Traction Tip: Delegate

It seems that owners and executives are always running out of time while employees are running out of work.

Consider this scenario: An employee enters your office and says, “Hey, I have a problem.” You ask her to explain. As she finishes up you say, “Let me think about that and get back to you tomorrow.” You just took ownership of her problem. You took the monkey off of her back and put it on yours.

Joel Manby, author of Love Works, says this about how leaders react during crises: “Leaders tend to absorb decision-making. The opposite should happen.” Rather than absorbing (taking someone else’s monkey), delegate it. An employee needs to be developed to handle their own monkeys, not trained to hand them over to their boss. “Employees try to hand off monkeys when they lack the desire or ability to handle them. Help employees develop needed problem-solving skills. It’s initially more time consuming than tackling problems yourself—but it saves time in the long run.”[1]

People in companies running on EOS® learn to delegate and elevate by first understanding what they are doing all day every day, then categorize it. Try this:

• List everything you do for a week
• Categorize each task and activity into one of the following:

Love/Great – I love doing it and am great at it. These are tasks that give you life

Like/Good – I enjoy the task and am OK, but not as good at it as others

Don’t Like/Good – I can do it, but don’t enjoy it

Don’t Like/Not Good – These tasks drain your energy and are best done by someone else

• Delegate those tasks and activities in quadrants 3 and 4 (the last two categories), and focus your time and energy on the others in 1 and 2.

How are you at delegating? Contact me for a copy of the EOS® Delegate and Elevate tool. Let’s Talk

[1] William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?, Harvard Business Review, 1974

Entrepreneurial Operating System® and EOS® are registered trademarks of EOS Worldwide (http://www.eosworldwide.com/).