Decisive delegation
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It is invariably described as an art, so why is delegation, a seemingly straightforward task, so difficult to master? The answer seems to lie in a word not everybody wants to hear – pride.
Having grown his business from a one-man band to a 50-person company, John Kearon, chief ‘juicer’ at market research group BrainJuicer, says he can relate to the difficulties people have with taking a step back.
‘If you don’t learn to empower the staff that you’re managing, as my old boss used to say, you’re simply going to run out of time in the day,’ he says. ‘It’s the classic inventor entrepreneur turned CEO problem, where someone tries to protect the company they’ve nurtured by getting involved in absolutely everything. You have to realise you simply can’t do it all if you’re trying to think about the bigger picture.’
Learning to be confident that your team can carry out important tasks in your absence is central to performing your role as a leader. This means being brave enough to allow your staff to make mistakes and to learn from them.
Don’t DIY
‘If you see a problem in your business, it can be really tempting to wade in and have a go at solving it,’ says Ken Jacobson, chief executive of business mentoring network Vistage International. ‘But as chief executive you’ve got to have the space to work on the business from a strategic, overarching viewpoint, without getting tied up in the day to day.
‘More than that, if you are seen to be involved in every aspect of your business first hand, people will try to take advantage of you. For instance, if you’re agreeing a contract and you’re also the guy with the chequebook, it’s much easier for people to squeeze you for money. It’s far better to have an expert buyer or negotiator standing between you to give you critical distance.’
Though the saying goes: “If you want something done well, do it yourself”, the truth may be that your involvement is exactly what isn’t needed. After all, your sales manager heads that department because you put them there and that’s their strength.
The first point to remember then is that if you want to delegate effectively, you need good people working at your company in the first place.
Kearon says that sound delegation begins long before you start handing out tasks: ‘It’s about finding people whose speciality and expertise fit the role they’re taking on. You have to know your limits and use the skills of the people you’ve appointed. It’s a fairly straightforward concept: if you’re not a numbers person, why would you try to do it yourself? You have to make sure you have a good CFO in place – someone that lives and breathes numbers.’
A sound recruitment procedure is key if you want to surround yourself with people who will drive your business forward. ‘It is difficult to let go at the start but you have to remember that the most important thing about a business is the people working within it,’ says Maria Hatzistefanis, chief executive at skin care product company Rodial.
‘My motto is hire slow and fire fast. Take as long as possible in making sure that the people you have around you are capable, that they fit the culture of the company and that they can cope with the small, day-to-day aspects of running a business without you there, otherwise it can really hinder growth. If they don’t fit, don’t hire them in the first place, or get rid of them fast.’
Hatzistefanis is candid about what she doesn’t want to do: ‘I tend to delegate dealing with difficult customers or clients. I’m not someone that likes confrontation – it ruins my day. If I’m honest, because I have to travel a lot for my business, I also tend to delegate visiting the less glamorous parts of the UK in favour of going to Milan or somewhere a bit more exciting.’
Standing up to be counted
So there are a few perks to the delegation process, but as John French, chairman and chief executive of Croma Group and a senior figure at five other companies suggests, a successful leader will be able to find that balance between micromanagement and simply palming off loathsome tasks.
He says: ‘There’s a fine line between allocating a workload to your team effectively and opting out of your responsibility. Sometimes people are reluctant to delegate, but that really is the wrong approach. It’s not the conductor’s job to play all the instruments in the orchestra, but it is their job to make sure that everyone’s playing the right tune. Nobody is perfect and nobody knows everything, so you need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and those of the people around you.’
Mike Tobin, chief executive of data management specialist TelecityRedbus believes you should delegate as much as possible: ‘Delegate to your friends, delegate to your family, delegate aspects of everything if you need to, but make sure you understand that delegation means shared responsibility.
‘Don’t make the mistake of trying to create a fall guy to take the heat off you if things go wrong, because it won’t work. Once you have asked someone to step up to the plate and take charge of something, their failures are your failures and their successes are yours too. You have to be prepared to be accountable and absorb any deficiency that they might have.’
There are elements of the delegation process, therefore, that need to be controlled, even after the act of passing on a task is complete. So how do you know when to stop dishing out duties and start getting on with things?
‘One of the best things about being chief executive of a company is that I don’t have enough time to go to parents’ evenings – that’s a task that I quite happily delegate to my wife,’ quips Kearon. ‘But seriously, I’ve never had a PA. I don’t think I even know how to work with one. What would be the point? I can book all my travel online in two seconds and it’s quicker to do it yourself than it would be to delegate. I think that’s the general consensus among the younger generation in business at the moment.’
Tobin agrees: ‘Never delegate just for the sake of it or based on convention. If a business leader is a total megalomaniac, delegation is going to be based on his perceived status and on hierarchy. The truth is that if you’re saying: “Oh no, I’m way too important to be doing that”, you’re likely to work less efficiently than if you just got on with it.’
As an inspirational leader, the need to find a balance that benefits the company is paramount. Getting your hands dirty may not be the best way to operate your business, but you don’t want to step back so far you fall off your pedestal.