The power of delegation in business

The power of delegation in business and what this can mean to you.

One of the biggest challenges for business owners is how and when to delegate. We all feel that we can do it better, faster or correctly, when in fact, if we just let go, you will be surprised, that in most instances, you will have been worrying over nothing.

The power of delegation in business

There may come a time, as you grow your business, when the amount of time you put into your business, becomes too much and something has to give. If you work 7-days a week and very long days, it could be your health that ‘Gives’ in this case.

Delegation gives you more power. Power in the form of more time for you and you get to choose what you do with that time, A very precious and taken for granted commodity (if in fact it is correct to put time as a commodity, which in reality it can’t as you cannot buy time).

In the beginning, depending on what stage your business is at, this extra time could be put to taking time out and relaxing and having some thinking time. When you are in the middle of everything, the phones are going, this member of staff wants this and someone else wants something else, you have no time to chill and “Think”.

As a business owner, an important decision to make as you grow, is how much time you spend ‘Working On’ rather that ‘Working In’ your business. The more you ‘Work On’ your business, the less dependent it will become on you and the more valuable it will become!

So, some of that time you’ve gain through delegation can be put towards ‘Working On’ your business. By doing this, your business becomes less dependent on you and in turn will become more valuable.

To help work out how dependent your business is on you, ask yourself, ‘What would happen if I took a 6-month sabbatical from my business?’ And reflect on the answers. It may be that you don’t want go on sabbatical, but it is a question and your own answers to this question that are key to understanding your way forward.

The process of delegation can be done slowly and at your own pace, as we all tend to think ‘no one will do it like I do’. But don’t leave it until it could be too late, as I have a story to tell and one that I have only just made public right now…

There’s nothing like a bout of cancer to make delegation an absolute necessity, and that is what happened to me when I got Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and had to stop working in my business, for around seven months.

Now I wouldn’t recommend getting cancer in order for you to get all of your delegation sorted out in a such a short space of time, as this is a bit extreme, but what I would like you to do is to learn from my experience here.

Getting cancer forced the issue for me, and now I look back, I wished I’d done more delegation before this happened. Fortunately for me, I had already delegated a lot of what the business did, and it’s a good job I had, but it was a strange process to go through, especially when it was forced on me in this way.

Please don’t let that be you, but instead use my experience to make you delegate more, so that you can spend more time with your family or doing your hobbies or taking holidays…so you enjoy life more, as life is very precious and very short.

What was interesting for me was how my mind was forced to think in a different way, but I also chose to think differently too. There were suddenly more important things in my life than my business, and I don’t mean that in a horrible way towards my staff and clients, but as my Operations Director put it ‘Your life is more important than this business so go away and get better.‘ those might not be his exact words, but very similar and it brought tears to my eyes at the time!

Importantly, at the time he wasn’t my Operations Director, but my newly appointed Production Manager, after the previous one had recently gone through a disciplinary process for stealing and lying.

My newly appointed Operations Director was really chucked in at the deep end, and that’s probably an under statement. Many times since I have told him so and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for his hard work and dedication for sticking with me through this tough time for my wife, family and I.

The main message I want to get across from this article is that it’s never too late to delegate and think about what could happen, also think about what the consequences might be if you don’t do the necessary delegation and something terrible happened to you.

Before this happened to me, I used to ask clients with my consulting hat on ‘how would your business survive if you went away for a month, three months or perhaps six months‘. Many would dodge the question, many couldn’t answer it, whereas some might bluff it, but I would urge you to ask yourself this question right now in your own business. If you don’t like the answer to this question, you have time to make a change, but you have to begin somewhere and what better time than right now – today!

Don’t think about it from the view of you getting cancer like me, because I would hope that doesn’t happen to you, but instead do it so that you can enjoy your business that little bit more, plus your business will be worth a more thereafter, which is the icing on the cake after your spending more quality time with things outside of your business.

So you could be the one of the first people to be reading about my journey through cancer and about my parallel business journey… I urge you to hear the message I am giving in these words and please take action.

Thank you for reading…

This is how I feel, having been given another opportunity in life! I wake up appreciating each day I wake up.

One factor taken into account when a business is valued is how dependent it is on the business owner(s)

As always thank you for taking the time to read my blog and if you like what you’ve read, please share it with others.