Letting go of the business you started, grew and are scaling can be tough. In business there is always questions linked to every stage that your business will go through. What will I do when I let go? How will the business function without me? To put your mind at ease. Let’s dive into 5 top tips on delegation, because take it from any business owner you will very quickly fill this time you feel you are reclaiming. There will always be a new learning curve to conquer and keep you busy!
Tip 1 – Plan
Get your top level plan updated and in order. Do you have key goals and objectives you want to hit? Keep those in mind and work out the best or most efficient ways of delivering on those goals. Stepping away from the day-to-day is never a bad thing, if your aim is to create new strategies to drive growth.
Tip 2 – Divide
Looking at the goals, prioritise what tasks need doing and who in your team is best placed to do them. Match tasks and responsibilities with skillsets, make sure to leverage your team’s strengths. Keep in mind, the scope for professional development. It could be that your current team may not have the skills to execute specific tasks, or your existing team members could simply be too valuable to take them on. If skills are missing, identifying training needs and building confidence will help the business to grow, whilst also creating an ongoing culture of learning and development.
Tip 3 – Expectations
Be clear from the onset exactly what you expect, this top tip on delegation is key. Over communicating at the start could be exactly what you and the team need to put any concerns to rest. Furthermore, a lack of communication may cause issues is if you don’t explain and set expectations from the start.
Consider, what you want to see or be told as business tasks are completed. Get comfortable with not knowing exactly what is going on in the business every minute of the day, along with not having your fingers in every pie.
Tip 4 – Checkpoints
Will there be milestones where updates need to be provided? This could be by project stage, it could be between departments as they hand over, or it could be a weekly or monthly update to the business.
Whatever these checkpoints may be, get the team onboard and aware of what they look like.
Tip 5 – Delegate
True delegation is letting go. Letting your chosen resource take full control and responsibility. Allowing them to own it. It could be in-house or it could be an external resource initially. Building trust, respect and boundaries is key.
You don’t want to feel like, or be know as the micromanager who finds it hard to actually delegate.
These 5 top tips on delegation should give you a solid starting point of things to consider, when you know its time for you to reshuffle the team, refocus your time, energy and responsibilities.
As scaling activities can be stifled if you don’t make the time to put systems in place which enable you to effectively delegate.