12/ 23/ 2004
by Jeffrey Moses
Many entrepreneurs who have started their own small companies are "hands-on" bosses. During the start-up phase they do everything themselves—from securing financing to designing and setting up the marketing to handling the company's day-to-day operations. While this hands-on attitude is great for a small start-up, sooner or later it becomes impossible for a single individual to do everything required. There are only so many hours in the day, and eventually a small-business owner needs to delegate activities to others.
It can be said that the basis for successful delegation is half knowledge, half attitude. The following seven key essentials of delegation illustrate this.
1. Realize that you are not the only person who can do things exactly right. As long as you retain the ultimate responsibility for all delegated tasks—and as long as you are available for consultation at various stages of the work—your company will retain your personal style.
2. Establish written descriptions of the tasks you are delegating, and be sure that your employees understand every detail. Descriptions of tasks should include: methods, goals, means of accomplishment (finances, employees, equipment, etc.), quality of work done, means to define that quality and timelines for completion of each stage of work.
3. You can retain varying degrees of control by requiring your delegates to provide written or verbal reports at specific stages of completion, or at specific time intervals throughout the course of a project. The amount of control you retain over a delegated project is determined by how often you meet with the people doing the work, or how often you require them to report to you.
4. When delegating a project to a team, assign responsibility to only one person. If you leave ultimate responsibility vague, your results could be vague.
5. Try not to tell people exactly how to do things. Sure, you have your own style, but even if someone does something a little differently than you would, the project can still be 100 percent successful.
6. Don't start by delegating large, extremely important projects. Take things one step at a time by starting with smaller, less important tasks. As your experience with delegating progresses, you'll feel more comfortable assigning larger projects, and you'll be better at the delegation process.
7. Look ahead to the time when your company has grown to such a point that even your delegates will have to delegate some responsibilities to others. This second stage of delegation is key for growing companies and requires that you will have to feel even more comfortable with the delegation process. It's important to train your key employees to delegate, so when the time comes they will feel confident and have the experience required.
