Ep 37 Transcript: Empower Your Team to Thrive with Better Delegation

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today we're going to be diving into a topic that most entrepreneurs struggle with. And yep, I'm going to raise my hand on this because I still have my days where I struggle with this. And that is delegation. So if you're thinking to yourself, you know, I've tried to delegate, but every time I did, you know, they just did it wrong and ended up having to redo it all myself.

Or, you know, I wish my team members would just know what to do. I mean, obviously, common sense says they should just do this, right? If this is all resonating with you, if this is sounding a little familiar, if it sounds like I'm inside your head and reading your thoughts, then you're to want to tune into today's episode because we're going to talk about how to master delegation so that your team members are going to be more productive, more effective in their roles, and you're going to free up your time.

to concentrate on the tasks that are most important for you as the founder of the business, the CEO, for you to take care of. So maybe you're thinking to yourself, you know what, this all sounds great, but I already know myself and I know that I'm a control freak, so there's no way I'm ever going to be able to master delegation. Let me just tell you, you're not alone, okay? Delegation can be one of the hardest things that we do as entrepreneurs.

and the thought of mastering it can seem absolutely overwhelming, especially when you're just so used to doing everything yourself. But today I'm going to help you to turn that frustration around. So I've definitely been there. I know how it feels to try to hand something off and then end up redoing it myself because it wasn't done the way that I envisioned it. But over time, what I have learned is that delegation isn't about offloading work so much as it's about setting your team up for success.

The good news is that you can do this with just a few simple strategies. Not only is it possible for someone to do the job as well as you do the job, or as well as you did do the job, but they just might even be better at it than you are. I have found this to be true numerous times, and I continue to be amazed by the strengths of my team members. You never know when there's this hidden talent.

that you just haven't tapped into. There's hidden potential in your team that you just need to tap into. And if you give them that opportunity, if you set them up for success, you will achieve amazing results. You're going to feel great, they're going to feel great. This is something that not only have I done this myself, but I have worked with countless clients to help them to get that team working together simultaneously in a cohesive way.

I just had one of my clients actually just last week say, hey, remember how you told me I should talk to my team and see who might have some skills in this particular area? Well, I should have listened to you months ago because I did finally do this. And guess what? Someone on my team has those magic skills and it's been amazing. And you know who you are if you're listening to this episode. And congratulations on moving forward with that.

And it's not going to always be the smoothest road. There are going to be bumps in the road. There is no such thing as offloading tasks and running a team without running into a few bumps along the way. But the good news is though, is that if you have the right strategies in place, then you can be successful at this. And it's a muscle that you're going to continue to build and continue to flex until it becomes so second nature to both you and your team that it's practically automatic and everything will run so smoothly.

So let's address the first challenge that I hear the most often, which is no one else can do things right. I'm the only one who can do these things. This is one of the most common struggles. That feeling that no one else in your team can do things the way that you do it. They're doing it wrong when they do. You know, it's easy to think, why can't they just do it the way that I would? Can't they see inside my head? They know how I like things, don't they? But here's the thing. Just because someone does something differently than you.

doesn't mean they're doing it wrong. Okay. Let me repeat that. Just because they don't do things the way that you would do it doesn't mean that they're doing it wrong. And here I'm going to take this one step further as well. Just because they're not doing things the way that you would normally do it doesn't mean they didn't put any thought into how they did it. Because I hear this commonly from entrepreneurs, from business owners all the time where they're saying,

Well, I just don't understand why they would have done it that way. There are very few people that I know in the world that don't put any thought into doing things. And I also know, and you can attest to this as, as the business owner, as smart as you are, how many times have you done something only to look back on it and say, geez, that was not the smartest way to go about that Was it? I just figured out the hardest way to do something or the longest way to do something. I took the long way around on this and.

