Camille Rapacz: Good morning, George.
Ready to record another pod?
George Drapeau: Yes, I am. I'm looking forward to this one.
Camille Rapacz: Let's get into another episode of The Belief Shift.
This month we have a theme going on. We have a theme talking about people and the performance of the people, your teams, and your business. Yes. So we started out talking about underperformance of teams, and then the last episode we talked about how to hire well. Because yes, if you want a high performing team, it starts with hiring well.
But now you have this high performing team, you have the people in there. And one of the things I see people challenged with is how to delegate work.
So I wanna talk about the how do you delegate? How do you delegate well?
George, do you have work on your plate right now that you either plan to, or maybe you have work on your plate, you know, you should be delegating and you just haven't done it?
George Drapeau: Yeah, I do actually.
I have worked in both directions. It's funny you say this because I always need to do better at delegating always. Now the problem I see, I'm just dunno why I'm saying this. It's the other direction. There's work that I think I've over delegated and I'm too far out of touch and I need to get more, more involved.
I'm working on sharing or unde? I guess not. I'm not sure. I'm working on getting more involved. So there's some work that I've over delegated and I'm a neglectful. But yes, there are some areas where I do need to delegate more than I'm doing now.
Camille Rapacz: Okay, well as we go through this, I definitely wanna come back to this idea that you have over delegated, that's a good space for us to go into in talking about how to do this well. Cuz I, I know exactly what you're talking about. I have been there as well in the like uh, oh yeah, I, now what do I do?
But the reason I wanna talk about delegating work, Is because I think this is a really essential skill that every business owner, especially in small business, you need to know how to do this really well. Yeah. And I see lots of small business owners struggle with this, struggle with how to delegate really well.
But it's such an incredible tool, not just for you to manage your workload. So I think that's the first thing is this isn't just about how can I as a business owner, like offload some of my work? Yeah, it's not just that it's good for you, it's good for your company and for your employees. Yeah. And I'm not gonna tell you why yet.
So let's get into it. Oh, cue the music.
Intro
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Camille: Welcome to The Belief Shift. The show that explores. What you really need to know about building a successful small business.
I'm your host, Camille Rapacz: small business coach and consultant who spent too much of her career working in corporate business performance.
George: And I'm George Drapeau: your co-host and her brother. I'm a leader in the tech world bringing my corporate perspective, but mostly my curiosity.
Camille: Together, we're exploring beliefs about success and how to achieve it. But mostly we're bringing practical solutions so you and your business can thrive.
Camille Rapacz: I always like to start with definitions when I can. So let's start with just, okay, what is the definition of delegating?
Definition of Delegation
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Camille Rapacz: Okay, so the official definition is you entrust a task or a responsibility to another person, and typically someone who's less senior than you are.
Yes. Okay. And I wanna separate delegation from somebody's regular work tasks or assignments. Okay. Because this is about you having work on your plate, that's generally your responsibility that you are going to delegate to someone else. Everybody has their roles and they have their work to do, and that's usually pretty clear and easy to assign.
It's pretty easy for me to say, I know this is your role and this is your job, and you go do that. Yes. Delegation gets tricky because that's when you start to think, oh, I have work that I no longer want to own and I need to start offloading that to someone else. Maybe you're thinking it's going to become their role permanently over time.
Mm-hmm. But now it is mine. And so this is very common in small business. So you're doing all the roles when you first start your business, and as you create new roles, the first thing you're doing is delegating work, and then it becomes part of their regular work. But you're always in this mode how am I delegating out different pieces of the work that I do because the company's growing and we need to have, you know, we need more capacity to do more things.
But I see business owners really struggle to do this, especially if you're just you know, an individual. Maybe it's just you and one other person.
Reasons Deligation Halts
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Camille Rapacz: Yeah. And there can be a lot of hesitation to delegate. I don't know, maybe that's not true. Maybe you hesitate no matter how big or small your team is. We can talk about that as well. But I wanna talk about why we hesitate to do this, because it's definitely a thing that I see.
