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As the owner of a business, you are no doubt well-versed in every aspect of your company, but you may not be as knowledgeable about how to improve delegation skills.
You know the need your company’s product and/or service fills, and you genuinely believe in the problem it can solve. You worked hard to take your business from concept to creation, and have put in the sweat equity to get it off the ground.
You take great pride in your business. It’s your baby, after all.
You are well-versed in how to run your company from start to finish, from Point A to Point Z and everything in between
But, there’s just one problem, and it’s a common one for business owners: you likely have trouble letting go.
Industry statistics say that 70% of people who serve in professional leadership roles are uncomfortable handing over responsibilities to subordinates. The real issue with this is that it is next to impossible for you to be an expert at every aspect of your business.
Like all people, you have areas of strength and areas where you could use a little help. Maybe you’re great at product development and new concepts, for example, but you’re just not the greatest at balancing a budget, generating financial reports and producing forecasts.
This is why it’s so important to learn how to improve delegation skills. As your business grows, it will simply be too difficult for you to handle every task and do it all well. And if you want to build a company that has a lasting impact, you need to master effective delegation skills in business.
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What Are Effective Delegation Skills in Business?
Before you can start learning how to improve delegation skills, you need to understand exactly what effective delegation skills actually are.
Assigning tasks is only one aspect of delegation skills in management. Learning how to give up control in business, though, is so much more than that. It’s about empowering other people to act on your behalf.
When you hire employees to run certain aspects of your business, you are empowering them to make decisions, however minute, on behalf of your company. You hire your leaders to make that department their own; not to simply do what you say. That’s counterproductive.
For many business owners, learning how to give up control in business is not an easy thing to accomplish. For most, it’s not necessarily about a need to maintain control.
Business owners may have particular trouble giving up control in areas they consider their strength and/or passion. For example, if an owner believes they are great with balancing budgets, then it may be difficult for them to give up control on the company’s finances.
It’s often more about feeling comfortable that someone else can do the job well. This conundrum is especially pronounced in areas of the company where your strengths lie. You may have more difficulty figuring out how to improve delegation skills with your product development manager is product development is one of your strengths.
As financial adviser and best-selling author Dave Ramsey has said: “Delegation requires the willingness to pay for short-term failures in order to gain long-term competency.”
Learning effective delegation skills in business is more about a mindset change than anything else. If you want to learn delegation skills in management, you must be humble. You must admit to yourself that you simply can’t do it all.
Once you’re in that mindset, it’ll be much easier to be hands-off and not so involved in every aspect of the business. Then, the focus can be on hiring the right people who you can trust for those tasks.
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Why Learning How to Improve Delegation Skills Is So Important
There are numerous benefits you and your business will realize once you learn how to improve delegation skills. Here are some of the main benefits.
Benefit 1: Gain a Competitive Edge
First and foremost, effective delegation skills in business frees you up to focus on duties that have higher returns for the company.
You shouldn’t be spending your time on lower-level tasks such as crafting marketing plans, responding to customer service inquiries and so forth. Your true value to your company comes in the visioning, planning and developing new areas for progress. These are duties that only you and your top leaders can handle.
Employing delegation skills in management can result in your business gaining a competitive edge over others in your industry, too. In fact, a majority of business owners believe if they’re able to delegate only 10% of their workload to another person at the company, they’d have the ability to grow the business by more than 20%. That’s quite the return on investment.
Benefit 2: Empower Your Employees
When you learn how to improve delegation skills, you will, as a result, empower your employees to do their job.
Remember, when you learn how to give up control in business, you aren’t removing yourself completely from certain aspects of your business. Instead, you are allowing others to handle the majority of the tasks and planning, and consulting with them on a regular basis for updates and direction.
Delegation in this realm, then, will give your employees a voice in your company because you’ll be consistently soliciting their feedback, and acting on it. You’ll be providing them opportunities to prove themselves and grow within the business.
You’ll be etching out regular time to meet with your leaders, which shows them how much you care about what they do. And, ultimately, you’ll be providing them with the authority to do what they need to get the job done — giving them the proper training and tools they need along the way.
Employees who feel empowered are proven to perform much greater than those who don’t, and there are many studies to back that up. Here are a few:
- Companies that have higher levels of employee engagement are 21% more profitable.
- These same companies generate higher levels of employee engagement than other companies.
- Two-thirds of American workers don't feel engaged in their job. That results in companies collectively experiencing $450-$550 billion in lost productivity every year.
- Empowerment leads to higher rates of employee retention , which improves revenue and reduces cost. It costs, on average, 33% of an employee's annual salary to replace them if they leave their job.
