Mastering Delegation: Strategies and Insights for Empowering Your Team and Achieving Success in Small Business

Delegation is a crucial skill for small business owners, especially those with limited resources and a small team. It allows you to leverage the strengths of your team members, save time, and focus on strategic tasks that drive business growth. In this podcast episode of Collab with Kiva, we will explore the art of effective delegation and provide actionable takeaways for small business owners. So, let's dive in!

1. Understanding the Power of Delegation:

   -Explain the concept of delegation and its importance in small businesses.

   -Highlight the benefits of effective delegation, such as increased productivity, improved teamwork, and business scalability.

   -Share real-life examples of successful delegation and its positive impact on business outcomes.

2. Identifying the Right Tasks to Delegate:

   -Discuss how to determine which tasks to delegate based on factors like expertise, time-consuming nature, and strategic importance.

   -Provide insights on assessing team members' strengths and matching them with appropriate tasks.

   -Share tips on prioritizing tasks and making informed decisions about delegation.

3. Communicating Clear Expectations:

   -Emphasize the significance of clear communication when delegating tasks.

   -Provide strategies for setting clear expectations, including defining objectives, deadlines, and desired outcomes.

   -Share examples of effective communication techniques to ensure a shared understanding between the business owner and team members.

4. Empowering Team Members:

   -Discuss the importance of empowering team members to take ownership of delegated tasks.

   -Share tips on building trust, providing necessary resources, and offering guidance and support.

   -Highlight the positive impact of empowerment on employee morale, engagement, and professional growth.

5. Establishing Accountability and Feedback Mechanisms:

   -Explain the role of accountability in effective delegation.

   -Discuss how to establish accountability through regular check-ins, progress tracking, and feedback loops.

   -Provide insights on giving constructive feedback and recognizing team members' achievements.

6. Actionable Takeaways for Small Business Owners:

   -Summarize the key points and actionable steps discussed in the podcast.

   -Encourage small business owners to implement effective delegation strategies in their businesses.

   -Highlight the potential benefits they can achieve by mastering the art of delegation.

Conclusion: Delegation is a powerful tool for small business owners to maximize productivity, foster teamwork, and achieve business growth. By understanding the principles of effective delegation and implementing them in their businesses, small business owners can unlock the full potential of their team and focus on strategic tasks that drive success. Tune in to the Collab with Kiva podcast to gain further insights and practical tips on mastering the art of delegation.

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Podcast Transcript:

Kiva Slade 0:01

Welcome to Collab with Kiva, where we let our inner nerd geek out on all the non sexy parts of your business. I'm talking data and operations. Neither as flashy or glamorous, but both are foundational to your business growth. I'm your host, Kiva Slade, your strategy and analytics guide here to break down what feels complicated. So it is understandable and executional. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to this episode of Collab with Kiva. I'm your host, Kiva Slade. Okay, guys, we're going to continue some of last week's conversation around not only clear communication, but also effective delegation. And this podcast is truly about that. And you know, sometimes with me, it's stuff that I've see, working with my clients. It's also things that I'm going through personally. And I feel like for my own self, that I need to do a better job of delegating to my team. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not alone in this.

Kiva Slade 1:09

So in today's episode, we are going to dive into the topic of effective delegation, and especially small business owners, because delegation is crucial. And it's a skill that we need to help us maximize our productivity, scale our businesses and basically create more time for strategic activities. And those are things that as CEOs, or founders, principals, those are the things that only we can do. They're not necessarily things that our team can do for us. So whether you have a small team, or you work with remote contractors, whatever it is mastering the art of a delegation is essential. So let's get started. Understanding effective delegation, I really want to dive into what that is, so that we're all operating from the same vantage point. Delegation itself is the process of assigning tasks and responsibilities to others, empowering them to contribute their skills and expertise to your business, as a small business owner, delegation allows you to focus on again, those higher value activities that avoid becoming like overwhelmed with routine tasks. But part of that definition I want to unpack is that it's not just the assigning tasks and responsibilities to others. It's also about empowering them to contribute their skills and expertise to your business. In many cases, I see where teams, people have to VAs other team members, and they think delegation is just I want to get stuff off my plate. But it's not necessarily empowering their team members in the things that they get off their plate.

