As a Business Owner. How do you share the work with your team?. www.gafra.org

Hi guys…do you know what I do? Well this post is going to give you an idea of what I do daily as a business coach, at least one of the areas I cover in that capacity, but I’m doing it through one topic at a time, that I encounter and have to assist my clients with almost everyday…DELEGATING. Delegating to your team members. Yes the entire aspect of delegating is normally seen as simply giving someone something to do, but it encompasses way more than that. For example, say you have 4 team members who work with you. Out of those 4, two work well and are reliable and you’re sure they will finish what you give them, but then there are the other 2 who don’t seem to be as reliable or tend to make errors and never finish on time.

So what tends to happen because of this? You tend to give the 2 that work best most of the work and give the other 2 less…. but is that fair? NO!! it’s not. Don’t worry, I understand why it happens that way, you have deadlines and you want to get the work done and you don’t have time to give up to deal with the other 2. However, as their leader, the right thing to do and what your responsibility is, is to make sure the work is evenly distributed despite each individuals’ ability or lack of. What you need to do is track each person and after tracking them and evaluating their individual strength and areas for improvement, then take note of what tasks you need to delegate and decide who can do each task best. Those who fall short then some level of coaching, training, guidance or instruction has to be provided to those individuals.

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So lets look at this activity called DELEGATION. What is that?

Delegation is assigning responsibility and authority to someone in order to complete a clearly defined and agreed upon task while you retain ultimate responsibility for its success. Delegation incorporates empowering your teammates through effective leadership, and may be directed in any direction and used in any organization.

Delegation is important for 1) efficiency and 2) development. Delegation improves efficiency when it allows work to be transferred to people whose skills are a better match for the work. So one purpose for delegation is to save you time. Delegation is your most powerful time management tool, and it is also your most powerful learning and development and empowerment tool.

The Advantages & Disadvantages of Delegating Tasks. To be effective at work or your business, you often have to delegate tasks to others. Assigning team members responsibility over a task not only takes some of the load off your shoulders, it can also help your junior team members to grow and develop. Delegation enables you to focus on more important tasks or tasks for which you are better suited. The increase in time reduces pressure and stress. This allows you to concentrate on your remaining tasks and allocate more time for other tasks.

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1. Imporve time management

2. Build trust within the unit and team

3. Allows you to spend time on other more important tasks

4. Helps develop your team members

What you need to consider when you delegate:

1. Always provide feedback.

Make sure to contribute both positive and negative feedback, so the person you're giving responsibility to will understand what he or she is doing well and how they need to improve.

2. Be sure to keep an eye on things.

Monitoring the work of people will both motivate them and help you to catch problems as they arise. An inexperienced team member will need more oversight.

3. Be clear about what you want your employees to do.

Make sure employees understand the responsibilities they are assuming and that they accept them. Ask them to confirm their understandings with you.

4. Delegate the right things.

Delegate recurring tasks, detail work, attendance at some meetings, and activities that will be part of team members' future responsibilities.

5. Provide guidance when necessary.

If the work veers too far from the planned guidelines, take immediate and decisive corrective action. You're not doing anyone any favors by stepping back entirely from your assignments. Mutually agree on a plan to return to the targeted goals. If the situation doesn't improve, end the assignment and move on.

6. Give employees the authority they need to get the job done.

Any delegated task must be accompanied by a delegation of authority--that is, the power and resources to get the job done. Authority may include giving the employee power to spend money, seek assistance from others, or represent the department or company.

7. Have the right attitude about delegating.

Leaders sometimes view planning as a hindrance to getting their best work done, but planning to delegate is an investment in your people, your company's culture, and in your business. It's a good thing, not a bad thing.

8. Consider the skills and interests of your people.

When assigning a task, consider each person's demonstrated skill, interest in the task, and current workload. Know his or her record of success on similar assignments--how they work with others, when they operate best, and how well they work under pressure.

9. Set clear expectations.

Explain both the overall goals of the task along with the standards that will be used to measure results. Make sure the goals are specific, attainable, relevant, and measurable.

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Daily I see leaders who aren’t delegating properly so work is piled on a few who get frustrated and overworked, then begin to complain or may simply leave after a while. You simply need to take the time to get those that are slower or are making errors, to train them up to a higher level to be able to handle the tasks assigned to them. If after continuous coaching and training the individual does not improve then they are not a good fit for the position and may have to be moved to another position where the work is simpler or it may be a case where their competency has reached its peak and they are unable to process the type of work being dealt with in their unit. Then serious decisions need to be made about the individual with some consultation with them.

Be a great leader and if you know you suck at delegating and things just aren't going as they should then I hope this short post helped in some way. Even if all it did was to make you aware of some of the things you need to do when you delegate then I'm glad for that small benefit you got. If you're interested, my Delegation planner can help you to delegate better, it isn't expensive and you'll gain great benefits on how to follow the process, just follow the forms as they are and soon giving your team members work to do will become a breeze. and this time you will rake in the rewards via smooth sharing or work and deadlines being met.

This is just one topic I deal with daily. I’ve simplified it as much as I can here for this post but Delegating is a process and as I created in my Delegation planner, there are forms in there than can guide you through the proper process for delegating. Check it out.

See you soon and I’ll be talking about another area I deal with and that is handling interruptions.