Ultimately, when you learn delegation skills in management, you’ll be bringing new voices to the table. These voices could result in great ideas that launch your business forward.
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Benefit 3: Increase Business Value
Running a business is in some ways like owning a home.
You make continuous improvements to your home so you can enjoy that new fence, the new pool or the new paint colors on your walls. In business, you make continuous improvements so you can enjoy the new rewards you reap in the form of increased profits.
At the same time, these improvements you make will be increasing the value of your business. Just like owning a home, your main goal in making these improvements isn’t to increase the value of your asset so that you can sell it.
However, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing when you learn how to improve delegation skills.
By removing all the responsibilities from yourself, you’ll be making the business less reliant on you, the owner. This means that it will be more attractive to a future buyer, since the business’ success won’t solely depend on your presence.
Benefit 4: Enjoy Life More
One of the biggest benefits to owning your own business is the freedom it gives you to live your life to the fullest, by your rules. This isn’t to say that running a business is a walk in the park. It’s far from it, as you’re certainly aware.
When you learn how to give up control in business, you’ll be getting yourself out of the business, giving you more time to do what you enjoy. Again, this isn’t about rewarding yourself for the thousands of hours of hard work you’ve put into the business.
It’s about giving yourself the time you need to step away and do something that’s not related to your business. By stepping away from time to time, you’ll be enabling yourself time to spend with your family and friends. You’ll be able to do something that you enjoy, such as sitting by the beach or reading a book.
And you’ll be giving your body and your brain a much-needed break. Then, when it’s time to return to work, you’ll be able to approach it with a clear, stress-free mind. In the end, this will lead to even greater results.
This simply isn’t possible if you don’t learn effective delegation skills in business, though.
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What You Need to Do to Improve Delegation Skills
Now that you know why giving up control in business is important, you can get to work on effectuating the change that is necessary.
Start by making a list of all the tasks in which you currently play a role. Categorize the list into what you do on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis.
From this list, figure out which tasks you absolutely need to remain involved in and which ones you don’t. This exercise will, in essence, define your exact role in your company as you’re learning how to improve delegation skills at the same time.
The list of tasks you don’t need to remain involved in are the tasks you will delegate to others.
Step two of learning how to give up control in business is focusing on this other list. Some of these tasks you’ll likely immediately be able to delegate, while others you may have more trouble doing so.
To truly develop effective delegation skills in business, you’ll need to get to the root of what’s preventing you from effectively delegating each of these tasks. When you get to this point, ask yourself these two questions:
- Do you not have people you can trust who can handle that individual task?
- Or, is it more an internal lack of trust in other people to do the job?
Once you have figured out the reasons causing your hesitation, you can work on how to improve delegation skills to break down the barriers standing in your way.
If the answer to your task conundrum is question number one, then the solution is rather simple. You need to hire someone you can trust to serve that role, or build a current employee up to eventually serve that role.
If the answer is question number two, then the solution is more internal. It’ll take working on yourself to develop effective delegation skills in business within so that you can learn how to give up control in business.
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How a Business Coach Can Help You Build Your Delegation Skills
Running a business on your own is extremely challenging and it’s equally tough to create and implement a delegation plan on your own if you’re just learning how to give up control in business.
An experienced certified business coach will help you with the systems, processes, and training plans to facilitate you to implement your delegation plan. Everyone needs professional support, and sometimes, that support can’t come from within your company.
The great part about an experienced business coach is they will bring an external point of view to the table. They will present an unbiased, completely objective opinion on your business, and strategies you can implement so you can learn effective delegation skills in business.
A business coach will be able to help you identify some of the reasons behind the difficulty you’re having giving up control of some tasks. If the answer is you don’t have the right team in place, a good business coach can help you create the organizational structure your company needs.
Then, they can help you create plans for recruiting and hiring those right people, followed by an effective training program to onboard them and empower them in the process.
If the answer is an internal fear of giving up control, then the work of a good business coach will instead focus on these negative feelings you associate with delegating.
There is no one simple, straightforward solution to learning how to improve delegation skills. It’s a process, and it takes time.
A good first step is to schedule a free consultation with me today so you can see how I can help you develop effective delegation skills in business that will not only result in better business outcomes, but also a happier and more fulfilled you.
I am a Certified Business Value Builder, a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Business Coach. I bring a well-rounded toolset to the table to help you learn how to delegate to take your company to the next level. I also have built and sold two businesses on my own, one of which earned more than $25 million in revenue when it was sold.
I’ve used this hands-on experience to help more than 1,000 business owners in my career as a business coach. Let me apply this vast knowledge and experience to help you take your business to the next level, too.
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