Depth Charges

Every task should be done by the least expensive person who is capable of performing that task effectively and efficiently.

In other words, if you are an IT Manager who spends 4 or 5 hours to save the company $200 on its monthly phone bill, you have actually cost the company money... plus avoided doing the job that you are actually paid to do.

In the end, it's all about effective delegation. If you can't do it, you can't look yourself in the mirror and call yourself a manager.

Manager or Supervisor?

Give some thought to this:

• Do you ever suggest-but-not-really-because-it's-more-like-you-insist that one of your direct reports hire someone?
• Do you ever tell them that you don't want them to hire someone?

If you have ever done either of these, no matter what your direct report's title is, you have turned them into a supervisor.

A supervisor supervises daily work that is defined by someone else. A manager decides what the work is. They also have the power to hire and fire. Take that away, and they're not a manager any more. And the moment their direct reports know that - whether you want to or not - you take on being that team's manager, because they won't bother to go to the supervisor for anything any more. Why should they? You've taken all of that former manager's power away.

If you don't trust a manager to hire or fire people, you have the wrong manager. Fire them. If you don't trust anyone else to hire and fire, you've created a hierarchy with just 2 levels: you, and everyone else. There are some profound ramifications to that:

• Your managers won't own the success or failure of their team members. Why should they? They didn't even get to decide who those team members are.
• Your managers' direct reports will come to you whenever they get a 'no' from their manager. Congratulations! Mom said no, so now they go to dad. You've turned your organization into a dysfunctional family, just like you always dreamed about.
• Turnover: If your managers' direct reports aren't owned by their manager, they won't get what they need. People who don't get what they need leave. And guess what? Managers who find out that they're not really managers leave, too, to go work for organizations where they can be managers. Which is most of them.

The solution: Let go! You hired managers to do what you are either bad at or don't have the bandwidth to do. Let them be managers, for Pete's sake. And if they fail, give them some encouragement and talk it through with them. If they don't improve, replace them. If they do, congratulations - you have an hierarchy that works.

Kick Your Company Out of the Nest

I've talked about hiring friends & family, pocketing & knowledge retention, deciding whether your organization is a club or a business, generational businesses, and chain of command, all of which are difficult changes for the established, non-business-school-graduate. But the difficulty factor doubles if you're an entrepreneur, because of an added element: The business is your baby.

You started your business in your garage, spare room , or attic, but it really began as a dream. Your spouse and kids probably helped you, at first, and then maybe a friend or a neighbor, because you couldn't afford anyone else. As time went on, your growing infant organization ate up more and more of your time. Eventually, things got to the point that you slept only when you fell over, sweated the books (you're still sweating the books), never took a day off or a vacation, and made every sale yourself because there wasn't anyone else. And finally, after all of that work, you join the ranks of the less than 1 in 10: A start-up business that lasts for more than a year.

Year two, you maybe hire a high school kid or two to work part time. You miss your kids' school plays, concerts, and games because you have to work. You always have to work; you no longer even seriously think about doing anything else. But you start to see a little success, so you reinvest that and go to a trade show or a networking event where word of mouth grows. You eventually have enough money for your very first ad, which does nothing, but that's okay because you learned from it, and your next ad gets some attention and pretty soon, you can actually hire a couple of real employees and learn to sweat over payroll.

Another year or 2 or 3 go by, and you have a full-time work force. Each person wears 10 hats because there are no hat stands. Everyone works late (but never quite as late as you); no one claims overtime. You have shared your dream and these people believe it, fearless because they don't know any better, and clueless enough to do everything wrong over and over again until they eventually find a method that works.

And now, 5 or 6 years in, you can finally afford to hire someone who can actually tell you what you're doing wrong: Your very first consultant. It's almost like a first kiss, what we used to call 1st base, in that it promises bigger and better things to come. And then, day of days, you hire your very first employee who has actually done this before, and maybe even many times before, which is the entrepreneur's equivalent to 2nd base, and then another and another pro join up, 3rd base and now the bases are loaded with people who know what they're doing, and...

... you jump out of the back seat and say, "Take me home!"

I understand. Like any new, extremely emotional experience, letting your company go is like sending your son or daughter off to prom or spring break. You had control, and now a bunch of pencil pushers are trying to tell you how to run your own company. Things used to be so much easier, back when you didn't have to get approval or document or assess readiness. And the thing that sends you over the edge is this: The very first dip in revenue.

Panic! Someone is groping your child! All of these people are going to kill your kid!

Stop. STOP! Take a deep breath. You hired these people because they know what they're doing, right? And they've managed not to destroy previous employers. And you agreed that, to make this whole thing work, you have to get the hell out of the way and let them do their jobs. And you know that - you know it - but you don't feel it.

