Fight the Myth of "If you want it done right, do it yourself".

Do you live by the saying, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."? Most individuals who have experienced success based on their own individual efforts struggle to transition to delegating tasks to others.

This can be rooted in various beliefs. You may feel training others to do tasks correctly will take too long. You could be anxious about the cost of hiring great talent. You may also see your self-worth linked to what you produce and be uncomfortable taking on the manager role.

No matter the beliefs that are getting in the way of your delegating, deep down, you know the only way to scale your business is by reducing the number of tasks you are personally doing and investing time, money, and effort into building your organization's competencies.

Micromanaging versus effective delegating

Frequently, people who manage others opt for micromanaging instead of delegating. Micro-managing allows you to stay close to the work and leverage the hands of others without engaging their minds.

While micromanaging can allow you to get things done, it restricts your growth, leads to burnout, and contributes to employee turnover. Micromanaging is harmful because it does not engage the full person. It will lead you to treat employees like machines to be programmed and directed instead of humans who are resourceful, creative, and able to add incremental value to projects.

Instead of micromanaging, you can de-stress your life and expand your organization's potential by investing in delegation. Effective delegation is the key to growing the talent around you, working fewer hours, and achieving organizational goals. A disciplined approach to empowering employees can create a learning organization that builds new skills and competencies through continuous improvement. There are four steps to effective delegations.

1. Pick the right people

2. Define the task

3. Provide parameters

4. Monitor results

The time you spend executing these steps will reduce your need to micromanage and increase your comfort in delegating. Allowing you to dedicate more of your time to activities that bring you greater fulfillment, are more strategic, and generate sustainable growth for your organization.

Pick the right people for the right jobs

In his book Good to Great, author Jim Collins highlights the importance of having the right people in the right seats on the bus. This is essential to the success of any company. Your most important role as a leader is to surround yourself with talented people who can help you accomplish your company’s goals.

The first step in this process is to clarify what you are looking to accomplish and define the skills and experience that you believe are necessary for success. Once you do this, you can identify who can best support you in executing this initiative.

It is important to pick the right person to do a task. You want to identify someone with the will and skill necessary to succeed. If you currently do not have someone on your team who has the desired skill, then your focus has to be on adding additional people to your team or developing the skills of a current member who has the potential to grow in capabilities. Remember, team members do not have to be employees. Hiring contract workers, virtual assistants, or consultants are all great ways of expanding the capabilities of your team.

Define the task

Once you have selected the right people to work on an initiative, the next role of a leader is to define the task you want to complete. Start by linking the task with your company’s purpose. It is important to show people how the work they are being asked to do connects with the company's overall goals. This can help the employees to understand why the work you are asking them to do is important.

After making this connection, outline your expectations around the task. Communicate your desired end state. Clearly define what success will look like and when you expect the employee or team to deliver against that expectation.

Provide an opportunity for your employees to ask clarifying questions about the desired end state and the path from where they are today to where you want them to go. The time you spend upfront aligning on goals and the employees' path to achieve goals will reduce the number of questions you receive later in the process.

Provide parameters

Next, work with your employees to define the parameters for completing the task. You want to be clear in defining milestones, budgets, available resources, and any other constraints that would influence employees' actions.

You reduce uncertainty by aligning with employees upfront on what is permitted and what is not. The more clarity employees have on your expectations, the easier it will be for them to comply. You should document goals and parameters and verify that your employees understand their roles and responsibilities. This will prevent later questions about roles, responsibilities, expectations, and parameters.

Sometimes, employees understand what is expected but do not comply. When this happens, your focus should be on understanding what is getting in the way of the employee's success. Identifying competing priorities, skill gaps, mental blocks, and other obstacles will help you work with the employee to find solutions that support them in meeting expectations.

Monitor results

The final step in the delegation process is defining how and when you will touch base with your employees regarding progress. By defining and communicating milestones, you and your employees understand where projects should be at specific time periods.

This can reduce stress and drive accountability because employees know what to accomplish and when. If an employee is off track at the time of check-ins, you can provide course correcting advice to get them back on track.

If they have a problem they can not solve independently, you can conduct a root-cause analysis and help them identify solutions. Root-cause analysis may help you identify whether additional time, money, skills, people, or resources are needed to accomplish the given goal.

Summary

Time is your scarcest resource, and you can never get it back again once it is gone. As a leader, you must value your time and ensure that you allocate it in ways that benefit your organization most. The more time you spend doing things that only you can do and that are your strengths, the more of a positive impact you can make on your organization.