Kiva Slade 2:49

So let's just keep going, because I'm going to circle back to that. So one of the common challenges faced by small business owners like myself, and I'm assuming at least one other listener is the reluctance to delegate, we feel that we can do it ourselves. It's, you know, it's quicker if I do it than me to hand this task over, because I have to explain how it's needs to be done, and so forth, so and etc. However, this mindset limits our growth, and it hinders our ability to scale. Because you cannot scale if you are the one doing all the things, it's just not possible, you run out of human manpower, you also run out of hours in the day, and mental space. So effective delegation not only frees up your time, but it also helps you develop your team members and fosters a sense of ownership. And that is truly key is that fostering a sense of ownership, a lot of times people are looking for their team members that have kind of next level thinking and next level reasoning skills, but there's no real ownership. So they don't feel the need to have those skills in many cases, because again, we're just trying to dump them some things that we don't necessarily want to do, and we want to get off our plates. So when it comes to effective delegation, like the benefits are a lot, there's many of them. So obviously, we're enhancing productivity. Because we're distributing our workload, we're improving our own time management. And we're also or we should be leveraging the strength of our team members.

Kiva Slade 4:24

So when we delegate tasks, we can focus on strategic planning, business development, building relationships with clients or customers, when we're doing too much. In many cases, marketing is suffering in our businesses, because that's something in many instances that we are the ones who have to do that nurturing and cultivating. That's something that we have to do as owners. And it's not something that our team can do as effectively as we can, because that relationship building is important. So now that we're all on the same page about what delegation is, like So some principles related to delegation. If first one is clearly defining task and expectations, task and expectations, so when you're delegating, it's just crucial to provide clear instructions, as well as the desired outcome. So for example, instead of saying, please handle my social media, you could specify, I need you to create engaging social media posts for an upcoming product launch or an upcoming or service offering. The target audience is small business owners who have small remote teams, and the post should highlight the key features and benefits of said product service, whatever it is, you've not only told them like the task, but you're also telling them what your expectations are around it. The two needs to go hand in hand.

Kiva Slade 5:53

It's sometimes often we want the tasks that go I've delegated the task, but I've not told them what my expectations were. And then we're disappointed. We're frustrated. We're like, Why do I have these people? Because they're not doing the things that I want them to do that way that I want them to do? Did you explain the way? That's your expectation. What does that look like? So being specific in that task, and expectation, totally important, and the two go together like peanut butter and jelly. So the second principle is really identifying the right tasks to delegate. Not all tasks are suitable for delegation. I want to repeat that not all tasks are suitable for delegation. And I think that's something that's forgotten at times that, we start to think that we can just get everything off of our plates. And I don't have to deal with this. And this, this, this, this and this. And in many instances, we're delegating the wrong things. And we could be delegating them to the wrong people on our team. Both are recipes for disaster. So when it comes to tasks, you want to determine the right task to delegate. When I've worked with clients, like we really do a task assessment, really looking at all the things that they are involved in. And trust me, this brain dump is massive, and really started to figure out where tasks are.

Kiva Slade 7:26

For some people, I use monetary values, you know, $10, I'm gonna keep the math simple today, say like, $10 $100 $1,000. When you think about tasks that you're doing in your business, if you were to take a piece of paper, and make those three columns, $10 $100 $1,000, and you were right out what task you're doing, and where they fit in terms of impacting the bottom line of your business. Okay, so you posting your own social media, I know, for some of you it's a $10 task for others, it might be $100 task, it's definitely not $1,000 task. And you networking, in order to drum up additional contacts, $1,000 tasks, right? It's not something that can be delegated. Let's see something else, I could have come up with some other ones before I got on here. But you writing your own social media captions, like, seriously, probably not something you need to do. Is it something you could possibly edit that your team has started? Absolutely. So it's a $10 task. But in many instances when the owners that I work with will find they spend a lot of time and $10 Laying even quite a bit of time and $100 Laying in very little time in $1,000 Lam strategic plans. Here we are in May or June. So we're coming up on the end of q2, where are you at with your goals? What does q3 and q4 look like? Has that been planned out? Totally $1,000 task. However, you've spent so much time and $10, Lion and $100 Lion, you've not been able to focus on $1,000 tasks that are the ones that are more important for you as the owner.

