Here’s How Founders Can Be a Bit More Selfish with Their Time

Leaders may accomplish more by doing less.

A four-step delegation model to focus you on what matters most.

I’ve been listening to the “Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast” for years. He’s humble, insightful and offers lots of helpful ways of thinking about decision making. Recently, he posted a great discussion on delegating, which he called “Doing What Only You Can Do.”

As I listened, I found myself nodding in agreement when he said, “The two best secrets are that the less you do, the more you accomplish, and the less you do, the more you let others accomplish better than you could.”

That’s pretty close to what he said; but his larger point was that leaders often have trouble getting out of their own way. Maybe they think they have to “set the tone” for their organization and do everything? Maybe they think they have something to prove to show their team why they should be trusted? The problem with these patterns, Andy says, is that good or great leaders often aren’t good at everything. Their team knows this, or quickly learn it, and try to wrest away the things the leader can’t do well. Struggles and misunderstandings can ensue, and that’s not good for anybody.

In other words, says Andy — and this is a phrase I love — “well-roundedness is overrated.” The moment the leader steps away from his core competencies, his performance suffers. Especially if he interferes with others who are working in their core competencies and have to entertain his bad ideas!

I agree whole-heartedly with what Andy is saying about delegation. Several years ago, I improvised a little exercise to help me focus on what was important and to use with my senior leadership team whenever they reported feeling “overwhelmed” by all the things they had to do. All you need is a white board or piece of paper.

Here’s how it might work with a member of your leadership team.

Step 1

Go to the white board and list out bullet points for everything they do during a two-week period. This list often reaches into the dozens and may include phone calls with customers, preparing various reports for me, and sitting in various meetings.

Step 2

Have the team member to go through the list with a red pen and circle the items only they can do. Examples might include preparing a weekly analysis report for me, submitting a 12-month strategy to me, or talking a major customer off the ledge. Typically, I find that out of 40 items listed in Step 1, only about five or so are circled in red. However, more often than not, it’s the other 35 things that suck time away from the five important things.

Step 3

Switching to a green marker, have them put the initials of somebody else who is better suited to the task by the other 35 things, which may include handling an HR issue, visiting a small account, sitting in on a long, tactical meeting, as well as calendaring and filling out expense reports and so on. As part of this step, I had them fill out a GreenSheet that specified with great clarity the specific level of responsibility and authority delegated for each task, including deadlines, reporting structures and follow-up.

Step 4

Finally, have them schedule the things in red on their calendar as priorities, and only then build the rest of their calendar around these fundamental things that only they can do. They might block out one full day, or an hour at the beginning or end of each day, or whatever works for them and you.

The whole exercise takes 45 minutes, but it needs to be done. And the sooner, the better.

If you spend time on only what you can do, it focuses you like a laser beam on what you need to do to be successful. This is relevant to the sole proprietor or a leader of hundreds. In fact, nothing will fire up your team more than the trust you place in them by delegating the right things to them in a clear, transparent way.

While there are major benefits of this approach for the entire organization, you should really do it for you, not them. You need to be a little selfish with your time.

What are you doing to focus yourself on the things that matter most?

Sincerely,

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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!