Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Effective Delegating

If you recall, last month we talked about your 'plate' and trying to balance everything that was on it. We talked about how your thoughts can impact your life and get in the way of keeping your plate level and easier to balance. This month we'll talk about delegating.

If you want to live a balanced, fulfilling life, you must free up mental, physical and emotional energy to pursue the things that bring the most value to your life.

Look at your current responsibilities. Which ones are you most passionate and excited about? Which tasks are you best at doing? Which tasks add value to your life and the lives of those around you? Take a few seconds and jot down this list.

Now, for all the things that you do that aren't on your list, you have a couple of options... drop them all together or delegate them to others.

Work should always be done by the lowest competent level. (Now I'm not criticizing anyone's competence, but we have all started at a lower competency level than we are at currently.) So ask yourself this question with every project or every task, "Do I really need to be the one who does this? If not me, then who?" Go to the next lower level and ask the same question. Go down through the ranks until you find the individual to which you have the authority to delegate this task or project.

Road Blocks to Delegation

That all sounds perfectly sensible, doesn't it? So, why don't you do it?

There are many reasons why you don't delegate. Here are a few of the most common:

  1. It would be quicker to do it myself.
  2. I'll feel better doing it myself.
  3. I don't have anyone that I can trust to do it right.
  4. I can do it better myself.

Each one of these reasons is supported by an 'unbalanced' thought process. Which one resembles your most prevalent reason for not delegating? Do you use more than one of these excuses regularly?

Let's look at each of these: {Click here for the rest of the newsletter.}