Shake Things Up by Delegating Tasks to the Most Enthusiastic Person Available
It turns out, most of the time we may not even consider the best person for a specific responsibility. The goto guy or gal for a given task may yield the greatest results due to passion/interest, even though they may not be the most skilled or experienced. Against this judgement we have to balance a person's capabilities. Sometimes the gap between their knowledge and what is required is too large for raw passion to overcome within a project timeline. Although lesser experienced within a given discipline, great passion can motivate leaders to learn the necessary skills, and coordinate the required team members to make the project a smashing success.
Why Not Delegate to the Most Skilled/Experienced?
There are times when more experienced and skilled people should be given the authority and responsibility for an important project. But there are a number of reasons why this criteria alone is insufficient all the time. Senior contributors are generally in leadership and management roles. But this doesn't translate into enthusiasm on small, newer, or wildly different projects. For example consider the following two projects:
- making a pitch to a potential small account
- learn new material to better provide service to a customer
- respond quickly to a reasonable request from a small client
These are all great examples for you to delegate responsibility to the person with the most enthusiasm for the job.
To Delegate or Not to Delegate: Entrepreneur's Say Yes
If you're not sure whether or not to hand over the reigns of control for your growing business, consider the following experts opinions as reasons why you should. Richard Branson explains how important it was for him "to be willing to step back. The company must be set up so it can continue without me." (The Importance of Being Richard Branson). A great video clip from Open Forum show's Seth Godin explaining how the whole business is comprised of many small businesses where each employee represents and embodies the whole. He states clearly, "you better have the guts and the confidence to hire the right people to be the boss in that situation because if all they are doing is following a manual, someone else can follow that manual a little cheaper than your company can". The following are additional references on delegation of authority for businesses:
- Delegation: responsibility and authority
- Why Entrepreneurs Should Delegate
- Knowing When to Delegate
- Learning How to Delegate
- Delegating Work and Responsibility
As an example of how to delegate responsibility for a fantastically effective company, watch Matt Mullenweg talk (a little over 8min into the video) about how his company Automattic works (creator of Wordpress).
The voice recording that prompted this post: [podcast]http://www.victusspiritus.com/audio/HowToDelegate.mp3[/podcast]