Disappointed?
Does your staff seem to take longer than whatever time they’re given no matter what the task assigned is….even the simplest of things?I know, it used to drive me downright crazy!
I’d figure out a job for one day and to be safe I’d even throw in an extra half a day just to handle the “bad scenario.” Still more often than not, the job could take two days. The next time a similar job would come up I’d figure 1-1/2 days and 2 days in a “bad scenario” and the job would still come in behind schedule.
What gives?
The fact is I never told them when I wanted a specific job done because I figured they’d stretch the time out if they finished early. Why not? They were only going to get more work if they did, or worse yet I’d send them home early with no pay. Since I never told them how long to take and gave them no incentive to bring it in on-time and on-budget, they rarely did.Talk about having it backwards!
Looking back, I now know what I did wrong, and why it took me so long to fix it. You don’t have to fall into that same hole. I’ve been there and I can spare you the pain.But you must do what I finally learned and that is to spend more time delegating jobs on the front-end the right way with excellent communication and a reward for good performance and a consequence for bad performance. And unless you commit to this you can expect to pay for the screw-ups, delays and disappointments on the back-end almost every time.
The Rules of Delegation are the powerful tool I designed for myself to get any project a better than fighting chance to be successful. It will work great for you, too.
BUT ONLY, if you take the time to do the steps in the right order each and every time.
Master the delegation of projects based on the following written process and then have them sign off on it:
- Here’s what needs to get done.
- Here’s why it needs to get done.
- Here’s what you have available to get it
done.
- The priority assigned to it.
- When it needs to be done by.
- The meeting schedule for checking on the
progress being made.
- What rewards and consequences there are.
It’s so good I created a simple one-page template based on this process and it’s been delightfully successful with my clients who are disciplined enough to use it consistently.
If you’d like to see the form or learn more about this powerful process, e-mail me atal@appleseedbusiness.comand request the “Steps of Delegation” and I’ll be glad to send it along.
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