WHAT IT MEANS WHEN EMPLOYEES STAY 'TIL RETIREMENT
Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire
A condensed Employee Life Cycle
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Retire
This is when you know you have been successful. When employees see your company as the employer of choice, they will join you. When they recognize you as a good boss and a real leader, they will stay around. As long as you continue to inspire, motivate, and challenge them, they will continue to contribute at the high levels you need in order to beat your competition. They will be long-term employees; even staying with you and your company until they retire. They will refer other quality employees to your company, including their relatives. You will attract and retain second and even third generation employees.
Along the way, you will have had some of the most creative employees, some of the most productive employees, and the lowest employee costs in your market. You will be able to spend the money you save in this way on other key competitive elements, including raises and bonuses for all employees – even yourself.
MY THOUGHTS
When you have a creative, productive employee who needs to retire, you're sorry to have to let them go. You'll probably extend their employment period. I hope we all belong to this group.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
ADMIRE YOUR EMPLOYEES
ADMIRE YOUR EMPLOYEES
From the article 'Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire'
A condensed Employee Life Cycle
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Admire
Once you have hired the best employees and have challenged and motivated them, you can not relax. The biggest mistake a manager can make is to ignore employees. The same attention you paid to their work assignments, to their satisfaction levels, to their sense of being part of a great team needs to continue for as long as they are in your group. As soon as you start to slack off, their satisfaction and motivation decreases. If you don't do something, they will become disenchanted and will leave. They will become part of the "employee turnover" statistic you were trying to avoid.
* You want TGIM (thank goodness it's Monday) employees not TGIF (thank goodness it's Friday) ones.
* Give them positive feedback as much as you can, even if it's just a good word.
* Provide appropriate rewards and recognition for jobs done well.
* Create referral programs and reward your employees for referring other employee candidates "who are just as great as you".
MY THOUGHTS
Having TGIM poses a real challenge. Especially if you are a TGIF manager. I really don't mind TGIFs. I think a good weekend helps people go through Mondays.
From the article 'Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire'
A condensed Employee Life Cycle
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Admire
Once you have hired the best employees and have challenged and motivated them, you can not relax. The biggest mistake a manager can make is to ignore employees. The same attention you paid to their work assignments, to their satisfaction levels, to their sense of being part of a great team needs to continue for as long as they are in your group. As soon as you start to slack off, their satisfaction and motivation decreases. If you don't do something, they will become disenchanted and will leave. They will become part of the "employee turnover" statistic you were trying to avoid.
* You want TGIM (thank goodness it's Monday) employees not TGIF (thank goodness it's Friday) ones.
* Give them positive feedback as much as you can, even if it's just a good word.
* Provide appropriate rewards and recognition for jobs done well.
* Create referral programs and reward your employees for referring other employee candidates "who are just as great as you".
MY THOUGHTS
Having TGIM poses a real challenge. Especially if you are a TGIF manager. I really don't mind TGIFs. I think a good weekend helps people go through Mondays.
Monday, March 28, 2011
INSPIRE YOUR EMPLOYEES
Inspire your Employees
from the article 'A condensed Employee Life Cycle'
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Inspire
Once you have recruited the best employees to come to work on your team, the hard part begins. You have to inspire them to perform to their capabilities. You have to challenge and motivate them. That is where you will get their best effort and their creativity that will help your organization excel.
* Make them welcome. Make them feel like part of the team from the first day.
* Set goals for them that are hard, but can be achieved. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals.
* Be a leader, not just a manager.
MY THOUGHTS
I would have to go back to hiring. None of these challenges and inspiration will work if you have the wrong person on board.
from the article 'A condensed Employee Life Cycle'
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Inspire
Once you have recruited the best employees to come to work on your team, the hard part begins. You have to inspire them to perform to their capabilities. You have to challenge and motivate them. That is where you will get their best effort and their creativity that will help your organization excel.
* Make them welcome. Make them feel like part of the team from the first day.
* Set goals for them that are hard, but can be achieved. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals.
* Be a leader, not just a manager.