Why do we expect that our team is going to follow the shortest path at all times? We all know the shortest path from A to B is a straight line. But if you're an entrepreneur, when was the last time you moved in a straight line? It's zigzaggy, whether you like it or not, right? So for those who don't know, I actually have a bachelor of mathematics degree. And when I was in university, studying math, math is a pretty complex subject to study. And to all my math geeks out there, if you're listening, like,

total props to you. But here's the thing. So in university, math is not arithmetic. There's a whole lot of formulas and logic problems and really having to understand the different theorems and work through problems. And so an average math question on an exam would take about a full page, sometimes up to two pages to properly solve it.

and you had to really show your work, right? Like this is not, again, this is not arithmetic where you just give the final answer, you have to show your work. And so I was taking a course and it was called, we called it C and O for short, combinatorics and optimization. Yeah, say that 10 times fast. And there was an exam and I came to a question and I just had no idea how to solve it. So I broke that question apart into some smaller pieces.

And with those smaller pieces, I was able to put together and string together a whole bunch of different theorems that when put together, I could solve the equation. Now here's the cool thing. I did solve it correctly. It took me about twice as long as it probably should have. And I mean, twice as many pages as well. My professor actually came to me afterwards and said he had to take that question to about four other professors.

just to confirm that I had done it correctly because he'd never seen anyone solve it this way. Okay, we're talking math. Most most people when you think about math, you think about like, it's black and white. There's one way to do things, but there really isn't. There are multiple ways to attack a problem sometimes. Did I do it the most efficient way? No. Did I do it correctly though in the end? Yes, I achieved the result that I was looking to achieve. So just because someone on your team has their own approach,

doesn't mean they're doing it wrong. In fact, they could actually be bringing some new ideas, some new results that you wouldn't have even tapped into had you not allowed them the opportunity. So I want you to challenge your mindset of nobody else can do things right and start looking at how we can set our team up for success from the beginning. We're give some more tips on this in just a moment. But the next thing I wanna cover is...

The next challenge that I find a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners are facing is that lack of clear SOPs, otherwise known as standard operating procedures. So one of the biggest reasons that delegation, that we struggle with that delegation is the lack of clear processes. Without guidelines, the tasks can kind of get lost in translation. So it's like sending someone to build a house without a blueprint, right? They might look at it, they might not look like anything

that you've imagined or they might do it, but it might not look like anything that you've imagined. Whereas with the SOPs, you have the instruction manual essentially for running your business, right? It helps to ensure that everyone's on the same page. It saves you a ton of time in the long run and helps you to avoid confusion. Now, the first thing that a lot of people say to me when it comes to standard operating procedures or SOPs is, well, yeah, I know I need some, but I just don't have time to create them. Couple of super quick tips. First of all,

think most business owners should create their own SOPs. But the reality is that you are doing processes numerous times and you know exactly how you want it done. So is there someone on your team who can document it the next time you do that process? Can you do a screen share video talking yourself through how you're doing it? If it's more of a hands-on type of thing like a warehouse or industrial type of thing that you're working on, can you have someone record you? Just a quick phone video will work, right?

Record you again, talking through the process as though you were training a new person. Don't ever think, well, I told them how to do it. You told them once. It's not documented. They didn't take any notes. You cannot expect that they're actually going to remember how to do things. So having those solid SOPs in place and SOPs are an ever evolving thing. They're never done.

But here's my best advice when it comes to SOPs, because you might be also thinking, well, I'm the only one in my company right now. I'll worry about this once I train someone else, once I have that new employee. I have always had my own SOPs, and it is something that there are plenty of tasks that I am the only person in the company who touches them and the only one who does it. But I will tell you that the next time I go to do it, I don't want to think about how to do it. And so if you are finding yourself doing that, why not create the SOPs now, sooner than later?

And keep it in mind, if you are creating the SOPs just for yourself right now, they're going to look a lot different than when you pass them off, but it's better than nothing. It gives you at least a base to start from. So when I create SOPs for myself, they're very lackluster. They don't have a whole ton of detail. They are spoken in a language essentially that I would understand, right? If you're going to pass them off, you might pass off whatever you've created as an SOP and have them fill in the blanks where you're like, where I said this, this is what I actually meant.

I know what that means because I've got this thing on my computer or whatever, right? But you can easily create those SOPs as you're going along by, like I said, either recording something or simply jotting down a few notes so that you've got it for next time. I recommend keeping SOPs in one document. So that might be, say, a Google Doc, ideally a highly shareable document like a Google Doc.

