Are you managing your business or is your business managing you? Business owners who wear multiple hats and continue to take on new hats without passing along responsibilities to others find themselves overwhelmed and out of control when it comes to being productive.
It is common for a business owner to feel responsible for every part of the business, especially if he or she grew the organization as an entrepreneur or took a floundering business to new levels of success. Although an owner should always be involved in the company, as businesses grow there is a greater need for owners to focus on what is most critical for the organization’s growth and continued success. This requires delegating responsibilities to others in the company.
Delegating responsibilities to other people was a tough but necessary decision for Liz Fulghum after she purchased a low-performing exterior express tunnel car wash in February 2015. The car wash is the fourth business she owns, which means her time is stretched to the limits.
“I found myself working very long hours — early in the morning, late at night and throughout the weekends,” Fulghum said. “I finally reached the point that I admitted I couldn’t do everything.”
Fulghum began delegating responsibilities with the tasks she found easiest to let go. “Bookkeeping was the first task I delegated because it was possible to outsource the activity to an expert who could focus on that one responsibility,” she said. “The first months of owning the car wash were spent learning how to run the entire operation, including operating and maintaining the equipment, but I quickly realized that I am not mechanically inclined.” Although the previous manager stayed with the car wash when Fulghum bought it, he did not have the necessary mechanical skills to maintain the equipment, so Fulghum hired an employee who possessed those skills and could work several positions.
Delegate to grow
In addition to better time management, good delegation skills often lead to business growth, said John M. Crossman, president of Crossman & Company. His real estate firm, which specializes in retail space leasing and management, grew from one office with himself and his brother to three offices that serve the Southeast. “When we started the firm, we knew all of our clients but realized that as we grew the brand, we had to trust others to handle their own clients and manage the offices.”
David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, suggests that one way a company owner can understand the benefits of delegation is to ask the question: What am I not doing if I continue handling this day-to-day task?
In order to answer this question, the first step is to define the work done by the owner, suggested Allen. “Make a list of all of the roles or activities the owner handles, such as answer the phone, take money to the bank or greet customers,” he said. Once the inventory of work is complete, evaluate the items from the perspective of an owner or manager who should be looking at the business from a high level, he suggested.
For example, if an owner has two locations but is handling day-to-day activities at one store, does he or she know what is going on at the other store? “An owner can use customer feedback, business metrics and financial data to oversee each location’s performance,” said Allen. Even with only one location, owners need to be careful about getting “down in the weeds” of daily tasks and forget to take an overall, strategic look at the business on an ongoing basis. “This is the difference between being an owner or manager and being an employee.”
The inventory of work clearly demonstrates how many daily, repetitive tasks are performed and provides an opportunity to go down the list and identify which tasks can be delegated. “Delegation is difficult, especially for small business owners, and it is not a challenge limited by size of business, location or industry,” said Allen, who added that he has not seen a difference in this challenge between nations or cultures, either. “Another good way to identify activities that can be delegated is to ask employees if there are any tasks you hang on to that they can do.”
Christian Brothers Automotive franchise owner Kurt Hein faced a lot of changes four years ago when he became a small business owner after spending his career at large corporations. “I learned quickly to rely on others,” he said. “A key for me was to hire the right store manager, and I found someone who is not exactly like me, instead his skills complement mine.” The auto service business has grown from four employees, including him, in 2011 to 10 employees today, and Hein is launching another store. “We have a philosophy and business culture of trust and confidence in the business,” Hein said. “I can focus on the metrics and plan for the future of the business. I don’t have to handle every ticket to know what is happening.”
Hire and train the right people
“Hire the best people you can for any job,” Fulghum said. Once they are working, you’ll discover their strengths and weaknesses, and may move them to another role or add to their responsibilities.
“The key to adding responsibilities is to develop a process or system for every key task and document how it is done,” she said. “This makes it easier to train people because everyone learns the same way.” When developing a process, whether it is how to answer the phone or greet customers, or to handle damage to a car, be sure to review the process regularly to update and improve it, Fulgham said.
When delegating to others, it is important not to micromanage them, but owners do need to create a training process that ensures the employee is ready to handle new responsibilities, said Cindy Jones, owner and formulator at Colorado Aromatics, a natural skin care company. “Routine, repetitive tasks can be taught, but the training should be thorough and well-supervised so the owner is comfortable handing over the task,” she said. In her company, an employee working in the manufacture of products starts out by weighing ingredients to make a product, using a precise recipe and under supervision. Employees then move onto the next steps of mixing ingredients and making the final product as they become proficient at each step and no longer require supervision.
“Training does take time,” Jones said. “I may spend 30 minutes teaching someone to do something I can do in five, but there are long-term benefits to delegation with proper training.” Now that Jones is no longer the only person who can make the product, she spends more time on the consulting side of her business and on public relations efforts to grow the business. “I also get to take a day off here and there,” she said.
“There is also an advantage to playing to employee’s strengths,” Jones said. “I hired a part-time person to handle administrative tasks such as correspondence and email, but I discovered she really enjoyed working with social media.” Now, in addition to her administrative tasks, the employee handles the social media outlets for the company, posting messages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. While Jones has final say over what is posted, her time is not spent creating content and her company social media sites are always updated and fresh.
Stepping back into an owner’s strategic role versus day-to-date tasks is hard but can be done if the right people, the right processes and the right training programs are in place, said Fulghum. “Most importantly, you have to trust people and you have to understand that people will mess up — but they will learn from their mistakes. An owner can’t overreact and needs to trust in the process and the benefits
of delegation.”
