entrepreneur, the one skill necessary to insure career success is the ability to effectively delegate tasks. If you are a Type A, 'Do It Yourself' personality, the ability to delegate can be a particularly challenging skill to master; yet without it you will find yourself limited in your ability to grow both personally and professionally.

Here are the facts: Our brains are limited in their ability to process information simultaneously. According to a recent study in the journal Science, you cannot perform well when you work simultaneously on more than two tasks that involve decision making and reasoning. When you tackle two tasks at the same time, both hemispheres of your brain are utilized and function independently. Researchers found that when a third task was added, it caused the participants to make errors and to perform poorly.

A perfect example is driving and talking on a cell phone at the same time. Both require complex decision making and reasoning, especially if the conversation is work-related. If you are behind someone in traffic and they are on their cell phone and driving slowly, it is because their brain is struggling to do both at the same time. If they are driving at a normal rate while chatting, then their brain hemispheres are better at processing two types of information simultaneously, but it is a safe bet even they will end up at their destination with no idea how they got there.

 

As cliché as it sounds, there are only so many hours in the day and only so much a single lonely pair of hands can accomplish. If you fail to master the art of delegation, you will experience limited business growth, frustration, burnout, stress and poor job performance.

You don't have to be a 'big' company to experience this either. Even solopreneurs will find it necessary to bring in someone to help them sooner rather than later. There are just too many activities, appointments and tasks to juggle when you're in business for yourself. But once you do get help, you must find a way to 'let go' and allow the help you've hired to, well, help.

In order to effectively delegate, you must understand the different types of delegation, educate and train your staff to accomplish tasks in a way that results in satisfactory outcomes, and be willing to trust that others can do things as well as you can. Furthermore, the hallmark of a great leader is someone who mentors and coaches the staff around him/her to leverage or elevate their abilities while encouraging them to accept more responsibility.

True delegation requires a certain amount of decision making freedom. If you say to someone "Do exactly what I say", this is instruction, not delegation as there is absolutely no decision making freedom involved.

If you say "Do this, let me know if you need help from me, then together we'll decide how to proceed", this opens the possibility of greater freedom for analysis and decision making, subject to both people agreeing the results are appropriate. This beginning level of delegation is helpful in growing the skills of your staff, defining additional coaching requirements and developing trustworthy relationships.

If you say "Do this, decide and take action and let me know what happened", this is the start of freeing up your own time while encouraging others to take more responsibility. By having them report back to you, you are able to monitor their decision making skills and are then able to further mentor and coach toward the eventual delegation of responsibility.

If you say "Do this, decide and take action, you don't need to report back on this task", this is the ultimate in delegation, demonstrates a high level of confidence in another's ability to perform tasks and now you have successfully increased your own ability to accomplish more while lessening your personal workload.

We've all heard the axiom "Work Smarter, Not Harder". In the context of delegation, the word 'SMARTER' is an acronym meaning:

S - Specific - Be specific in the definition of a task to be delegated

M - Measureable - Clearly define your expected outcome of a delegated task

A - Agreed - Have mutual buy-in for both the task and the expected outcome

R - Realistic - Be sure the delegated task is reasonable and achievable

T - Time-bound - Establish a timeframe for accomplishing the delegated task

E - Ethical - Ensure any delegated tasks are ethical and morally sound

R - Recorded - Especially for business-related tasks, document and archive results

As entrepreneurs, each of us is faced with thousands of decisions and tasks on any given day. And each of us wants to be productive, efficient, and successful no matter what our position of responsibility might be. The only way to truly achieve these objectives is to reduce your dependence on the 'Do It Yourself' mentality and to master the skill of effective delegation.  

Go ahead - give it a try - and by the way, there is no need to report back on this task....