MY THOUGHTS
I would have to go back to hiring. None of these challenges and inspiration will work if you have the wrong person on board.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
THE IMPORTANCE OF HIRING WELL
THE IMPORTANCE OF HIRING WELL
Fromthe article 'A condensed Employee Life Cycle'
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Hire
This first step is probably the most important. It is important to hire the best people you can find. This is not a time to be cheap. The cost of replacing a bad hire far exceeds the marginal additional cost of hiring the best person in the first place.
* Hire talent, not just trainable skills. Skills can be taught to a talented employee. A skilled employee can not just be given talent.
* Improve your interviewing skills. Often this can be as simple as knowing what questions to ask during the hiring process.
* Make your company a place people want to come to and work for. Company culture can be a powerful recruiting tool. Make sure yours reflects the goals the company wants to achieve.
MY THOUGHTS
It is unfortunate that a lot of companies do not realize this. They go about hiring without much thought, often treating applicants without much care. And then they wonder why they have a very high turnover rate and why they have very few excellent performers on board.
Fromthe article 'A condensed Employee Life Cycle'
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Hire
This first step is probably the most important. It is important to hire the best people you can find. This is not a time to be cheap. The cost of replacing a bad hire far exceeds the marginal additional cost of hiring the best person in the first place.
* Hire talent, not just trainable skills. Skills can be taught to a talented employee. A skilled employee can not just be given talent.
* Improve your interviewing skills. Often this can be as simple as knowing what questions to ask during the hiring process.
* Make your company a place people want to come to and work for. Company culture can be a powerful recruiting tool. Make sure yours reflects the goals the company wants to achieve.
MY THOUGHTS
It is unfortunate that a lot of companies do not realize this. They go about hiring without much thought, often treating applicants without much care. And then they wonder why they have a very high turnover rate and why they have very few excellent performers on board.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
THE EMPLOYEE LIFE CYCLE
Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire (Intro)
from the article "Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire"
A condensed Employee Life Cycle
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Today I saw a chart of a 12-step Employee Life Cycle. Maybe Human Resources professionals need that much detail, but functional managers don't. Here is a four-step, condensed employee life cycle plan that tells you everything you need to know.
Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire
An employee life cycle is the steps the employees go through from the time they enter a company until they leave. Often Human Resources professionals focus their attention on the steps in this process in hopes of making an impact on the company's bottom line. That is a good thing for them to do. Their goal is to reduce the company's cost per employee hired.
Unfortunately, they aren't the ones who really make a difference – managers are. People don't really work for companies; they work for a boss. To the extent that you can be a good boss, you can keep employees, keep them happy, and reduce the costs associated with employee turnover. In the process, you will make your own job easier and increase your value to the company.
Employees are one of a company's largest expenses these days Unlike other major capital costs (buildings, machinery, technology, etc.) human capital is highly volatile. You, as a manager, are in a key position to reduce that volatility using the condensed employee life cycle of HIAR (pronounced hire) - Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire.
MY THOUGHTS
it can't be put more simply. first, we lure people to join our company. then we encourage them to prove that we made the right decision by getting them. then we reward them for proving that we are right so they will stay with us until they retire.
from the article "Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire"
A condensed Employee Life Cycle
By F. John Reh, About.com Guide
Today I saw a chart of a 12-step Employee Life Cycle. Maybe Human Resources professionals need that much detail, but functional managers don't. Here is a four-step, condensed employee life cycle plan that tells you everything you need to know.
Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire
An employee life cycle is the steps the employees go through from the time they enter a company until they leave. Often Human Resources professionals focus their attention on the steps in this process in hopes of making an impact on the company's bottom line. That is a good thing for them to do. Their goal is to reduce the company's cost per employee hired.
Unfortunately, they aren't the ones who really make a difference – managers are. People don't really work for companies; they work for a boss. To the extent that you can be a good boss, you can keep employees, keep them happy, and reduce the costs associated with employee turnover. In the process, you will make your own job easier and increase your value to the company.
Employees are one of a company's largest expenses these days Unlike other major capital costs (buildings, machinery, technology, etc.) human capital is highly volatile. You, as a manager, are in a key position to reduce that volatility using the condensed employee life cycle of HIAR (pronounced hire) - Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire.