Kiva Slade 9:21

So really, you want to assess not only your strengths and weaknesses, but also Assess your team's strengths and weaknesses. And really identify tasks that align with your expertise. Don't get me wrong if you're a phenomenal writer, and it's probably easier for you to write out your social media captions, then that's a different story. Some people struggle with writing. So if you're struggling with writing, it's not a strength or weakness of yours. And now is not the time for us to say you know I want to build up on my weaknesses and turn them into strengths. Now do we're gonna leave it at the weakness and keep it moving by broke Using our strengths, so understanding those tasks, understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, and how that aligns with your expertise really helps you fill out that those charts of $10 $100 $1,000. So tasks that are routine, they're time consuming, you know, or can require specialized skills. It's those are things that you might want to delegate.

Kiva Slade 10:24

For example, I'm currently in the process of having my website redesign. I really did start, like I had copy done, and I was like, I'm going to start doing, I'm gonna redesign my website, like, I know Squarespace, I can do this. Oh, my goodness, I literally sat down and started on the project. And I was like, why am I doing this? Like literally asking myself, why am I doing this? Because the things that I was hoping to see or wanting to see or wanting to change, or it's going to require me to change the Global Settings, and then this part of settings, and I was like, I don't, I don't want to do this, and I might screw it up and mess up something that then is gonna need to be fixed. I was like, I really don't want to do this. And it took me a moment, I'll be honest, it took me a moment, because I was just like, Can I do this myself and I went back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, only to really determine I can't do it. And the web designer that I'm working with, she's done coding and different things in Squarespace that I would never have thought to then I would not have known how to do without like extensive tutorials, which again, would have taken way more of my time, then I really had a lot it for this particular project. So that was something I needed to delegate. And I chuckled because she's like, oh, we need this for your foot or this then the other was like, Oh, I gotta go in front of gorgeous, Oh, I gotta do this. I was like, huh, how can I delegate this part too, because it's something else that I don't need to focus on. In order for an I will be the bottleneck in this project being completed. If she sits and waits for me to go into funnel gorgeous to give her the thing that she needs. It's, it's not going to be pretty everybody.

Kiva Slade 12:16

So think about your strengths and weaknesses. Think about what aligns with your expertise, and then start thinking about what can you get off your plate? And who does it go to? Does it go to someone on your team? Do you have a VA or an ops assistant, someone who is capable of taking care of that? Or is it that you need to work with someone else when it comes to funnel gorgeous. I work with this lovely lady Claire. Claire is the most amazing I can message her she has access to my account, she does amazing things. Claire specializes in funnel gorgeous, I don't have to really think about auto gorgeous, I think about what I wanted to do. And I as Claire if it's possible. And Claire helps me do those things, if not just does them. So again, if something requires specialized skill, I don't have time to learn it in that's why Claire is amazing. So when you think about things, think about administrative work, content creation, some customer support tasks, I send a weekly email to my clients about what does success look like for this week. I was like, You know what, actually, labs coordinator can send that message like, she knows all the clients like, it comes to me anyway. And so hey, let's do that. And I got that off my plate seems like a small thing. But let me tell you freed up mental space, which was truly delightful.

Kiva Slade 13:39

So a third principle to consider is selecting the right team members for this delegation. Because remember, we're trying to figure out our own skills and strengths and weaknesses so that we can do things that align with our expertise. The same goes for your team, consider their skills, their strengths, their availability so that you can match task to their abilities and their interests, allowing them to grow and take ownership of work, which is truly important for those who want and are looking for a place to belong, a place to fit in a place to feel connected. So when we allow them that opportunity by actually empowering them and encouraging ownership of tasks, things get done. And in many cases, if you're working with remote independent contractors, they'll start to prioritize your stuff over their other clients. Because, again, you're letting them operate in their zone of genius, and that lights them up. So it's really a win win. So if you have someone who's great with graphic design, delegate that delegate your marketing stuff to them, stop trying to be the one in Canva doing all the things trust me, that's a lesson I learned, even with branding and all the things like templates, all the things just just let it go. So again, thinking about those principles you want to think about when it comes to effective delegation. What are your strengths and weaknesses and what aligns with your expertise. Also, though, like, figuring out then what tasks you need to delegate, so really doing an assessment of how you spend your time.

