Today I had yet another example of how important it can be to delegate in order to work to your strengths and achieve peak performance. I had a telephone meeting with my VA (virtual assistant) because I have been waaaaaaay too busy this week. Right now I have many more things to do then I think I will as time goes on because I am running a seminar in June, more work to do on keynotes and talks, radio show guest booking and preparation, marketing, networking, preparing to launch new coaching group and I still haven’t completely unpacked my office… Eeek!
I love it, one phone call and now I have delegated more work to her because we worked out a new system of doing a regular activity. The best part is that I have kept the one part of this activity that really works to my strengths and she’s doing the rest. To top that, she came up with a great idea, which I then built upon by connecting it with other aspects of my business and I think it will really work well. I’m working to my strengths, she’s working to hers and the whole offering is improved, excellent!
Stopping what I was doing and making that call to see how she could help me was vital in order for this to happen. Sometimes we need to stop, take a nice deep breath and ask ourselves if what we are doing is really going to help us get where we want to go.
The thing is that I’ve known I’ve been doing too much for a couple of weeks now and it was beginning to affect other areas of my life. I came across a wonderful quote from John C Maxwell in his book Leadership Gold this week. He cited Brian Dyson, former vice chairman and COO of Coca-Cola who said:
“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.”
For me, this was the right quote at the right time and it really had an impact on me. It’s taking time to build the right team and connect with the best people to collaborate with. Maybe it might take a year or two to get it fully in place and that’s OK because it will be worth it. I just trust that any glass balls I may drop in the meantime will fall to a lovely nice, thick carpet and recover well…
How’s your ball juggling going?
Interesting take on delegation Una. I am not sure that allocating work to a virtual assistant really passes the test for delegation. Sounds more like the effective use of a hired hand.
In my mind for it to be delegation it needs to be a task that the other person will grow into – that will contribute to their professional development. It usually involves a high degree of suprevision and support – at least in the early days. Otherwise it is just the allocation of work.
Thanks for your comment Mike, as it brings up an interesting point that I’ll come to in a moment. First though your thoughts on delegation…
The dictionary definition of to delegate (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/delegate) means simply to give power or tasks to another person. Of course when dealing with employees if there is an opportunity to help develop the other person then that can only be a good thing. Does it have to be a necessary part of delegation? I don’t believe so…
The key point I wish to make with this post is to get people thinking about their strengths and those of the people they work with when looking at how to do their work. Too many people struggle to achieve peak performance because they spend too much time working with their weaknesses. They may be capable of doing the activities that are not their strengths but they will not be as good at them, they will usually be slower and they can really drain them, over time leading to burn out.
A key trend in business is that people are working more and more with ‘hired hands’. Which brings me to interesting point I mentioned above. How do people work with their ‘hired hands’? Do they truly treat them as part of their team where they may indeed even look to contribute to their professional development (where it relates to their own business of course)?
This of course would require investing time in selecting the best fit suppliers for the appropriate key activities and developing a medium-long term collaborative working relationship. We’ve seen this with large scale outsourcing in the corporate sector and I believe it may well become more prevalent with SMEs too.
One of the reasons delegation fails sooooo often is that we give people power and tasks that they do not necessarily see as being in their best interests. They may feel we are foisting our work on them, using them as hired hands, rather than developing their potential, capability and ultimately their careers. So with all due respect to the dictionary definition I think that effective delegation requires a higher standard.
I agree with you absolutley about people being drained by working on and in their weaknesses. As Sirolli so eloquently puts it ‘Entrepreneurs are people who do what they love and surround themselves with people who love to do what they hate’.
However this is not about delegation – it is about roles, teamwork and ‘great group’ ideas.
Being clear on whether we are allocating work to hired hands or delegating work in a team, I think, matters – because they are very different process ending up in very different outcomes.
Knowing when to think in terms of ‘hired hands’ and ‘suppliers’ or ‘partners’ and ‘team members’ is vital.
Mike
Looks to me like we are agreeing vehemently!
Una
Thanks for your comment Mike, as it brings up an interesting point that I’ll come to in a moment. First though your thoughts on delegation…
The dictionary definition of to delegate (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/delegate) means simply to give power or tasks to another person. Of course when dealing with employees if there is an opportunity to help develop the other person then that can only be a good thing. Does it have to be a necessary part of delegation? I don’t believe so…
The key point I wish to make with this post is to get people thinking about their strengths and those of the people they work with when looking at how to do their work. Too many people struggle to achieve peak performance because they spend too much time working with their weaknesses. They may be capable of doing the activities that are not their strengths but they will not be as good at them, they will usually be slower and they can really drain them, over time leading to burn out.
A key trend in business is that people are working more and more with ‘hired hands’. Which brings me to interesting point I mentioned above. How do people work with their ‘hired hands’? Do they truly treat them as part of their team where they may indeed even look to contribute to their professional development (where it relates to their own business of course)?
This of course would require investing time in selecting the best fit suppliers for the appropriate key activities and developing a medium-long term collaborative working relationship. We’ve seen this with large scale outsourcing in the corporate sector and I believe it may well become more prevalent with SMEs too.
One of the reasons delegation fails sooooo often is that we give people power and tasks that they do not necessarily see as being in their best interests. They may feel we are foisting our work on them, using them as hired hands, rather than developing their potential, capability and ultimately their careers. So with all due respect to the dictionary definition I think that effective delegation requires a higher standard.
I agree with you absolutley about people being drained by working on and in their weaknesses. As Sirolli so eloquently puts it ‘Entrepreneurs are people who do what they love and surround themselves with people who love to do what they hate’.
However this is not about delegation – it is about roles, teamwork and ‘great group’ ideas.
Being clear on whether we are allocating work to hired hands or delegating work in a team, I think, matters – because they are very different process ending up in very different outcomes.
Knowing when to think in terms of ‘hired hands’ and ‘suppliers’ or ‘partners’ and ‘team members’ is vital.
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