As the top person in your organization, you see things that no one else sees and can do things that no one else can do. You provide the most value when you can think strategically, selectively dig into details when needed, and coach, train, and develop your team to build their competencies.

Organizations are stronger when they leverage their employees' hearts, minds, and bodies. The best way to tap into the endless potential of your employees is to teach, train, and trust them to do the work that you hired them to do. Building a high-functioning team takes time and effort. The investment you make into selecting the right talent, defining the task, setting parameters, and monitoring progress will help you achieve more while feeling less overwhelmed.

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Thank you for reading this blog

Dorian Cunion is an Executive Coach and Business Consultant with Your Path Coaching and Consulting. He is a former retail executive with over 20 years of experience in the retail industry. He is a Co-Active coach who focuses on helping professionals and small business owners overcome insecurities, knowledge gaps, and lack of direction. He does this by assisting clients to tap into their values, recognize their strengths, and develop actionable strategies for growth.

Have you been trying to improve your career or business on your own but are not seeing success as fast as you desire?

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4 Tips for Creating a Culture of Recognition

In 2021 the Pew Research Center surveyed over 6000 workers and identified low pay, lack of opportunities for advancement and feeling disrespected as the top 3 reasons for employee turnover. As a middle manager, you do not have autonomy to address the first two reasons for turnover in the short-term, but you do have the ability to have influence with the third. A desire for respect is a universal human need. Every day employees show up to work and do their jobs and as a leader you play a key role in showing your employees that you appreciate what they do.

Showing employees that you appreciate them is easy to do, but you must be purposeful. It is well documented that individuals are more likely to acquire new behaviors when they establish them as goals. If you want to show your employees you appreciate them, review the four actions below and set a goal for yourself to practice these over the next 21 days.

1. Write a note to your employee. Most communication is either verbal or digital. It is rare for us to receive or give positive written communication outside of performance review cycles. As a leader your words matter to you employees. By taking the time to write a thank you note to your employees, it shows them that you genuinely appreciate what they are doing. In addition, it gives them something that they can keep as a reminder of the excellent work they have completed. Make sure the note is specific, add the date and your signature. Pro Tip- develop branded thank you notes with your name on it. Just having these at your desk or in your work bag will encourage you to use them.

2. Praise your employee on social media. LinkedIn and other social media platforms are a great forum to show your employees appreciation. With more workers being remote, shifting to virtual recognition is a great way to provide public praise. By praising your employee in a social media post, you can recognize them in front of their peers, which makes a profound impact especially with extroverts. Pro Tip- connect with your employees and co-workers on social media platforms to maximize the reach of recognition post.

3. Give them a small token of appreciation. Little things matter especially when they are a surprise. Something as simple as a recognition pin, a gift card for coffee, or a candy bar can go a long way in showing someone that you appreciate what they do. The key here is to give the employee something they will appreciate. Take some time over the next week to poll your team on what types of recognition they feel would be impactful. Pro Tip- if the individual you are showing appreciation to has a family, the gift could be for them. Families of employees make sacrifices to support their career, showing them appreciation goes a long way to make the entire family feel valued and respected.

4. Surprise thank you call. Making an unexpected call to an employee to thank them for the work they are doing can go a long way to showing appreciation. An unprompted recognition call gives you an opportunity outside of one on ones, and performance reviews to energize an employee and let them know that their work matters. Pro Tip- if you are a manager of managers, ask your direct reports to provide you with the name, phone number, and reason for recognition of their direct reports. Skip level recognition can be impactful because the employee does not interact with you frequently, and likely see you as a powerful and influential person.

Leaders have a direct influence over the culture of their team. By role modeling recognition, you help to develop a culture that shows respect and appreciations. All businesses have limits on employee compensation, and advancement opportunities but there are fewer constraints on the amount of recognition you can give employees. By providing your employees with better and more frequent recognition, you demonstrated that you appreciate and respect the contribution they provide to the organization.

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Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach with your Path Coaching and Consulting. He specializes in coaching service for managers, executives and small business owner.

For tips on leadership and professional development follow me:

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If you are interested in working with me as a coach, contact me at

• Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Phone: 804-220-5771

The Art of Making Decisions That You Can Live With

As a leader within your organization, you are accountable to various stakeholders. Depending on your role, you are accountable to your supervisor, board of directors, or investors. You are also accountable to your peers, direct reports, and customers. If you think even more broadly, you are accountable to your vendors, community, and society at large. With so many people you are accountable to, it can be difficult to know what action you should take when dealing with a complex and important decision. Having a framework can make the decision-making process easier. As you tackle complex problems, I encourage you to define the decision you need to make, explore different perspectives, make values-based decisions, and stick to your commitments.