MY THOUGHTS
it can't be put more simply. first, we lure people to join our company. then we encourage them to prove that we made the right decision by getting them. then we reward them for proving that we are right so they will stay with us until they retire.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
QUIT WHINING
Quit Whining and Motivate Your Team
By Steve Tobak | February 9, 2011
Who knew you could turn “suck it up and quit complaining” into a franchise. Well, Jon Gordon, author of Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture, The No Complaining Rule, and others, has done just that.
In a recent post, he offers a dozen dos and don’ts to help managers and employees improve productivity by avoiding workplace negativity.
According to Gordon, negativity, complaining, and pessimism are “now the norm in a lot of workplaces” and I generally agree. You folks know how much The Corner Office despises whining and complaining.
That said, I’m more than a little concerned that folks might get the wrong idea and think that avoiding negativity and complaining means be nice, be PC, and avoid constructive confrontation. That’s certainly not the case and I’ve added some comments to Gordon’s 12 Dos and Don’ts to drive that home:
1. DON’T: Let negativity be your go-to response. DO: Respond constructively when someone offers up an idea. That doesn’t mean you should sugar-coat what you really think or passive-aggressively say you agree with something you disagree with. Just try to be constructive about it.
2. DON’T: Give in to the temptation to whine. DO: Push for solutions. Amen, brother. Not only does whining annoy the hell out of everybody, it takes the place of what you should be doing, and that’s solving workplace problems.
3. DON’T: Leave vicious voicemails or send critical emails. DO: Suck it up and have tough talks in person. Way too many managers and execs send flame mail without ever thinking about how intimidating and frustrating it is to be on the receiving end.
4. DON’T: Overload your team with Monday morning emails. DO: Consolidate your communication. Hatred of Monday mornings is universal. If you really want to demotivate your team, send them a stack of emails over the weekend.
5. DON’T: Confuse activity with progress. DO: Set goals and hold yourself and your employees accountable for results. All managers set goals; few truly hold themselves and their teams accountable. Which is sad because that’s the most effective way to improve performance.
6. DON’T: Let sub-par work slide. DO: Institute a zero-tolerance policy for low performers. When you let poor performance go unchecked, you risk that becoming the new normal for your group. Folks will think, why bother?
7. DON’T: Assume others have all the information they need. DO: Make sure the right people are in the know. When I’m under pressure, my communications skills notoriously deteriorate. Nothing frustrates and demoralizes good employees more than when being expected to know what to do while lacking critical data.
8. DON’T: Allow disorganization to impede productivity. DO: Make an effort to keep up with stuff. Chronic disorganization will drain your team’s energy. Don’t let everything fall apart when you’re on the road. Put somebody else in charge.
9. DON’T: Sacrifice quality for expediency. DO: Take the time to do the job right. Quality 101: Do it right the first time! It takes longer to do it over.
10. DON’T: Let unmet deadlines throw everything off track. DO: Set reasonable deadlines and hold people accountable. When your team is chronically missing deadlines, it means something’s wrong: you’re either setting unreasonable goals, you’re overloading them, or they’re not motivated. In any case, it’s a management problem.
11. DON’T: Move onto what’s next before acknowledging what’s happening now. DO: Express appreciation and admiration as appropriate and in real time. Manage in the present. When employees achieve tough milestones, reward them with praise and give them a break.
12. DON’T: Point fingers to take the heat off yourself. DO: Take responsibility for your actions. When a leader plays the blame game, it sets a terrible example for employees. Take your lumps with dignity and humility and they’ll do the same.
Got any tips to add to Gordon’s?
MY THOUGHTS
the whiners are usually the non-performers. the ones who are disorganized and have nothing better to do. that's the reason they have time to whine and complain and point fingers. if you're a performer, you're always focused on what needs to be done. there's really no time to whine.
By Steve Tobak | February 9, 2011
Who knew you could turn “suck it up and quit complaining” into a franchise. Well, Jon Gordon, author of Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture, The No Complaining Rule, and others, has done just that.
