5 Most Common Delegating Mistakes

[00:00:00] Have you ever felt stuck going back and forth with whether or not to delegate or just do it yourself? You like the idea of having someone to help, but something keeps you feeling anxious about it. Maybe you even tried delegating, but only to give up. It didn’t work. It was too hard, and it created more work for you because you ended up stepping in any way.

[00:00:25] No one can do things exactly how you would, and it is stressful. Look, if this sounds like you, I guarantee you’re not the only one. When I was in a corporate exec role, and also when I began my own business, Zenith Journey, I set myself up to be indispensable.

[00:00:42] Indispensable to myself. I did everything. Even though I knew better as a leadership expert. I mean, what was I trying to prove? I think mostly it was trying to prove that I could do it, and I deserved my position, particularly in my corporate life. But what ended up happening was, I go to a place where I actually couldn’t do it all and I didn’t know how to delegate it.

[00:01:09] I wasn’t sure where to go from there, and the chaos brain that came with this just wasn’t helpful. Now previous Kate and my now clients, and maybe you, struggle with a lot of the same things. How can I delegate when I’m the only one who knows exactly how everything gets done? How can I get help that’s actually helpful and not just adding to my to-do list – because I’ll end up doing it all myself anyway. And the kicker, what should I be delegating?

[00:01:39] Delegating can be challenging, especially if you’ve never been taught how, and 99% of the world has never been taught how.

[00:01:49] What I’ve found and what I’ve helped countless others implement, is that the number one place to start delegating, he’s identifying exactly which things in your business can be, and should be done by somebody else.

[00:02:03] Today’s podcast episode is going to talk about five common delegation mistakes, and then talk about something very practical, the delegation matrix. This is helping you to understand. What tasks you should be delegating. And this is the first step to becoming a delegating guru.

[00:02:23] First of all, why should you delegate? Because I often hear, “I want it done right, so I’m going to do it myself”. Now the kicker is ” what got you here, won’t get you there”. The place that you are now, which is either in a leadership position or stepping into a leadership position, the skills that got you to this position on not the same as leading. And you can’t be the person doing all- the- things, which is your old job, plus leading, with that same toolkit.

[00:02:54] If you cannot delegate effectively, you can never expand your productivity beyond the work you can personally deliver. Yes, that’s right. If you can’t delegate effectively, you can never expand your productivity beyond the work that you can personally deliver. Today that changes, let’s first talk about the five common mistakes that come with delegating.

[00:03:19] Delegating mistake number one. Choosing the wrong things to delegate. I’m going to help you with a tool called the Delegation Matrix. I’m going to get to that in a minute, but first, I’m going to tell you the other four common delegating mistakes.

[00:03:36] The second most common one is all about mindset, thinking that it’s faster to just do it yourself. This is short-term gain for long-term pain. Because if you’re thinking it’s faster to do it myself, it may be the first time, the second time, but when you do it the third time, that is when your cost of benefits starts to flip. Anything that you were doing three times or more. You need to be looking at delegating, unless it is your genius zone, which I’ll talk to you about in the Delegation Matrix.

[00:04:10] The third common delegating mistake, expecting that you will be great at delegating the first time you do it. And also expecting that the person you’re delegating to is going to be great the first time they receive something to do. Delegating is a process and it is not a once off. You can’t think I’ve delegated, now it’s on them. As the person delegating the task, it is your responsibility to make the delegation of success.

[00:04:38] So this third, most common delegating mistake is thinking of that it is a once off and it’s a skilled, you learn straight up. It is a skill that you practice.

[00:04:48] The fourth, most common is set and forget. I’ve often heard people say to me, well, I’ve delegated it now it’s on them. That is not how it works.

[00:05:00] Giving somebody a task and then moving on without checking in with them, without having a process of how that task gets done and making sure it is to your standard, is a huge delegating mistake and one that people often don’t even know is a mistake to begin with.

[00:05:16] And the fifth delegating mistake is avoiding it. And a lot of people do this. We avoid delegating because we don’t know how, or we don’t think we have someone that we can delegate to, or we don’t think someone will do it to our standard or it’s faster to do it myself. There are so many reasons we avoid delegating.

[00:05:39] But the important thing to really remember is “Opportunity Cost”. By avoiding delegating, by doing the work yourself, what are you not doing? What is it costing you? The phrase that I said earlier in this podcast is one I think is really important to remember.

[00:05:58] “You can never expand your productivity beyond the work you can personally deliver, if you cannot delegate effectively”.

[00:06:06] So now I’ve shared the five common delegating mistakes, I want to talk a little bit about the delegation matrix. In my weekly email this week, I spoke about this delegation matrix and said, tune into the podcast for how to be able to use it. If you are not on my weekly leadership emails, you can jump on those by going into the show notes, so where you’re listening to the podcast, click on the links or the show notes, and there’ll be a link to join the weekly mailing list.

[00:06:35] Let’s get on to the delegation matrix. The number one delegating mistake is choosing the wrong things to delegate, and this is a tool that you can use immediately to improve your delegation.

[00:06:48] I have a template for this, and I will tell you how you can get your hands on it after I explained some of the details. Grab a pen and paper or a device, and let’s go through the Delegation Matrix together. If you’re thinking I’ll do this later, you probably won’t, so pause the podcast and grab your pen and paper. First thing, take 10 minutes and jot down the general tasks that you do on this page. If you’re stuck, have a look through your emails, your calendar, or your time or billing sheet.

[00:07:20] They might give you some ideas on how you’re currently spending your time. It’s great to start with the bigger pieces that you do and then work your way to some of the smaller things. Put a timer on for 10 minutes and use that 10 minutes to jot down everything.

[00:07:38] Often the juicy stuff comes out between minute 7 and minute 10, the things you don’t really think of, and they’re the things that you do automatically that they’re probably the ones you should be delegating. So hit pause on the podcast and it take 10 minutes to write down the tasks that you currently do.

[00:07:55] Okay, I trust that you have written this list down now or made a promise to yourself to do it later. Now you have your list, I want you to go through and put a tick next to anything. You are not very good at. Think about your competence level and if it’s something that’s just not in your skillset. For example, for me editing these podcasts is not in my skillset. I’m not particularly competent in it, I can do it, but it is not my skill set. So I would tick editing podcasts.

[00:08:26] Secondly go through this list again, thinking about the tasks that you do not enjoy. Is there anything on that list that you disliked doing, you have a low passion or a low willingness to do it? And I would say editing podcasts is definitely on my low passion or low willingness list. So I would go through and put a tick next to those items that are in my low passion or low willingness area.

[00:08:55] As you would realize now, editing podcasts has two ticks. Anything that is low competence and low passion or willingness. These are the tasks you want to be delegating first.

[00:09:07] So now you have step one of the Delegation Matrix. Let me tell you a little bit about how you can get your hands on the template for this. This month, I’m doing a four episodes for the podcast, all about Delegation.

[00:09:21] Next week I’ll be releasing a template called the Delegation Playbook. It has everything you need to be able to delegate effectively and efficiently, even if you’ve never done a good job at it before.

[00:09:35] The tool I talked to you about today, the Delegation Matrix is in the introduction of the Delegation Playbook, and there’s four specific things that this Delegation Playbook will help you to ACE. So tune in next week, when I take you on episode two of this four-part series about delegation, and leaning into Christmas new year period, it seems like a really good time to get a handle on how you can delegate and hone your skills in this area. Thanks for listening and join me next Tuesday for our next installment of delegation and some information on how you can get your hands on the Delegation Playbook and make your life easier.

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