If you have videos, then provide a link to the video, post those videos up on a Vimeo site or a YouTube site, make them private. No one needs to know all your business stuff, right? It can be, maybe it's in Dropbox or just the video saved in Google Drive, but link to it right in that SOP document so they can find it quite easily. Okay, the next challenge that we're gonna discuss is under communicating the

why of a task. Again, this goes back to that common sense. Well, obviously they should have done it this way. And common sense says, and if they had just thought about it, this is something that's really overlooked is this why aspect. Not communicating the why behind the task is not setting your team up for success. If they don't understand the context, the bigger picture, it's going to be really hard for them to give it the attention and the effort that it deserves because instead now they're spending so much time trying to figure out

how you would do it, but if they don't understand what they're doing, why they're doing it, and what they're working towards, it makes it incredibly challenging for them. So when you're delegating, always make sure that you're not just giving them the what, but also the why. This will give your team the context that they need to truly own that task. And what do I mean by giving the why? Sure, there is the why do we need to send out invoices? Well, because that's how we get paid and that's how we get money. But maybe it's the why about

how you actually do things. So for example, for my team, I'm often explaining the things that we used to do. Here's how we used to do it. And here's why we do it this way. Now, that helps to give them a bit of a better association as to what that task looks like when it's being done and what it is that we're trying to achieve with it. So based on these three challenges that we have identified, okay, so the nobody knows how to do things right.

lack of clear SOPs, and of course, under communicating the why. How do we solve all these problems? So the most effective frameworks that I have found over the years is actually not my own framework. I did not create this. Instead, it is from Mike Michalowicz IPO system. So if you're not familiar with Mike Michalowicz he is the author of books such as Profit First,

and in particular Clockwork, which is all about your systems and processes. So your IPO system stands for information, permissions, and outcome. Sometimes outcome is replaced with objective, similar in context, obviously. And this is the real secret to setting your team up for success and ensuring that your delegation actually works. Now I have added some things to this IPO, which I'll talk about in just a moment.

And if you check out his book, Clockwork, I highly recommend it for getting some of those systems and processes in place. But let's cover what the IPO stands for. So the I, information. Be clear about what and why. So when you delegate, you need to provide enough context and details so that your team knows exactly what's expected of them. Think about it like you're giving directions, okay? We're also used to GPS nowadays, but there was a time where if someone was coming to your house, you had to give them specific directions

about each and every step. When they're going to turn, what landmarks to look for, how far they're going to be driving on a particular street. The more specific the directions, the better chances that they're actually going to land at your house in the end, right? So let's say, for example, let's relate this back to work. Let's say, for example, you want someone to handle the customer emails that are coming in. Don't just say to them, hey, can you respond to the emails? Instead,

Give them more specifics, respond to client emails. I want them all responded to within 24 hours. We have templates for the responses for urgent requests. And so if you get that, if that's the request you're getting, there's some standardized responses that you can send them and always be sure to personalize it to whatever the specific question that they asked is. We have a variety of FAQs documented that can help you and assist you with responding. And if there's any questions that you don't have the answer to and you can't find the answer to,

Let's be sure to get the answers. So whether that's talking to me or talking to someone else on the team, get the answers and then ensure that you are documenting those answers so that you've got them for the next time as well. See how much clearer that is? The more information you provide, the less room there is for confusion. Okay, so the next one is the P for permissions. Give them the power to act. This is all about giving your team the authority to make decisions.

a big mistake that we make as entrepreneurs is micromanaging. And so this is where we get that boomerang effect, right? Where you've tossed out a task to someone and magically it lands back on your plate at some point. But if you're giving them the permission to make certain decisions, this should help you to avoid this. So you might feel like you need to oversee every little thing, but that's only going to slow things down. Most business owners are the biggest bottleneck in their business. And yep, I'm guilty of this by far.

No matter how many times I try to change it. And anytime I find myself being the bottleneck, I have to really take an objective look at how I can take myself out of something. What does the team need from me? So I don't need to approve everything that's going through there. This is going to slow your team down if you need to approve things and it's going to frustrate them as well because they're going to constantly feel like they're stalled. You know what it's like when you put something out there where you're eager to get started on a project, you're eager to move on something. And then all of a sudden.

you get stuck on something. Something requires somebody else's attention. And when that happens, you get stuck, you get stalled and your momentum is lost. Now imagine doing that to your team. Okay, you wanna make sure that you are not stalling their momentum. So when you empower them to make decisions within their scope, of course, you're fostering trust, you're building confidence and you're helping them to develop their own skills. So let's say for example, you delegate out social media management.