This is the glass ceiling where the 10% who made it through year 1 fail: They can't let go. And while their business doesn't die right away, they begin to lose people by the truckload, because they see it even if you can't: The company has stopped growing because you are standing in the way. That's right: You have become an obstacle for your company to overcome, and there are only 2 ways that things can go from here: You can fight to regain control over your teenage company and lose its respect, loyalty, and love, or you can do what all good parents do:

Trust that you brought it up right, and finally take that vacation you promised your spouse so long ago that you can't even recall doing it. Tell no one where you go. Take no phone. Watch no news. Stay gone at least a week, but preferably a month. If your business really can't live without you that long, you've already failed. But when it does, it will thrive and blossom into a strong, functional adult, stepping right out of its diapers and into its first acquisition, merger, or IPO.

And isn't that what every corporate parent really dreams of?

Are They Ready?

Management is essentially working with and through others to accomplish your organization's goals. A leader's role is to raise employees' aspirations for what they can become, and get them to release their energies to try. By now you know that you can't do everything yourself, and you understand the importance of delegating, as well as when to delegate and whom to delegate to. The next question is, how do you know what approach to use, depending upon the employee's readiness?

To talk about readiness assessment, we first have to talk about what employees need from you in order to feel comfortable enough to take on a task. Before anything else, you must have the following:

• A clear direction. 
• Clear communication. 
• The employee's trust. 

Got those? Good! (If you answered no, you have some serious issues that must be resolved before anything else can move forward. Get to it!)

The next step is to identify your leadership style. Your leadership style is your patterns of behavior as perceived by others. There are basically 2 leadership styles:

• Directing behavior: You define the employee's role and responsibility, explain & clarify what to do, when, and how. In a nutshell, one-way communication, all coming from you. 
• Supporting behavior: You set positive expectations, praise, encourage, and listen. All two-way communication. 

Readiness is essentially ability (knowledge, skill, clear on priorities) + willingness (desire, confidence, incentive). Remember, willingness is often a measure of confidence. Before assigning a task, ask yourself if the employee has:

• Task-specific experience 
• Task-specific training 
• An understanding of the priority of the task 
• Desire 
• Incentive (this is usually the opportunity to shine, or to advance at some point down the road - not money) 

There are four levels of readiness:

• R4 = High Readiness (Ability High and Willingness High) 
• R3 = Moderate to High Readiness (Ability High and Willingness Not High) 
• R2 = Low to Moderate Readiness (Ability Not High and Willingness High) 
• R1 = Low Readiness (Ability Not High and Willingness Not High) 

Each of the four levels requires a different delegation style:

• R1 = Directing (Explain and clarify what, where, when, and how.) 
• R2 = Coaching (Instruct and convince via 2-way discussion. Explain the 'why'.) 
• R3 = Supporting (Support them to reinforce their ideas and confidence.) 
• R4 - Autonomy (Follow up and support as needed/as determined by employee.) 

No matter which readiness level an employee is at, defer to their approach, but define the deliverables. Remember that your way of doing things is not the only way, and not even necessarily the best way. There will be mistakes, but your employer should be allowed to make them and to learn from them.

Last but not least, only ask their input about things that have not already been decided. You wouldn't ask your son or daughter where they would like to go to dinner if you've already made up your mind about it, would you? That would only undermine their confidence in their ability to make decisions, your interest in their input, and their trust in you.

Here's a handy readiness reference chart that you can print for your office or cube wall:

Delegate, Dammit!

If you are like many managers, you have a hard time delegating tasks - at least until you are overwhelmed, at which point you may shed tasks that you should keep. You want to make sure to give your company maximum value, but how do you know which tasks should be delegated, to whom, and when?

Here's a very simple flowchart to help you figure out what should be delegated:

The who part is easy: Delegate the task to whomever has the least to do. 

This may sound self-evident, but how many times have you seen someone else assign a task to the employee who has the most going on? Even today, I bet you've seen at least one example. This is because we have a natural tendency to give tasks to the person who seems the most capable. And if they've already got that much going on and they're handling it well, they must be capable, right?

The trouble with this impulse, though, is that the employee who gets all of the tasks learns everything, while other employees languish, never able to test their wings and gain the experience necessary to become more capable. Meanwhile, the person who gets dumped on lives under constant pressure and stress. You know what happens when one employee feels like they're being passed over and another feels like they're being pissed on?

They both leave. And one of them left to go work for your competitor and took all of that knowledge they acquired with them. Now you're short at least two people, maybe more, and no one knows how to do more than the bare minimum.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. But we still do it all the time.

Yes, delegate to everyone. If you don't think they're capable of doing the work, why did you hire them? Yes, make sure that your expectations are clearly spelled out, as well as the timeline and milestones. Yes, meet regularly to assess progress. Yes, give counsel if asked, but only if asked. You may be surprised, not least by the fact that just because someone does something differently than how you would have done it doesn't make them wrong. In fact, they may find a better way than you do.

The last question is the easiest one of all: Delegate tasks soon as they are identified.

Never touch anything more than once. This includes emails, meeting notes, phone calls, and anything else that involves a task. The first time you touch it, apply the flow chart above, and then either do it yourself or delegate it, on the spot. Your inbox will empty out, you'll help all of your people grow, morale will rise, retention will improve, and your organization will get what it's paying for: Your time, doing the tasks that you alone are paid to do.