Kiva Slade 15:17

And I mean, like all the things now some of the things that you do all the things that you do, and it might be that you track yourself for a two week period, because honestly, there's some things that you might not do in week one that you do in week two of running your business, some people have tracked themselves for a month. And because again, there might be some once a month duties or once a month tasks that pop up. So track yourself and really keep a list of everything that you do in your business, and then figure out $10 $100 $1,000, you can use whatever numbers you want. The key is understanding where you're spending your time, and how those activities that you're spending your time on impact the bottom line. Okay, and then also you want to think through your team member strengths and weaknesses as well. So excuse me. So now that we have this foundation for delegation, let's just talk through some techniques. The first one, again, goes back to what we were talking about last week, which is communicating clearly in providing context. When delegating, ensure that your team members have a clear understanding of the task requirements, its context within your overall business objectives.

Kiva Slade 16:32

So if you can share that background information, they know what the desired outcome is, you're, again, empowering your team to make informed decisions, and therefore they can deliver better results. If you give them things in piecemeal, like Oh, design this, oh, do this, oh, do that. And it's like, just different points. And they're not necessarily like connect the dots coming out to you know, the penguin in the end of the picture, it's really important to give them the whole picture with all the dots, even if they're not completing all the dots, because again, they know the destination. And that is really important. The second one is to really empower and trust your team. I cannot say this enough, delegation is not just about assigning tasks, it's really about giving your team members autonomy, in ownership over their work. Don't get me wrong, there are some bad apples out there. But the vast majority of people want to do well, they want to do a good job. They're not trying to be shady and sheisty. They are really take pride in their work. Allow that to bloom and flourish in your business. So trust that they have the skills and abilities to handle the delegated task. Like dude, you hired them. If you didn't think they were qualified, why did you do but that's another question for another episode. So allow them to make decisions provide support. Again, you want to see that they're doing these things I'm not saying and they come in day one, and you're like, make all the decisions, design what you want. You've taught them you've trained them, you've met with them, you've shared what it is that you like you don't like so forth, so on, etc. Let them start to flex that muscle.

Kiva Slade 18:17

And lastly, you want to have feedback and accountability. Regularly check in with your team members. You want to monitor progress, provide constructive feedback, address any challenges they might be facing, you might be facing clear communication channels for them to ask you questions or seek clarification. So many times I see owners are frustrated while they're coming back asking me questions, dudes, you weren't clear in the beginning. So of course people have questions. It's natural to have questions. And I'd rather you ask the questions and not screw something up and not ask the questions and totally screw something up. So when you're starting to delegate, open your mind to receive questions. Because I can guarantee you, you will communicate and you're like, oh, Kiva, I was so clear. And you were not. There will be gaping Swiss cheese size holes in what you communicate it. And if you would take a moment step outside of yourself, you would know that and you would say oh my gosh, I expected like a freaking miracle. And I didn't even give them like what's that Rumpelstiltskin? Like you're expecting gold out of like no straw, it can't be done. So you want to be able to set deadlines, expectations for deliverables, ensure accountability and keep projects on track. If you have a team that you're working with anyone and you're not in a project management tool. We'll just pray for you.