In a recent post, he offers a dozen dos and don’ts to help managers and employees improve productivity by avoiding workplace negativity.
According to Gordon, negativity, complaining, and pessimism are “now the norm in a lot of workplaces” and I generally agree. You folks know how much The Corner Office despises whining and complaining.
That said, I’m more than a little concerned that folks might get the wrong idea and think that avoiding negativity and complaining means be nice, be PC, and avoid constructive confrontation. That’s certainly not the case and I’ve added some comments to Gordon’s 12 Dos and Don’ts to drive that home:
1. DON’T: Let negativity be your go-to response. DO: Respond constructively when someone offers up an idea. That doesn’t mean you should sugar-coat what you really think or passive-aggressively say you agree with something you disagree with. Just try to be constructive about it.
2. DON’T: Give in to the temptation to whine. DO: Push for solutions. Amen, brother. Not only does whining annoy the hell out of everybody, it takes the place of what you should be doing, and that’s solving workplace problems.
3. DON’T: Leave vicious voicemails or send critical emails. DO: Suck it up and have tough talks in person. Way too many managers and execs send flame mail without ever thinking about how intimidating and frustrating it is to be on the receiving end.
4. DON’T: Overload your team with Monday morning emails. DO: Consolidate your communication. Hatred of Monday mornings is universal. If you really want to demotivate your team, send them a stack of emails over the weekend.
5. DON’T: Confuse activity with progress. DO: Set goals and hold yourself and your employees accountable for results. All managers set goals; few truly hold themselves and their teams accountable. Which is sad because that’s the most effective way to improve performance.
6. DON’T: Let sub-par work slide. DO: Institute a zero-tolerance policy for low performers. When you let poor performance go unchecked, you risk that becoming the new normal for your group. Folks will think, why bother?
7. DON’T: Assume others have all the information they need. DO: Make sure the right people are in the know. When I’m under pressure, my communications skills notoriously deteriorate. Nothing frustrates and demoralizes good employees more than when being expected to know what to do while lacking critical data.
8. DON’T: Allow disorganization to impede productivity. DO: Make an effort to keep up with stuff. Chronic disorganization will drain your team’s energy. Don’t let everything fall apart when you’re on the road. Put somebody else in charge.
9. DON’T: Sacrifice quality for expediency. DO: Take the time to do the job right. Quality 101: Do it right the first time! It takes longer to do it over.
10. DON’T: Let unmet deadlines throw everything off track. DO: Set reasonable deadlines and hold people accountable. When your team is chronically missing deadlines, it means something’s wrong: you’re either setting unreasonable goals, you’re overloading them, or they’re not motivated. In any case, it’s a management problem.
11. DON’T: Move onto what’s next before acknowledging what’s happening now. DO: Express appreciation and admiration as appropriate and in real time. Manage in the present. When employees achieve tough milestones, reward them with praise and give them a break.
12. DON’T: Point fingers to take the heat off yourself. DO: Take responsibility for your actions. When a leader plays the blame game, it sets a terrible example for employees. Take your lumps with dignity and humility and they’ll do the same.
Got any tips to add to Gordon’s?
MY THOUGHTS
the whiners are usually the non-performers. the ones who are disorganized and have nothing better to do. that's the reason they have time to whine and complain and point fingers. if you're a performer, you're always focused on what needs to be done. there's really no time to whine.
Monday, March 7, 2011
QUIT DELEGATING
Buck Up and Quit Delegating
By Donna Fenn | October 27, 2010
Growing up, anytime my brother or I had a task that we were dreading, my Dad would tell us that it was time to “buck up.” About six months ago, I had a “buck-up” moment with my business, ScanDigital, a photo scanning company in El Segundo, CA. But instead of bucking up, I delegated that task (the full story is below). As it turns out I should have handled it myself and since that time, I have done a lot of thinking about delegation.