Define the Decision

Taking the time to explore the different perspectives of those impacted by your decision is a great way identify potential actions you can pursue. Before you can explore different perspectives, you must clarify the decision that you are looking to make. In doing this, you want to define the decision in one sentence with no judgement. By clearly define the decision that is under consideration with no judgement, you open yourself up to see thing more clearly.

Gain Perspective

Once you have identified the decision, you can begin to explore the perspective of different people that will be impacted. Talking with individuals that represent different perspectives is ideal. When you are short on time an alternative approach is to imagine yourself from the perspective of different stakeholders. By doing this, you can explore how your opinion on what should be done changes based on those perspectives. For example, if you are trying to determine whether to offer better health benefits to employees, you could start by imagining yourself as a middle-aged employee with children. What would they want the company to offer in benefits? Would their opinion be different than a single young professional within the organization? How about your customers? Would they care about the quality of benefits you provide employees? Now consider your Chief Financial Officer or your company’s investors. Would they have a different point of view on what the company should do? By pausing and considering each stakeholders perception on the topic, you expand your thinking, and are better able to see all the potential risks and benefits of your purposed actions.

Make Value-Based Decisions

Once you have taken the time to consider the various perspectives related to your topic, it is time to consider what values you will use to guide your decision making. Leveraging your values when making decisions is crucial. It helps to ensure there is alignment between who you say you are, and the actions you take. People follow leaders that they trust. Being inauthentic is one of the quickest ways to erode trust. When you clearly communicate your values, and use them to guide your actions, people can rely on you being consistent. This consistency promotes psychological safety and encourages trust.

After defining the values, you will use in making your decision, it is time to start brainstorming. As you brainstorm, you want to develop solutions based on the different perspectives that you have identified. Going back to the earlier example, from a middle-aged employee perspective, you might see value in adjusting the benefits package to be the best in the industry, because retirement and health care benefits are more important to you than base salary. From a young professional’s perspective, you may keep things the same, since you see more value in a higher salary than better benefits. From a customer perspective, you may be in favor of better benefits provided it does not lead to increment product or service cost. From the chief financial officer or investor perspective, you may be in favor of improving the benefits if you can reduce other cost, or past the expense on to customers. As you consider these perspectives, you want to bounce the purposed actions, and anticipate impact off your guiding values. This will help you to determine if the actions you are considering resonate with who you want to be as a leader.

For some leaders, making money is a core value, and they will allow this to guide all their actions. For other leaders, fairness is a core value, and they will sacrifice earning in pursuit of this end. Regardless of what your guiding values are, you will only find peace in your decision if the actions you take align with your values. Taking the time to define your values upfront, and then sticking to them through the decision-making process will help you to be at peace with the decisions that you make.

Commit to Action

Once you have aligned on your course of action, it is important to make a commitment to execute your plan. During the brainstorming period, it is great to take in as much information as possible. You should talk to different stakeholders if you can, and get their thoughts on potential solutions, but once a decision is made, you must commit to it. Trust in organization wavers when leaders do not honor their commitments. There is a time for fact and opinion gathering, a time for commitment, and a time for action. As a leader, it is important that you are clear with our organization when each of those time periods start, and when they end. This will give your organization comfort in knowing that you allow for debate but once a decision is made, it is final.

To rise into a leadership role, you must demonstrate to people that you are trustworthy, and that you will take care of their interests. As you move higher within organizations, the number and diversity of the people that you serve increases. This creates both the satisfaction of being able to provide value to more people, the challenge of competing priorities and the burden of making decisions that will result in some people being winners, and other people being losers. When faced with complex problems, it is easy to give in to the loudest voice, or to the stakeholder with the most power. When leaders do this, they typically make decisions that do not align with their values. Non-value-based decision-making leads to inauthenticity, inconsistencies in actions, and an erosion of trust. As a leader you must fight the impulse to move quickly. Being purposeful in defining the decision you need to make, seeking out different perspectives, making value-based decisions, and committing to decisions once they are made, will help you to build a culture that aligns with who you want to be as a leader.

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Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach with your Path Coaching and Consulting. He specializes in coaching service for managers, executives and small business owner.

For tips on leadership and professional development follow me:

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• Facebook

If you are interested in working with me as a coach, contact me at

• Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Phone: 804-220-5771