Kiva Slade 19:42

But seriously, you should be in a project management tool. I don't care if it's Trello. Asana, clickup, Monday, whatever you want to use, you need to be using something as my key point here, underline, underline, exclamation point, exclamation point. You should be using something. And when you are using something, it's a clear deadline, this is due here. Expectations are laid out. My team will tell you I loomed them to death. Okay, because I pay for loom and I will loom out what I want done and what my expectations are. You have questions, pop them right on them there and click up, we go back and forth, we answer all the questions and I get what I want. And they have been like, Okay, this is awesome. So, clear communication, I don't care how you do it, you might be a voice message, Slack person, whatever it is, you need a project management tool, so that there's a clear deadline, clear expectations of when those things are due. And everyone is on the same page as to who's doing it and when it's due. So now, you've heard a lot of rumbling from people today. But honestly, this is so important. And it's more important, I feel like especially working with remote teams, when we're not able to have that face to face. Like in person communication, I want you to say face to face, because some of us, you know, obviously we can utilize zoom and other Google meats and things of that sort. But that face to face in person conversation is different than then face to face virtual. So improving our own communication skills as we were delegating is super important.

Kiva Slade 21:26

So as we look for some takeaways, first one is clearly define your task and your expectations. When delegating, I want you to be specific about what needs to be done, the desired outcome, any guidelines, parameters and meeting that needs to be known, make it known, people do not read minds, they cannot assume that this is what you meant and assume this, they can assume. But they might make an a wrong assumption. And we all know what happens then. So the clarity that you get from sharing all the details, is important to help your team members understand their role and responsibilities and deliver you what the heck it is that you're looking for. Number two, mass the task to your team members strengths, consider their skills, their expertise, their interests, you might have people on your team who want to grow. How can you make that happened? There are ways, different tasks, different things. And I'm not saying you go in with your dump truck, give them all the things all at once. Ding, ding, ding, wrong answer. And you want to do this gradually. And happy, intentional and purposeful about it. But again, if you're leveraging their strengths, they're going to give you better results. And most of the time, it's going to be faster.

Kiva Slade 22:51

We can sit on things for a long time. And you heard that in the last episode in our team members have the answers. They have the key to unlock us from our prison of sitting on things too long. And being a bottleneck. We just don't communicate well. Number three, foster open communication and provide support. Encourage your team members to ask you questions to seek guidance and get regular feedback. For those that have had kids. It's the same thing. It's like they come to you, mommy, was this right? Yes, actually it was and blah, blah, blah, blah, the next time they're gonna get to that part of the step, they're not going to come to you because they already know that parts, right? They're going to move on. Same thing happens with your team. Oh, we got to this step, we know that we're on the right track, then we're going to move on, then we'll come to you. You want to have that regular feedback, open channels of communication, for questions for guidance. And when you foster this culture, basically of open communication, and we've talked about culture, you're creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable in support it in their delegated tasks. When people do not feel supported, they leave. And I don't care if you have a remote team, or you have employees, the cost of retraining rehiring all the things. You don't want to do this, you want to hire well support the team members that you have. Let them know you are grateful, you are thankful and you are working on being better because all of us have an opportunity to do that.

Kiva Slade 24:26

So as you take these takeaways in your delegation process, I really want you to find like where that effective delegation transforms your business and allows you to focus on strategic activities, empowers your team members, and promotes overall growth and success. And I'll add one last thing. Again, it goes back to those expectations we were talking about recently, set realistic ones. A person in your business today. By the end of 30 days is probably not going to have created miracles. Why? Depending on your communication skills in the amount of information available in your business, they probably don't even have all the tools that they need to do what it is that you've asked them to do straight talk from what I've seen, so your business might be different. And if so, kudos, confetti throws all those things for you. That's not the majority. So be realistic with your expectations of what people can do. If you haven't been clear, you haven't been kind, and we talked about that as well. So don't look to them to create miracles when you haven't given them the tools to do so. So thank you for joining me on this episode of Collab with Kiva. I really hope that you found this insightful and actionable as you go forward to be an effective delegator. I want to hear all about it. So please reach out, keep me accountable to because like I said, this is an area in which I struggle, and I am doing better, and I want to do even better.

Kiva Slade 26:06

So thank you so much. I'm wishing you all the best as you seek to scale and thrive in your business, and mastering the art of delegation. You can really unlock full potential for yourself, as well as your team. See you next episode. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva. I'm wildly cheering you on as you go forth and execute data and operational efficiencies in your business. If you need additional support, connect with me via my website, the516collaborative.com your reviews on Apple are appreciated. See you next week.

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.