Take a look at any business book and you’ll find numerous examples of an overly controlling and micro-managing entrepreneurs causing their companies to crash and burn by handling too many things for too long. As a company grows, the need to delegate tasks becomes critical; however, simply delegating is not good enough. Mastering the art of delegation requires business owners to not only share responsibilities with their team, but also to pick the RIGHT tasks to delegate. Often, entrepreneurs are focused on who they’re delegating to and they lose sight of what they’re delegating - a potentially more important part of the equation. As I’ve shared my story with other entrepreneurs, I’ve found that many struggle with delegation. What I’ve learned from my experience and from other successful entrepreneurs is that there are times when you need to “buck up” and handle certain tasks yourself. Here are four examples of tasks you should think twice before you delegate:
* Hiring the right people. Hiring is something that many business owners simply dread. It’s time consuming and you end up interviewing a lot of people who are not right for the job to find one who is. In this job market, employers are inundated with hundreds of resumes for one position, making the task even more burdensome. But this may be a burden worth carrying. Adam Gilbert is the founder of MyBodyTutor.com, a fitness website that provides diet and exercise coaching. When he first started the company, he let one of his tutors higher a few new tutors. “It turned out to be a big waste of time for everyone involved,” he says. “Although they were extremely qualified, they weren’t the right fit, and it wound up costing me a lot more time in the long run.” Now he handles all of the hiring because his tutors are central to creating an amazing experience for their clients. And he understands that skills are often secondary to temperament and how a new employee will fit into the corporate culture.
* Landing your first customers. Many entrepreneurs are inclined to delegate sales efforts too quickly. But during launch of a new website, service or product, it is absolutely critical to be intimately involved with the customer support and feedback from your early users. Levi Matkins, a co-founder of Plundr.com, a shopping-meets-gaming website, narrowly avoided making this mistake. From the moment they launched Plundr.com , the entire team worked to answer customer questions, absorb feedback, address bugs, and find out what features were most important to users. “We had considered focusing on other tasks, but quickly realized that delegating this down would have caused a huge disconnect between the development of Plundr.com and the wants and needs of our users,” says Matkins. Samer Hamadeh, co-founder and former CEO of Vault.com, and entrepreneur-in-residence at Lightspeed Venture Partners, lives by a strict rule: always convert the first customers yourself. “Whether it is the first five, 10, or 20 customers, be involved in those sales from start to finish,” he says. “There will be no better way to hone your product and revenue model. Early on at Vault.com, I was busy raising money, renting space and hiring the team, so I left sales up to someone else. After the dot.com bubble and 9/11, I really dove into sales because we needed to build revenue and I gained a much better understanding of our customers than I ever had before.”
* Your social media presence. Social media is, easy for entrepreneurs to off-load because the tools are free, and the cost of delegation seems minimal. But the true cost is the lost opportunity to build real relationships. David Siteman Garland, founder of The Rise to the Top, a company that helps entrepreneurs build their companies, was recently speaking at an event on social media. During the Q&A session, a young woman mentioned that she was frustrated because she had been “tweeting” for her well-known boss (a speaker) and updating his Facebook profile as if she was him. The problem was that people kept coming up to him and referring to tweets and messages. All he could do was stare blankly because he had no idea what the person was talking about. “This can massively hurt a brand/person/entrepreneur because nobody likes deception,” says Siteman Garland. If someone else is participating on your behalf (which might not be as effective) make sure to disclose this, but better yet stay involved.
* Firing an employee. Back to my story. We had a problem employee who really needed to be fired. I had just left for my first vacation since founding the company three years prior and was looking forward to a week on the beach in Hawaii. But shortly after I landed in Maui, I received a phone call from the office letting me know that the problem employee was back to her usual behavior. We had reached a breaking point and I made the tough decision to let her go, but instead of “bucking up,” I delegated the task. I figured I was out of town and it needed to be dealt with immediately. In hindsight, I should have handled this unpleasant task myself. The employee had serious questions about the exit process and, more importantly, she did not take the news well at all. I realized that if there was a message I was anxious about conveying - whether it be firing someone, going with a different partner, using a different service provider - then those were conversations for me to handle. Time to “buck up.”
Have you ever delegated a task and then wish you had handled it yourself? What’s on your “don’t delegate” list?
