Are You a Good Delegator?

A manager that I used to work for was the best delegator I’ve ever met. He had a fundamental understanding of what tasks were the most profitable and he focused his time and attention on doing those things. The rest he left for others to do.

I admit that my first impression was that this was laziness on his part. He didn’t seem willing to do the “tough” work. But the longer I worked with him, the more I realized that he truly understood the meaning of working smarter, not harder. He realized that not only was his time more valuable spent performing activities that led to increasing the bottom line, he realized that things he delegated were accomplished in a more efficient manner than he could have done them anyway.

I was at a conference earlier in my career and the speaker made this statement: “Never perform a task, that someone else can do, if it is less than your hourly wage.” His instruction was to take our annual income, divide it by 52 (for weeks in the year), then by 40 (for hours worked per week) to determine our hourly wage. Once I knew that, I was to cease doing any task that I could pay someone a rate that was less than that. I immediately made a list of the things that I was doing that I should be paying someone else to do (yard work and home repairs topped the list, but there were countless activities that I was performing at the office that could be delegated as well). It was an incredibly freeing exercise.

It’s easier said than done. If you are like me, you likely have a hard time letting go. No one does the job better than you, right? I have a tendency to think that way, but that is where specific training and tremendous communication come into play. It may be a trial and error process. But when done properly, delegating will free you up to focus your time and energy on the activities that are more profitable for your business.