What a lot of business owners often do is they just have someone else doing the posts. So they're just scheduling the posts out, but you're the one who's creating the graphics, you're creating all the content for it, you're responding to all the messages, you're still taking on a good chunk of this. Instead, give them the permission to create the content based on any guidelines that you give them, of course. Give them permission to post it at a time that seems reasonable for them, have them engaging with the followers.

and have them even tweak your messaging as they go. You might've been saying things one way and they're like, you know what, actually I'm finding this is getting more engagement here. As long as it aligns with your brand, of course, and ensure that they've got what they need in that information phase to understand your brand entirely. Okay, so you've got your guidelines set for them and they should have the permission then to pretty much run with that, right? And manage, actually manage your social media.

All right, now the O is your outcome or your objective. Define what success looks like clearly. What are the results that you're looking for? What does success look like for this task? If you want to see the numbers, set clear expectations around goals like increased social media engagement by 10 % in the next month. If it's a project, explain what the deliverables and timelines are. The clearer the outcome is, the easier it is for your team to aim for that success.

They know what it is that they're shooting for. It also allows them to take their own path to that outcome that might be slightly different than how you did it. So if you don't have documented SOPs or maybe you do have some SOPs created, but they have found a more efficient way to do it by understanding what that outcome is and that objective. If you tell them basically like, here's what you're working towards, get there however you want, they might find a quicker, smoother, more effective path than what you have mapped out previously.

And when they know exactly what success looks like, they're gonna focus their efforts on getting you there. Now I did mention that I've made some updates to this IPO framework to accommodate my own team. And you can certainly do this as well. When you're creating this IPO, what else do you need? So I would have things in there such as next steps. So once this task is completed, who needs to be notified or what are you triggering to get things moving forward?

You might also include in there the timeline that you expect things to take. So I expect this task will take 30 minutes. I expect it will take two hours. I expect it's going to take three weeks, whatever that might look like. You can have that in there as well. And then there's who else needs to be notified once this task has been completed to a successful completion. And these are just a few of the examples of ways that I've added things into the IPO. Now here's the other thing about the IPO and I love this part of it.

is that you might be thinking, that seems like a lot of work to create the IPO. Okay, well instead, schedule a meeting with the person who's going to be taking over the task, maybe record that meeting as well, make it a little easier for them, and identify to them the IPO. You explain to them, here's what I'm looking for. Then you have them write out the IPO and send it back to you for review to ensure that they captured everything that you were thinking of. Saves you a little bit of time.

and also gives them, empowers them to take some initiative and allow them to interpret what you're saying and see how well they're capturing it. Cause a lot can be lost obviously in translation as well. Okay, so now that we've covered the framework, let's talk about how to implement this into your business. So start by reviewing your current tasks and processes and look at where delegation might be falling short. Could you be giving more information?

Could you be giving more permissions? Again, if you're getting that boomerang effect, that's a permission saying normally, right? Or maybe it's just a matter of you're not specifying the outcome. This is probably where most people fall short is they just ask someone to complete a task. But if you're not explaining why they're completing that task, it's really hard for them to, first of all, get excited about it. And secondly, do it as effectively as you want them to because they're just going to follow specifically what you've asked them to do to the letter.

Whereas if you tell them about where they're going, they're going to potentially seek a smoother or more effective path. So maybe you're missing a piece of the IPO puzzle and that's been causing frustration on your team and on you. So now one way to get started of course is to create those SOPs for your most common tasks. Like I said, it doesn't need to be complicated. Just start with the basics. Even if you manage to work on say one process per week,

And as you work to refine these processes, you'll find that delegation becomes smoother and more effective. Take a look at what your team is working on in terms of their tasks and could they be setting up some SOPs for those tasks as well? Are there ways that they could potentially use some assistance in creating an IPO for themselves for tasks maybe they've already been working on, but maybe they could get better at them by implementing that IPO framework.

you do need to make sure that the entire team understands what the IPO framework is and how it's going to benefit everyone. And you'll be amazed at how much initiative they're going to take for this. All right, so a few more tips to help you out with delegation. Start small, okay? Start small. Don't try to delegate everything at once. So if you're like, yeah, I got all these tasks on my plate and my gosh, I know someone else could be doing them, I'm gonna offload 16 tasks this week, maybe you choose one task at a time.

