Agritourism Managers' Boot Camp Accelerator FREE Delegation Series. Video 3 of 5
"Adventures in Delegating - Episode 3, Hugh's Top 3 Epic Fails"
If it were easy, everyone would be delegating effectively. There are pitfalls to delegating that I have fallen into, and still do, just less frequently now. You get to sit back and laugh as I recount my 'Epic Fails' at delegating, with the goal of preventing you from making the same mistakes!
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This is a series for business owners with employees, staff, a team. Delegating is the joy and pleasure of off-loading tasks so you, the MVP, The Most Valuable Player, can work ON the business, instead of working IN the business.
Here’s the "Adventures in Delegating” series line-up:
- Delegating: Do you own a business or a job?
- What to Delegate and When
- Hugh’s Monumental Delegating FAILS
- Battling the Monkey
- Delegating for the Long Haul: Your system for multiplying effort
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Delegating without training + a snatch back. This is the classic scenario. I know you’ve seen it, and I know you’ve done it with your own crew. You give a staff member a task with very little instruction, because you are very busy and, as you think, anyone can figure this out, then return later to find the task undone, half done or in process, but so slowly being done you lose your cool.
What happens next is repeated a million times a day at thousands of businesses around the world… You grab the tools, push the employee, literally or figuratively, out of the way and you… do it yourself.
Often with them standing by watching as you do it.
On your time clock.
Costing you money and wasting your time.
Which makes you mad.
While you are hoping that they feel incredibly stupid for not being able to do it themselves.
Plus, you are hoping they think you are amazing for doing it.
…and you count that as their training.
That is delegation without training + a snatch back. The problem is: For the same amount of time and trouble, you could have coached them through the job, allowing them to do the work and use the tools, guiding with your experience along the way.
At the end of a coaching session like that, you could have asked if they felt confident to do it themselves the next time. If they say ‘Yes’, you never have to do that job again!
The crazy part: BOTH scenarios take the same amount of your time.
Delegating by abdication. Way back in 2001, I was ‘so busy’ that my delegating style moved beyond delegation to complete abdication. Abdication is "the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority; To give up leadership.” Did you catch that last part? To give up leadership? That is a really bad plan.
What I thought I was doing was to “trust my people so much that they can make decisions and motivate themselves with nearly zero interaction with or modeling by me, the leader.”
That is not delegation or a 'continuation of the business values and service delivery'; that is abdication, a 'giving up' on leadership. It worked about as well as you can expect. I likely needed to apologize to the guests attending that season as I was notably absent as a role model; a performance model, and they were not receiving the service I thought.
I only discovered this upon a surprise, unannounced visit to the Maze Building, at which I found every employee sitting on, in or around the front desk chatting, whilst our guests fending for themselves in the maze.
Oh, that day I lost my mind, screamed and yelled, berated people and threw a lovely fit, but I was simply witnessing the results of months of neglect.
You see, abdication is negligence by a leader perpetuated upon the staff. People don’t want to be alone, they want to be led. I had personally ruined that year’s crew by abandoning them, neglecting them, instead of training, teaching and encouraging them.
Delegation by building robots. True delegation is designed to build and grow healthy, helpful people to work in your business. Unfortunately, we often delegate only so far as to build robots.
Farm family robots. Farmers are notorious for building robots. You probably can think of a farm family in which, classically, the father makes all the decisions and the son(s) are treated as farm hands, or worse, robots. This classic situation has doomed countless family farms during generational transfer because no one but ‘Daddy’ knows how to do anything!
Your people are people, if they are robots, fire them. Ever hear stuff like, “Well, you’re the boss.” or “I just do what I’m told.”? That farm has a robot problem - no one is thinking for herself.
I was once in a meeting to launch a new corn maze attraction. I had flown in, I had limited time with my clients, they were desperate for this new venture to work out. During our meeting time, the patriarch, was so ‘important’ that he was interrupted every 5-10 mins by a staff person calling his cell phone.
The answers he’d give were, “Well, take the blue truck to the next field and keep picking.” “Yes, unload them into the cooler.” His staff and family were trained very well to not make ANY decision without calling ‘the boss’ for instructions.
It was maddening. Here was a successful man trying to launch a new, exciting business and he couldn’t think straight for 10 mins without answering a question a minimum wage worker already knew the answer to!
I used to do this, and honestly, it’s the first experience anyone has with delegating. I’d think, "if I just have someone to hand me my tools, I’ll be faster building the maze bridges." I’d think, “Don’t make any decisions, I need to be the boss and to show my authority, I’ll hold all the power.” I’d think, “Maize Quest is my baby. If I let anyone decide anything, I’ll lose control and it won’t be mine anymore."
You need your systems to be robots, but you need your people to be thinkers, fully engaged, ready to react and prepared in advance to make good decisions on your behalf even when you aren’t there.
While not proud of my big fails, those same fails became the basis for building what eventually became the Boot Camp System; a system you can use to avoid these failures in your management life.
Talk with you soon,
Hugh
PS You can schedule a call with your questions about Boot Camp Accelerator anytime by clicking this link to see my schedule openings: