Delegation to boredom!

You often hear how business consultants will tell small business owners to delegate their work load. This is echoed by those leading multi national or Fortune 100 companies. It is all well intended advise and instruction dished out to the benefit of the small business owner, however sometimes  those giving the message need to consider how the words of heeding are interpreted by those receiving them!

I have come across many small business owners who hold onto to many of the company's key decisions and operational functions only to handicap the businesses growth, all while burning the business ownership out. This is not productive at all, as a business ownership that is "burned out" stops being effective at what they do best, offering a personal touch to a business transaction of excellence.

Delegation therefore is essential, but needs to be understood first! 

Delegation's meaning and objective need to be understood first. So what does it mean to delegate?

Delegation is similar to a sports coach assigning positions. Most small business can be compared to a one man Football team taking on a full 53 man opposing team. It is very easy to comprehend that the one man team doesn't stand a chance in overcoming the full roster team, even if the individual player is the best player in the league. If the individual was good enough to hold their ground initially, over time the demands from playing all positions at the highest level will wear the players strength and stamina down, forcing him to surrender eventually.

Delegation then, as similar to to the coach assigning positions to his roster, the coach will assign each player according to their abilities and strengths. Business ownership needs to assign responsibilities and tasks according to the staff members strengths and abilities, not only the staffs but the ownership's too! If you were to buy stock in a publicly traded company, you are part of the ownership of that company. Would you elect yourself to the board of directors just because you have ownership of the company? In the same way, some owners are going to be better off letting others take a leadership role in the day to day operations, being held accountable to the ownership, similar to the way publicly traded companies shareholders appoint the most qualified candidates and leaders for their business.

In a small business, the ownership needs to remind themselves as to why they started the business, and what skills, services or products they wanted to bring to the marketplace. Delegation and growing a team of employees is done to undertake greater tasks and as the saying says "many hands makes light work"!

A MAJOR problem I also see in small business owners that over delegate the operations of the business, is a bored mind. This is a dangerous place for business owners and small businesses, minds without focus and wandering, either create problems or have the time to overthink. One of the biggest culprits to crime is said to be bored neighborhoods. China has done a great job keeping much of their population busy and productive opposed to bored and problematic! With the largest population on the earth, the government of China has a momentous job in keeping their country productive and busy.

Correct delegation has the business ownership sharing the responsibilities and tasks to operate and grow the business by those whose abilities allow for the best results while maintaining the engagement of all the interested parties. So go out and build the best business you can, and find people who care enough to help!

If you would like to discuss this and how I care to help, please email me!

King of all I see!

As I read this story to my children before bed last night, I wondered if they understood the moral and social teachings woven into the story, Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss. As I read out loud in rhymes and poetic timing, it would have been easy to be captured by the rhythm and writing of Dr. Seuss. Listen close enough pay attention, and behind all the fun lies a truth that applies ever so much to the foundation of our economic and social systems.

 For those of you less familiar with the story of Yertle the Turtle, Yertle for some reason is the king of the Turtles at a specific pond (There's enough meaning behind this alone to keep me writing for days). He is not happy with the status quo and decides that he wants to build a greater throne with the help of his friends and subordinates. His claim is that he is king and ruler of all that he sees, which drives him to recruit more and more turtles to stand upon each other, to build a throne that reaches as high as the heavens, It is not long before the poor turtles at the bottom whom the throne is built on can no longer burden the load, leading to the fall and demise of the whole "kingdom" of Yertle the Turtle.

The throne built was one with a very vertical orientation. It was one where some believed that they had the right to stand upon another, and as the yoke and burden grew with the stack of turtles increasing, the weight of what was demanded by the leadership, the inevitable thing happened, it all came crashing down with the kings head stuck in the mud.

In many organizations I have seen corporate structures that follows suit of that king Yertle the Turtle. We have business owners or leaders who have great vision and strive to be the best. They strive for expansion and greater profits. As much as these can sometimes have noble justifications, if the organizations structure is not correct, eventually the few people who carry the load will give out, with all the efforts, dreams and aspirations of the leadership coming to none! So many business owners and leaders then pick up the pieces to start all over, without learning the lessons from what caused the demise.

Yertle shared the human condition, we are never satisfied with what we have and want to reach higher for what we think we need. I am not saying that there is anything wrong in building a large organization that makes profit, in fact economics theories will point to these as essential for stability in society. The principle that we need to keep in mind in business leadership and growth is;

To build much higher, you first need to build wider!

In the architectural world you wouldn't dare to build the worlds tallest building without the foundations and foot print that proportionally matched, however sometimes it is hard to transfer the practical approach from one discipline and understanding to another.

In business leadership, we need to build a strong infrastructure where the burden of growth is shared more evenly. Not only should the brunt of growth be felt by the lower levels of employees that soon will gripe, complain and quit, management and leadership need to do more than just shout out commands. In an organization we all are equal, with everyone doing their share for the success of the team and organization. If the business or organization fails, it's not only the owners or shareholders that lose, the consequences are felt as ripples throughout the entire community in which the organization operates.
If your organization provides milk, without your existence there would be no milk for cereal, tea or baking. The customers of the milk supplier could find new suppliers, but at what cost? Not only would the employees of the milk supplier be without work, but their customers might lay off staff while their production is down! The ripple effects the communities with less spending spiraling with more layoffs and closures. We should take heed to the mantra so commonly quoted from the musketeers,

"One for all and all for one!"

Work ethic

Have you read through someone's resume recently? Have you had some one try and sell themselves to you or your company for employment? I would be pretty certain that at some stage of that sales pitch or resume pitch, the words "Hard worker" or some other form of these words would be mentioned.

How can you measure hard work and an employees work ethic? To take the question further, can you compare two employees or two prospective employees work ethic?

I'm sure that if you ran a poll and questioned 100 working adults whether they work hard, and especially work hard at their place of employment, all 100 would confirm that they work hard and give their best effort at work. But being the skeptic that I am, I can not believe that all 100 will produce the same work rate, results and production.

I recently was telling someone that I thought, that should I work in a very physical type profession, that I would literally work myself into the ground!

To deal with the issue at hand, I believe that I have a VERY high work rate and strong work ethic. I believe that I do typically work more efficiently and harder than most people that you will find in the work force. Due to this very high work rate and work ethic, I struggle to slow down or stop until the job at hand is complete. With this type of work ethic and work rate, working a physically demanding job would have me push myself so hard that the only way to stop my mind and body would be to have me 6ft under.

The question as I mentioned though is that from my perspective, from my opinion, I am an incredibly hard worker that goes above and beyond. Pushing the limits until I have achieved the goals set out. However, is my view point and perspective trust worthy? If most to all people would give you the same answer, how can we compare to understand whether your claims in an interview or on your resume are not only truthful, or something to brag about!

In my time in sports, I often would watch various athletes train and compete. I have watched athletes swear on their mothers lives that they were about to die after running for 5 minutes. Were they really going to die? Of course not, but they thought that they were. Why do some athletes struggle so much with certain physical challenges while others don't. Can it just be broken down to their fitness level, or does it go further?

I believe that it goes further, and more mental. I believe that the athlete that believes that they are going to die never really achieves a high level of fitness. This plays a role in their struggle to do physical activity and achieve in their chosen sport. The athlete can never break through a certain level of pain needed to stretch their physical condition and achieve the higher fitness level. There's that saying, "No pain, No gain!" It is interesting how this pain threshold is so evident when watching a group of athletes. Seeing how some succumb to the least amount of pain while others overcome far greater levels.

Now can this theory and human behavior be transferred from the sport field to the work place? I would love to hear your comments. For the record, my experience points to evidence that there are varying results and production rates from different co-workers!

Broken telephone

I was approached by someone the other day that wanted to address a concern that I had. The interesting thing was that I was quite puzzled to hear about this concern that I had. I wasn't aware that I had this concern.

I don't know if you ever played the game, we used to play it at school when I was younger, and I was always fascinated by the game. I really to this day can not wrap my mind around how a game so simple in reality can become so confusing and complicated. The "Broken Telephone" game, and for those who have never played the game, is a game where you sit in a circle. The first player will whisper a phrase or statement into the next players ear who will in turn say that same phrase or statement to the next player (For the record, this game is no fun with less than 3 players!) The message is passed from one player to the next until it gets to the last player in the chain. Once the last player received the phrase or statement, they would loudly and clearly state the phrase or statement for all the players to hear.

This is where it gets incredibly confusing for me. If each player communicates the message to the next the message should be received by the last player. However, more than 80% of the time, the phrase or statement bellowed out loud for all to hear is absolutely not even discernible from the initial phrase or statement whispered from the first player. It all boils down to communication and I feel that "we all could use a little help from a friend" here!

In order for communication to be successful, the intended message and purpose behind the message needs to be received by the recipient. This is confirmed by the actions undertaken by the recipient, matching those intended by the person initiating the message!

I'm certainly not preaching here, I often find myself after a conversation questioning the tone used during the communication and the influence that had on the message communicated. I did though think that we could discuss communication and a few important points that we should all be considering constantly so that we improve our communication skills.

Without communication, we may as well be cavemen!

Watch your tone
I'm left ear dominant, and so I hear tone sometimes over the actual words spoken. We always hear about how body language says more than your words, but the tone in which you speak communicates more than you realize. The same statement said with a caring tone behind it will be heard and therefore received very differently from one when you having a bad day!

Share you message with a purpose
I'm a very focused purposeful guy. I sometimes forget the pleasantry's when sitting in a meeting or sharing a sales pitch. I get straight to the point when I talk and constantly try remind myself to slow down and be in the moment with the person I'm speaking to. In the same way that a letter should have an introduction, body (Purpose) and conclusion, so should your conversation and message.

Ask questions
To ensure that the message was received as intended, the best thing to do is ask the questions of the recipient. What did they hear? What are their actions from the message going to be? Don't be afraid to ask those around you, that you communicate with, how your message is presented and received!

Remember that before you get frustrated with others when performance is does not as expected, did the message get received as intended. If not, you didn't communicate!

Talent is needed for growth!

I constantly hear the coined phrase of "top talent" when management refers to hiring employees of all  levels, particularly those fresh out of college. Having heard managers talk like this, you have to forgive me for thinking that the most valuable assets to new recruits is their character, desire, creativity and a person that never gives up. These traits are often seen and admired in those that are successful when they branch off on their own forging a new company and path for themselves.

However, I don't see these words translate into action as HR departments continue to search for experience and backgrounds so specific and unobtainable that they sit with job vacancies month after month. At what stage do we bite the bullet and decide that talent is more valuable to an organization than experience? Especially to those companies looking to grow.

I have a sporting background and so excuse my analogy to sport, however it paints the picture best I believe. I have always asked the question of coaches and authorities of a particular sporting code,

"What exactly is talent?"

You see there is no replacement for hard work, and hard work will pay the bills and then some, but talent, talent changes the world. Too often talented athletes initially advance in development too easily and from a young age never develop the discipline of hard work to achieve. It all comes to easy! 

However, every now and then you find an incredibly talented athlete who adds the hard work to the recipe, with the mix leading to an unstoppable machine! I can think of a real clear example in Roger Federer. When Roger Federer was at his prime, he was unstoppable by his opponents. He represented the perfect balance between hard work and talent.

The "Talent" side didn't change his day in day out efforts and results, but what his talent provided another option, a chance to do something incredible out of the blue and remove his opponent and their efforts from the game and outcome.

I do believe that people should be hired based on their perspectives, their willingness and ability to overcome obstacles and their "Talent". Although the talent is not in how fast they run or hard they can hit, the talents required for effective business is unique to the various positions that make up the team and operations. A 'Talent" could be the incredible ability to learn new technical information really quickly, or the ability to share the meaning and purpose of training to the team, or ability to make clear to customers the benefits of buying your companies services or products.

I'm far more inclined to recruit people that will increase the the value of the human capital within the company. I'm also encouraged to educate and train the people that play a role within the team and offer companies a return on their investments. 

I will finish with one last sport analogy. Team sports are made up of athletes that serve different roles. If the whole team tried to play the role of the offense, then no one will be in place to defend at the appropriate time. The team is stronger when each person on the team fulfills their role best matching their "Talents" and role. 

I like to celebrate the defenders that save the day as much as the team members that go out to score the points!