So what are your guesses, George? Why do you think the people hesitate to delegate or maybe you've heard from other leaders some of their most like ridiculous reasons for why they don't wanna delegate?
George Drapeau: The reasons that come to mind immediately, they're not really generous reason at all, when the leader himself or herself, Feels the need to get all the glory and so won't let go of anything. I think that's a whole podcast in itself, that whole thing. It's one reason.
Another one is when they just don't feel confident enough that their team can take on the stuff that they do. And I don't mean that in an arrogant way. They just aren't confident.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. I love that. Yes. Those are both really like the most basic reasons.
So I listed out six, so I'm gonna go through these six. And there's overlap with what you said. Of course you did. Well, that's my job. But I always like to hear your, so your ideas are inside these reasons.
Loss of Control
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Camille Rapacz: The first one is this loss of control. Yeah. I can't control the outcome or they're not gonna do it the way I would do it, or the way I want it done.
And this is really difficult if you're a perfectionist. . I have a very specific way I want this to be done. Yeah. So that's one of the reasons that I see. Absolutely.
Looks Lazy
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Camille Rapacz: Another one is that they don't wanna appear lazy or like they're shirking their responsibilities. They're gonna think I'm not really working that hard cuz I keep handing off all the work.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's another reason.
Lack of Trust
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Camille Rapacz: This one taps into what you said, so lack of trust. Yeah. I don't, I don't trust that they're gonna be able to have the skills or ability to do it. Yes. This ties back to well then you don't, you have an underperforming team then, ? Yeah. You don't have a high performance team If that's the case. Which cue back to two episodes ago. Yeah. When we talked about high performing teams.
Takes Too Long
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Camille Rapacz: Another reason is that people will say, well, it's just faster if I do it myself. It's gonna take too long to explain it. Oh, I'm just gonna do it. But that's only true like one or two times they do it.
You're so that's very short term thinking. That's not thinking long term if I teach them this now, they can continue to do this work down the road and they'll know how to do it. Like later it saves you time. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one of the other reasons. Absolutely. Oh my goodness. I know that one's a little, little annoying.
It's just so shortsighted? I get it. Yeah, I get that. You just feel like you don't have time. But I do too.
George Drapeau: Especially if you're gonna crunch, you're running full blast and you have a hard time seeing how, how can I stop a little bit to invest time to train somebody when I can just be faster now and I need to do Yeah.
I, you know, sure.
Camille Rapacz: And especially get it, especially if you couple that with, and they also might not do it right. So I might have rework then you're adding even more time. I get this hesitation, but the payoff when it goes well, is worth it. So, which we will talk about how to do it well.
Need to Feel Essential
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Camille Rapacz: Another reason is that for some people it's really this desire to stay, like relevant and essential. Like, I want to be the only one who knows how to do this thing.
George Drapeau: That's my first reason. Is this.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. Yes. So you just want to have ownership over this task. It's like, it's like, I'm gonna own this IP or something like that.
Mm-hmm. I just, I'm the only one. But this is the conflict of what a business needs versus what you want. I want to be the only one who knows how to do this, but what your business needs is redundancy. It needs more than one person to know how to do things. Yeah. In order for it to sustain. So that's why that reason is also not great. Yeah.
Feels like a Burden
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Camille Rapacz: The last one is very sweet, but also not great. They don't wanna burden them. Mm-hmm. I just, I just don't wanna give them more work. They're already busy.
George Drapeau: Totally. Get that totally misguided. I get it. I get it too, but for you
Camille Rapacz: for being so compassionate and it's coming from a great place, but at the end of the day, what you're doing is you are making a decision for them.
By not even engaging in the conversation about whether they can take on that work. Yeah. So at least have the conversation. You can, you know, talk about what's on their plate now and whether they have the capacity to do this work or how you might adjust things. But don't make that choice for them just because you don't want to burden them.