Make sure that person is fully set up to succeed before giving them something else, before moving on to the next thing. And then be patient, okay? Delegation is a skill and it's, again, this is a muscle you need to flex every now and then and it takes time to build it up. So give your team the chance to learn and grow. Remember, they're also new to this new method of delegation. They are accustomed to having that oversight from you and maybe they've...

They've started using that almost as a crutch. And so be patient with them as they learn how to get their own footing and learn how to fly a little bit on their own, right? When you're assigning something new to someone, have some structured check-ins and reviews and provide some constructive feedback. so be sure that you're checking in with them and offer that feedback.

Praise the winds of course and give guidance where needed, but make sure that it's all positive. And when they are falling short, before getting upset, do yourself a favor and check yourself and revisit that IPO. Did they understand the task properly? Did you communicate it effectively? Because if not, you might want to take a closer look at that for the next time and take that as a lesson learned.

By implementing this slowly with your team, it's going to help to keep them motivated and aligned as well. If they feel like they just had a ton of tasks thrown at them all at once, it's going to be really overwhelming for them. So take some baby steps, right? Remember, effective delegation isn't about doing less work. It's about empowering your team to do their best work so that you can focus on what really matters in your company.

One of the things that I want you focusing on when it comes to delegating the tasks is you should be focusing on high level tasks. What are the things that only you can do? And what are the things that are going to be revenue generating? Now, listen, if you've got some people who are salespeople on your team and they're really effective at generating revenue and you can delegate all of that off your plate, by all means do it. But if not, you need to make sure that you are leaving yourself space to take on those tasks because that is how your team is successful.

So that's what you should be focusing on as well as any other high level business development, growth tasks and anything CEO related that no one else can do. And now by using the IPO framework, you're gonna create that clear path for delegating and for setting your team up for success. So listen, if you wanna take your delegation skills to the next level, again, I've worked with several team members, several clients on helping them to really flex these muscles and grow into them. And again, it's not perfect the first try I promise,

I can really help to talk you through your specific situation because if you're still listening to this and you're saying, but you don't understand my team, I don't think my team can do it. Well, then maybe delegation isn't the challenge, but oftentimes we find that we are replacing team members only to get the same results over and over and over again. So when that's happening, is it the team member? Is it our hiring process or is it our delegation technique? So I can certainly help you to dive into that.

So if you'd like to take, if you would like to have a call with me, I'd be more than happy to review your current processes, your current team systems, and see if I can provide you with some solutions for helping to get that team up and running. And maybe we can work together to ensure that you are successful at the rollout of this plan. So if you want to do that, simply go to Aboutshaunalynn.com/Plan Let's set up your free session. We'll talk about it and see where we can get you going on this.

I've also got a full blog post that I will also post a link in the show notes for you so can take a look at that. Some people I know are more visual for these things. It's easier to read the notes rather than just listen to it, especially if you are listening to me while you're on the go and while you are driving, you're thinking, my gosh, I wish I took notes on this. I've got a fantastic blog post for you. So simply be sure to come back to the show notes and grab that link. And I said, if you need some personalized help, let's work together. Book a call with me.

and let's see how we can get you and your team set up for success and help you to get back the time and the freedom that you deserve. All right, that's all I've got for you today. So listen, if today's episode has resonated with you, be sure to subscribe to us wherever you get your podcast, leave us a review. That's really, really great at helping others to discover us as well. And of course, as always, share this with someone that you know can benefit from it. That is the greatest way to not only show your support of us and the show,

but support of your fellow female entrepreneurs. So be sure, don't keep us a secret, share us with someone who can benefit from this. Thank you so much for tuning in and until next time, keep thriving.