Delegation
One of the hardest things to do as an entrepreneur is to delegate. Yet you’ve got to get good at it because the single scarcest resource for startups is founder/management-bandwidth.
What are the things that make delegation difficult:
- Time. It takes management time to organize, communicate, and follow through on plans. When you’re running fast, it’s very difficult to pause, step-back, and do the things that are necessary to ensure successful delegation. There’s a very tricky balance on managing delegated tasks too. If you dedicate too little of your time, the employee will flail; but if you dedicate too much of your time, it can become too consuming.
- Quality. Oftentimes it is seemingly hard to delegate because you worry other people are not going to do things as well as you would. While that may be true, you are not going to be able to do everything yourself; and if you can’t figure out delegation, you might as well not try to grow your business.
- Speed. Other people will likely be slower to produce the given task than if you did it yourself. It can be painful to watch less efficient workers for two reasons: 1) you’re paying them, so their slowness is costing you money, and 2) you want to get to the end result quickly so that you can move that particular project forward.
Great delegation strikes a nice balance of communication and productivity. Great delegation is full cycle including planning, execution, and following-up. It takes a force-of-will and conscious decision to stop producing some stuff yourself so that you can get more done in the business.
Pre-mature delegation is fake and a sign of a hollow startup. These are professed founders that just want to be middlemen-with-an-idea, connecting investors to other (often offshore) producers. Successful startups have founders that are able to produce value themselves, either by building something, by selling something, or both.
At some point, founders shift from spending all their time in production to adding delegation management as a major component of their work load. This includes a teaching role that is important in building a strong company culture. When founder’s cross the line from “pure production” to “added delegation and teaching,” it’s another barometric sign of increasing success.
What difficulties have you faced in delegation? How have you transitioned from producing to delegating and teaching?