You would be surprised how much people really will find space to do work that they find new and exciting and is a place for them to learn. And that's what this work will represent. Yeah.
So those are my big reasons.
George Drapeau: Yeah, absolutely. These are great. Some heartbreaking ones.
Camille Rapacz: I know. So if you're like listening to this and being like, oh yeah, some of that is me, that's all of us.
We've all had these experiences.
George Drapeau: Oh yeah. Definitely been me. I'm not so much the loss of control guy or my value is if I know everything, but I'm definitely the don't wanna burden them kind of guy. I have been in my past definitely. And don't wanna appear lazy. I guess I'm not worried about a appearing lazy.
Definitely. I don't wanna, I don't mind burdening people like it's mistaken niceness.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
George Drapeau: I love what you say about removing them from the opportunity to figure out for themselves whether they can or cannot. Why would you not give them a chance to know maybe there's a conversation you work out together.
They can't do. Yeah.
Camille Rapacz: you're not their mom, you're not, you know, deciding all of their, you know, life choices. Not that our mom does that. Sorry, mom. Yeah.
Okay, so let's talk about how do we do this well, because I think this is really the, like this is where the meat of the conversation is.
Okay. So maybe you've recognized like, yes, I do use some of those excuses. Just know that for yourself, it's okay that you do that. But let's talk about how you do it well that might help you also overcome some of this hesitation you have. Awesome to doing delegation.
Do you have a process, George, that you use, or maybe just some tips or tricks, things that you know work well for you?
George Drapeau: I do. I have not written down the process, but I know my pattern very well, which means I do have a process in my head. And you know what, I guess I would describe it as the it's the same general format as when you answer behavioral based interview questions, STAR Situation Task Action Results.
So what I will do, and I just did this recently, so I have something I wanted to delegate. The first thing I'm gonna do is provide context. Pick the person I'm gonna delegate to and approach 'em and say, Hey, I have something I would like you to take on for me. Please give 'em the context so they know the background and say, okay, now that you, you're following me, you get that.
Then tell 'em here's what, how I'm tr here's what I'm trying to do. Here's the thing that's gonna address that context. That's the task. And then here's how I had in mind generally how to do it, or the tool I was gonna use. I wanna see you use this tool and here's how I would think about it. But you could figure out your own way to get through it.
And then the result, ultimately what I wanna see is a weekly report that shows me this. We'll examine it every week to see how we're making progress, something like that. Some way where we can collaborate on results in a safe, forward alignment. So I guess it really is context, the situation, the task, something about actions, so they have an idea of how I might do it, and then make sure they can do it their own way. They don't have to do exactly my way, but don't give them zero context. There's zero instruction either, you know? Yeah. That, that's not helpful either. And then the check-in mechanism or the result we're looking for. And I promise that I will check work with you so that you know how you're doing. That's my pattern.
Camille Rapacz: I like that. Yeah, that's a great framework. So I just wrote out some five sort of like tips for what you should Yeah. I can't wait to hear these delegation. And so they fit be great into they I'm glad you laid out that framework that way cause it fits into what you were talking about.
5 Steps for Better Delegate
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Camille Rapacz: So my step one is what you started with, which is you provide clarity. Make sure you're really clear about not just what the work is, but its purpose. I see this a lot, a big mistake. And, and, and you talked about this as context, ? And I see this mistake happen a lot where people assign the task, but they don't give them like, but what, what's the purpose?
Like either what's gonna happen with it next, or why is it important? Like, you need to paint a picture of what this work is about if you want them to approach it the right way.
George Drapeau: Why? Why do you find that so helpful and important, camille?
Camille Rapacz: I find that so helpful because what you want is for people to be able to make good micro decisions as they do that work. And they make those good choices based on the context of that work, based on what they know is the purpose of that work. Okay.
