What tasks or responsibilities should be delegated?
This is one of the key decisions founders need to make as their business scales. And it’s a difficult one to balance. Delegate too much or too early (before your leaders are ready) and you risk losing control or the business performance being negatively impacted. But delegate too little or too late and you risk becoming overwhelmed or again, the business performance being negatively impacted. Like Goldilocks you need to find the perfect compromise to too much or too little.
We coach founders to use 3 criteria when deciding what to delegate so this becomes a well considered process rather than a random spontaneous exercise. If anyone of these 3 criteria is satisfied then the task or responsibility should be delegated
Does someone else in the company have similar ability &/or experience at performing this function as you?
This is the easy one. Most founders have no issue delegating to someone who they see as being equal or better than them at a specific task or running a specific business function. These can be confidently delegated with the founders role then becoming the person holding them to account.Does the reward outweigh the risk?
By reward we mean the time you will save and be able to invest elsewhere. The founder's time is normally one of the most valuable business assets so it should be spent where it can most value. If a function or task has relatively low risk attached to it and it frees the founders time then generally this should be delegated even if the person it is delegated to doesn’t have similar experience or expertise. If they have ‘good enough’ expertise/experience there is a risk reward ratio in play here. The reward (the founder able to spend more time on higher value / business critical elements) outweighs the risk (the task or function being performed at a lower level in the short term, remember the person will get better through experience & mentoring)Is it something that energises or drains you?
The last criteria might appear slightly indulgent, but the logic here is that the founders enthusiasm and energy needs to be maintained at all times as this impacts the rest of the company. If they are positive and energised so will the company be, but similarly if they are tired and lacking enthusiasm then the company will have a similar feel. So because of this founders should delegate most of the tasks or responsibilities they are not energised by and that in reality drain their energy. They get to choose what fits into their role, and it is their prerogative to delegate anything that doesn’t light them up as long as they have someone they have someone who they can confidently delegate this to. This last criteria does have a financial implication so it is imperative that the tasks the founder does more of are the ones that add most value or are most valued by clients/customers.
Delegation is not a science, but having a set of criteria to consider makes it more logical and ultimately enables founders to find that elusive balance point, between delegating too much / too early and too little / too late.