MY THOUGHTs
there are some high level tasks that just shouldn't be delegated. people are supposed to do diffrent things at different levels. but this is not the real problem that i've seen. the real problem is that some business owners (and sometimes executives) find it very hard to delegate. it's either they don't know how to. or they don't trust their people enough. or they just super, super scared to let go of control.
By Donna Fenn | October 27, 2010
Growing up, anytime my brother or I had a task that we were dreading, my Dad would tell us that it was time to “buck up.” About six months ago, I had a “buck-up” moment with my business, ScanDigital, a photo scanning company in El Segundo, CA. But instead of bucking up, I delegated that task (the full story is below). As it turns out I should have handled it myself and since that time, I have done a lot of thinking about delegation.
Take a look at any business book and you’ll find numerous examples of an overly controlling and micro-managing entrepreneurs causing their companies to crash and burn by handling too many things for too long. As a company grows, the need to delegate tasks becomes critical; however, simply delegating is not good enough. Mastering the art of delegation requires business owners to not only share responsibilities with their team, but also to pick the RIGHT tasks to delegate. Often, entrepreneurs are focused on who they’re delegating to and they lose sight of what they’re delegating - a potentially more important part of the equation. As I’ve shared my story with other entrepreneurs, I’ve found that many struggle with delegation. What I’ve learned from my experience and from other successful entrepreneurs is that there are times when you need to “buck up” and handle certain tasks yourself. Here are four examples of tasks you should think twice before you delegate:
* Hiring the right people. Hiring is something that many business owners simply dread. It’s time consuming and you end up interviewing a lot of people who are not right for the job to find one who is. In this job market, employers are inundated with hundreds of resumes for one position, making the task even more burdensome. But this may be a burden worth carrying. Adam Gilbert is the founder of MyBodyTutor.com, a fitness website that provides diet and exercise coaching. When he first started the company, he let one of his tutors higher a few new tutors. “It turned out to be a big waste of time for everyone involved,” he says. “Although they were extremely qualified, they weren’t the right fit, and it wound up costing me a lot more time in the long run.” Now he handles all of the hiring because his tutors are central to creating an amazing experience for their clients. And he understands that skills are often secondary to temperament and how a new employee will fit into the corporate culture.
* Landing your first customers. Many entrepreneurs are inclined to delegate sales efforts too quickly. But during launch of a new website, service or product, it is absolutely critical to be intimately involved with the customer support and feedback from your early users. Levi Matkins, a co-founder of Plundr.com, a shopping-meets-gaming website, narrowly avoided making this mistake. From the moment they launched Plundr.com , the entire team worked to answer customer questions, absorb feedback, address bugs, and find out what features were most important to users. “We had considered focusing on other tasks, but quickly realized that delegating this down would have caused a huge disconnect between the development of Plundr.com and the wants and needs of our users,” says Matkins. Samer Hamadeh, co-founder and former CEO of Vault.com, and entrepreneur-in-residence at Lightspeed Venture Partners, lives by a strict rule: always convert the first customers yourself. “Whether it is the first five, 10, or 20 customers, be involved in those sales from start to finish,” he says. “There will be no better way to hone your product and revenue model. Early on at Vault.com, I was busy raising money, renting space and hiring the team, so I left sales up to someone else. After the dot.com bubble and 9/11, I really dove into sales because we needed to build revenue and I gained a much better understanding of our customers than I ever had before.”
* Your social media presence. Social media is, easy for entrepreneurs to off-load because the tools are free, and the cost of delegation seems minimal. But the true cost is the lost opportunity to build real relationships. David Siteman Garland, founder of The Rise to the Top, a company that helps entrepreneurs build their companies, was recently speaking at an event on social media. During the Q&A session, a young woman mentioned that she was frustrated because she had been “tweeting” for her well-known boss (a speaker) and updating his Facebook profile as if she was him. The problem was that people kept coming up to him and referring to tweets and messages. All he could do was stare blankly because he had no idea what the person was talking about. “This can massively hurt a brand/person/entrepreneur because nobody likes deception,” says Siteman Garland. If someone else is participating on your behalf (which might not be as effective) make sure to disclose this, but better yet stay involved.