If I'm assigned a task and I'm not really sure what the end game is for it, I'm probably just going to do the most bare bones job of getting the task done, cuz I don't know anything else. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. So I need some more context. I need to understand the purpose of this work. I'm gonna do a much better job. I'm gonna be able to make better choices as I move through that work if I understand the bigger picture. This kind of gets back to the idea also of systems thinking. If I know how this task fits into the big picture of the work, I'll do a better job.
Yes, sir. In the back row, hand raised?
George Drapeau: Did we get this kind of direction from our mom when we were growing up? Did we get context when we were given chores and things to?
Camille Rapacz: No, parents are horrible about this. Yeah. They're just deciding tasks, I don't know, how often are you giving Avi context for step?
I think when you're tired you're like, I don't have time to give him all the context and purpose, but when you do, he does a better job. Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. So that was my number one.
Don't Micromanage
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Camille Rapacz: My number two. Yeah. And you said this one too. Don't micromanage them. Yeah. Like you need to give them some wiggle room in here.
You don't need to give them every single step of how you would do it in order to get a good outcome. And this is a mistake I see as well. Like, I'm gonna tell them every, I want 'em to just do it exactly the way I either do, do it or would do it. Too much instruction is so restrictive, it's very demoralizing. That's not meeting the purpose even of delegation. Because you're just sort of like replicating yourself and what you want is to get a better version. So give guidance and support, but don't manage every single detail. Yes, sir.
George Drapeau: Can I point out something you and I have talked about in this area related to VAs?
I think both don't micromanage and don't under manage, not zero instructions, zero management. Like we've talked about, people will give tasks to the virtual assistant, but with no extra instruction. No initial guidance or training or something. And then they don't get what they want. Like, well, you did a sucky job.
Like you undermanaged them.
Provide Support
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Camille Rapacz: Yes, yes. Absolutely. So that's, I, I think that relates to the one on my list where I'm like, provide support. Like, make sure that you're giving enough guidance, you're checking in regularly to see if they have questions. You are providing good feedback. Like you really need to be clear about, that's why you're giving that clarity of what's the purpose, what's the task, but don't, then not check in until the task is done. Yeah. And expect that they have figured all of it out.
Because what's gonna happen is when they start working on the thing, that's when the questions will come up. So make sure you also make yourself available to that. Like, Hey, let's have a checkpoint here, here and here.
So that, you know, if you have questions along the way, we can work through those. Mm-hmm. Not in a micromanagement way, but in a supportive way. Yeah.
There is this fine line. This is the tricky thing I think about delegation and why people hesitate to do it is you don't wanna micromanage, but you also don't wanna just like abdicate or just like, here's a thing and you know, good luck to you figure it out.
George Drapeau: Delegation is not the absence of management.
Camille Rapacz: That's right. It actually is management and leadership all rolled into one. All run to one. So yes, provide support.
Choose the Right Person
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Camille Rapacz: And then you also, you said this outta the gate, which you've gotta delegate to the right people. Like who's the person, who's the person to do this job?
The person to do the job has the strengths and capabilities to do it, but isn't necessarily somebody who knows everything about that work. So if you're looking for the perfect candidate mm-hmm. Who like this person could just easily, seamlessly do this, that probably doesn't exist on your team. If you haven't done any delegation yet.
You do have to think about this as I'm gonna have to teach them something. But what I wanna do is teach somebody who I know is gonna be quick to pick this up because they have the skills, the strengths. Mm-hmm. You know, attributes that's really gonna fit for this type of work I'm giving them.
I guess it's more like a fit of the type of work with the right person. Okay. But not necessarily that they have every single skill you need out of the gate. That's cool.
George Drapeau: I like the build-in growth opportunity that comes with good delegation. You're getting a
Camille Rapacz: twofer. Yes, and that's exactly why I think people should reframe how they think about delegation from, it's not just about me trying to get help with my work.
