If you are like many organizations, you would love to clone a few key people in your company. You know, those people who seem to always accomplish the most and do the best work. Any project or team they are a part of is exceptionally well done and on time, while a similar project, not being led by the certain individual, seems to be lacking quality. This individual is likely to be yourself, although it could be one of the key employees working for you.
Regardless of who it is, there always seems to be a common theme. This person always feels they need to have a hand in everything, or that they will believe that the work being produced in not of high enough quality. Do you feel similar to this in your business, organization, or team? Do you feel like this about one of your key employees?
What if I told you that the solution was a simple one? One that doesn’t require near as much work, but much more trust. Trust in your co-workers, trust in your employees, and trust in their abilities to perform. Imagine how much more would be accomplished if you were able to step back and not feel that you had to have a hand in every piece of work that happened. Would you be interested in reading more to learn about ways to effectively make your workplace more efficient, while allowing others to do more?
By delegating, you are allowing more to be accomplished by more people, leaving yourself more time for the critically important tasks, while not being caught up in the smaller day to day tasks. Below are some tips on how to efficiently and effectively delegate.
- Trust. Trust that your employees can handle what you are assigning them and that they will do a good job in handling their tasks and projects.
- Things may be done differently. Understand that everyone has a slightly different way of doing things, and that your way is not the only way to accomplish something. One of the most difficult parts of delegating is allowing someone the space and freedom to do the job their own way.
- There may be a better way. Some of the new ideas that people have may actually be better than the way you had done it, and that is okay. Encourage that in your teams. Remember that innovation comes from good people.
- Hire good people. Hire people that you think will be able to someday take your job. By being surrounded with good people that you trust, your transition to delegating to them will be much easier.
Work to delegate the less important tasks to people who can handle them, which will only free up your time to handle the bigger jobs. Allow your employees and co-workers the space to do their jobs. Don’t step on their toes by doing their job, just as you wouldn’t allow them to step on your toes by doing yours.