* Firing an employee. Back to my story. We had a problem employee who really needed to be fired. I had just left for my first vacation since founding the company three years prior and was looking forward to a week on the beach in Hawaii. But shortly after I landed in Maui, I received a phone call from the office letting me know that the problem employee was back to her usual behavior. We had reached a breaking point and I made the tough decision to let her go, but instead of “bucking up,” I delegated the task. I figured I was out of town and it needed to be dealt with immediately. In hindsight, I should have handled this unpleasant task myself. The employee had serious questions about the exit process and, more importantly, she did not take the news well at all. I realized that if there was a message I was anxious about conveying - whether it be firing someone, going with a different partner, using a different service provider - then those were conversations for me to handle. Time to “buck up.”
Have you ever delegated a task and then wish you had handled it yourself? What’s on your “don’t delegate” list?
MY THOUGHTs
there are some high level tasks that just shouldn't be delegated. people are supposed to do diffrent things at different levels. but this is not the real problem that i've seen. the real problem is that some business owners (and sometimes executives) find it very hard to delegate. it's either they don't know how to. or they don't trust their people enough. or they just super, super scared to let go of control.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
WHAT NOT TO DELEGATE
Buck Up and Quit Delegating
By Donna Fenn | October 27, 2010
Growing up, anytime my brother or I had a task that we were dreading, my Dad would tell us that it was time to “buck up.” About six months ago, I had a “buck-up” moment with my business, ScanDigital, a photo scanning company in El Segundo, CA. But instead of bucking up, I delegated that task (the full story is below). As it turns out I should have handled it myself and since that time, I have done a lot of thinking about delegation.
Take a look at any business book and you’ll find numerous examples of an overly controlling and micro-managing entrepreneurs causing their companies to crash and burn by handling too many things for too long. As a company grows, the need to delegate tasks becomes critical; however, simply delegating is not good enough. Mastering the art of delegation requires business owners to not only share responsibilities with their team, but also to pick the RIGHT tasks to delegate. Often, entrepreneurs are focused on who they’re delegating to and they lose sight of what they’re delegating - a potentially more important part of the equation. As I’ve shared my story with other entrepreneurs, I’ve found that many struggle with delegation. What I’ve learned from my experience and from other successful entrepreneurs is that there are times when you need to “buck up” and handle certain tasks yourself. Here are four examples of tasks you should think twice before you delegate:
* Hiring the right
* Landing your first customers
* Your social media presence
* Firing an employee
Have you ever delegated a task and then wish you had handled it yourself? What’s on your “don’t delegate” list?
MY THOUGHTS
i totally agree with the author. will post his explanation on why these 4 things should not be delegated.
By Donna Fenn | October 27, 2010
Growing up, anytime my brother or I had a task that we were dreading, my Dad would tell us that it was time to “buck up.” About six months ago, I had a “buck-up” moment with my business, ScanDigital, a photo scanning company in El Segundo, CA. But instead of bucking up, I delegated that task (the full story is below). As it turns out I should have handled it myself and since that time, I have done a lot of thinking about delegation.
Take a look at any business book and you’ll find numerous examples of an overly controlling and micro-managing entrepreneurs causing their companies to crash and burn by handling too many things for too long. As a company grows, the need to delegate tasks becomes critical; however, simply delegating is not good enough. Mastering the art of delegation requires business owners to not only share responsibilities with their team, but also to pick the RIGHT tasks to delegate. Often, entrepreneurs are focused on who they’re delegating to and they lose sight of what they’re delegating - a potentially more important part of the equation. As I’ve shared my story with other entrepreneurs, I’ve found that many struggle with delegation. What I’ve learned from my experience and from other successful entrepreneurs is that there are times when you need to “buck up” and handle certain tasks yourself. Here are four examples of tasks you should think twice before you delegate:
* Hiring the right
* Landing your first customers
* Your social media presence
* Firing an employee
Have you ever delegated a task and then wish you had handled it yourself? What’s on your “don’t delegate” list?
MY THOUGHTS
i totally agree with the author. will post his explanation on why these 4 things should not be delegated.
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