That might be the reason you're thinking to do it, like I have to start delegating some work because I have too much. That's completely fine if that's where you're coming from. But when you decide you're gonna delegate, the approach you should take is that this isn't just about me.
This is equally beneficial to them and to the business, because people want to learn. They just do. Of course, I wanna have more skills in the job that I do. Of course I wanna be more valued because I know how to do more things. Mm-hmm. This is what I tell people when they get stuck on, you know, not wanting to delegate work. Think you not delegating some of your work to someone else is robbing them of opportunities to learn.
So if things were reversed and you were them, that would be bumming you out now. Yes. Yep. Especially if it's somebody who is trying to expand, maybe grow in the business, or just get more knowledge in this industry.
And if you're not willing to share some of your knowledge through the work that you do, you are robbing them of an opportunity to learn and to grow. Not great. Just not great. That's just not gonna help you as a business owner running that company. So when you take that approach, hopefully that also changes it from, oh, I'm not just burdening people, I am helping them.
I'm helping them learn and grow and develop. And that's why it's so important that you give constructive feedback that you follow up at the end of this. How did that go? What was it like taking on that new type of work? Make it part of somebody's development plan. If you're in a position in a small business where you're starting to think about what are the growth plans for all the members of my team, what does that look like?
What do they actually want to learn? How, what do they wanna learn to do? That's another great conversation to have is what do you wanna learn about so you can start thinking about things you wanna delegate to them, make a part of developing them, and remember that that's really essential to creating bench depth in your business.
And in a small business you need a lot of bench depth. You need lots of people to know how to lot do lots of different things. Back to what we talked about before the idea that if there's one person out on your team, you've gotta have some backup. Yeah. So you need people who at least know some of this work. There has to be some overlap in understanding different people's roles.
You still want people to stay in their lane in terms of knowing what their role is. But you also want this systems' perspective of I also can understand how other roles work and it will really make it easier for the business to run more smoothly.
George Drapeau: Yes, for sure. , for sure.
Camille Rapacz: I feel like that's common sense and yet it's really hard to execute. You know? Yeah, absolutely.
So those are really my big thoughts on delegation.
George Drapeau: Those are great. I love this. Any last thoughts? Love this for, yeah.
The idea of using delegation as a test. I think I'm gonna say what you just said about putting it in development plans, but in a different way. It was occurring to me like you can use delegation to probe into your team's abilities, see if they have the skill or not. And so I was thinking of a couple of examples, like in big enterprises, you know, I will choose to send one of my people to a meeting that I usually go to.
They'll be by ambassador. Say, you go do it. Same rules for delegation. Don't just send 'em in blind. Give 'em all the context. Put 'em in there, see if the report back to see how they do. It's a good test. Good training. You can put that in the development plan.
You wanna learn how to be a manager? I'm gonna send you to some of the manager meetings on my behalf and I'll set you up for success. But it's a test. Hey, I wonder how they would do if they do this.
I'm wondering if in small business, different versions of it might be why don't you be shift lead one time? You know, tell everybody or Hey, I've got this vendor that I deal with.
Why don't you deal with the vendor this month? Come back to me if, you have course or something like that. Give them a task. It has the side benefit of, well, because I'm not expecting to really relinquish myself in that job. I'm not worried about if they do it perfectly the first time, that's not what it's about.
The delegation is a test of ability, but I'm still delegating. It still does give me some time to focus elsewhere.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. I love that idea that it is a way for you to, I think of it as you might think of it as testing their abilities. I like to think of it as I'm creating a space where their potential could actually show up.
Yeah, and maybe in other places, I haven't given 'em this opportunity for their full potential mm-hmm. To, you know, and maybe they're actually really great at vendor management and I've been missing all of this time. They've discovered something that I didn't even realize was happening.
What you're looking for is, What is my team actually better at doing than I am? But I don't know it yet because I haven't even given 'em an opportunity to shine in that space. Yeah, and that's what you want cuz you want your team to be better at things than you are. Yeah. Lots of things in the business.
You need lots of little micro experts on different things in your business so that you can maintain all your energy on the core expertise of what your business does, cuz that's what you are expert in. Mm-hmm. Yes. So yeah, I love that idea. I have to say when I saw, cuz I think we've told people before, we have notes that we're reading from as we go through this.
And I saw that you had jotted some notes down and all I saw was enterprises and I thought I was gonna get a Star Trek story, a Star Trek,
and then I was a little bit disappointed that I didn't get one.
Okay. Star Trek, the Next Generation. There's a couple episodes where Picard will put Data, Lieutenant Commander data in charge, and those are hilarious episodes, examples of delegation, cuz you see where he gets it right and wrong.
Those are probably my favorite examples of delegation in that show. The ones where you delegate stuff to Riker, like that's what it's all about. The successor, but the ones that delegates the Data, great.
Or in the original series, when Sulu gets the chair, Those are awesome.
Those are my favorite.
George Drapeau: He's the man actually. And also in, in New Star Trek when Sulu gets the chair and you find out just how intense. He is.
Camille Rapacz: Yes. And isn't it Bones who says, remind me never to piss you off, Mr. Sulu. Yes. Because he's so good at it. Awesome. Mm-hmm. Agreed.
See all the great reasons why you should look to delegation.
Final Thoughts
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Camille Rapacz: Okay. So just to wrap things up here think about when you're thinking about delegation, the things to think about at the heart of it is what we were just talking about. Like this really is about how you can develop others. So even if you're not feeling like I need to delegate cuz I'm overloaded, just start having some long-term thinking about I really should expand my team's capabilities, I'm gonna need it.
Like it's better if you can do it before you're too busy. Cuz then you won't have that, you know, anxiety of I don't have time to do this for my people. I know that's hard to do, to be that forward thinking, but if you can, if you're in that place now where you could start delegating, it can be super small things like your examples were great, George.
Like, Hey, just go have that vendor meeting. Just pop into this meeting for me and see how it goes. And you can pick some things that are also just like low risk. Let's see how this goes. Yeah. So start thinking in terms of how can I start delegating some of the things that I would normally do or somebody else above them would normally do?
Yeah, but the most important thing to remember, well, the second most important thing to remember along with that is that you are still responsible for the outcomes. So don't just assign stuff and walk away. Yeah. It's still your work to manage to lead that. That's where delegation is really critical in terms of separating it from, it's just their work that they own.
It's still an outcome that you need to own and take responsibility for if you've delegated the work to somebody and they didn't do it right. Don't put them in the same position of, they failed at their work, as you would if it was their regular task. Cuz I just think that's unfair cuz you are stretching them into a newer space and maybe you didn't give them something that aligned with their actual skillset and their capabilities.
So just be really thoughtful about the way that you do it. You still do need to be responsible for that outcome and hopefully that helps you with, oh, I need to check in often and make sure they're doing well. Without, again, totally micromanaging them.
So while it takes more time, at first, there's gonna be a great long-term payoff on this.
Yeah. So I think every small business owner should get really good at the art of delegation as, as best you can. And you just do that by practicing it. Yeah. Like with all things. That's awesome. Any last thoughts, George?
George Drapeau: No, this is it. It's good.
Camille Rapacz: Well, that's all I wanna say about delegation. we'll probably talk about this some more later, but in the meantime, if you have thoughts about this, if you wanna share maybe some of your delegation wins or maybe not, not so great experiences, we would love to hear it. Or maybe you have trouble with delegation we didn't even talk about.
Leave us a voicemail. You can do that thebeliefshift.com, little voicemail widget. Also, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We'd love to hear from you. Awesome.
That's all we've got for this week, and we'll be back in your ears next week.
George Drapeau: See ya everybody.
Camille Rapacz: Bye.
