A colleague of mine hired someone to handle some technical implementation work to support the next phase of her business.
She wasn’t worried because the person she hired came as a recommendation from another colleague’s business, and this person provided her with daily updates. In every update, she heard things like “That’s done.” “I finished that task.” “We’re on track.”
Surely that proved the effectiveness of her delegation. Yet, despite all of the good news she was receiving over the weeks, something felt off.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she had a sense that things weren’t really moving at the pace this person claimed. She made this hire because she didn’t have the knowledge to do it herself, so she had no frame of reference to push back. Since the updates sounded right, she assumed she must be missing something.
So, she called me and asked me to take a look at things.
I was surprised to see that none of the tasks were completed despite what the person she hired said.
And the worst part was that her marketing plan, which depended on this technical foundation being in place, was stuck.
When I told her what I saw, she felt relieved because now she had the confirmation she needed. She let the person go and started over, which means her launch date got pushed back. And that impacts her bottom line.
What this story about my colleague points out is that you need a system that measures the effectiveness of delegation instead of relying on the work of the person you’re paying to do it.
And, in my experience, most owners aren’t measuring well if at all.
The Way Many Owners Measure Delegation Is Broken.
If you were to ask most business owners how they know whether delegation is working, many will say they ask the person how it’s going. When the person says everything’s good, they move on.
The main assumption behind this behavior is that assigned plus confirmed equals done. This is one of the most expensive beliefs a small business owner can hold, but it impacts organizations of all sizes.
I have a friend who is an IT contractor for a major metropolitan area. He was recently working on a project for this client, and one of the employees verified that they’d completed two tasks on the critical path for a new deployment.
When the deployment was underway, it became painfully clear that the employee had not completed the two tasks. So, instead of a simple deployment, the system went down. My friend had to do the work the employee was responsible for, but hadn’t completed, to get the system back up.
So, it doesn’t matter the size of the organization or the position the person you’re delegating tasks to holds. When you assume that assigned plus confirmed equals done, the consequences can be dramatic.
Research from Gallup found that leaders who delegate effectively generate 33% more than those who don’t. Effective delegation requires knowing what’s happening.
What Happens When You Don’t Know Enough to Know If It’s Working?
When you’re hiring for skills that you don’t have, it’s difficult to set clear expectations, define deliverables, and check in regularly in a meaningful way.
The challenge is that small business owners regularly hire outside of their wheelhouse. They hire IT professionals, marketers, bookkeepers, and attorneys, to name a few. So, setting up delegation correctly in these situations is extremely difficult.
When you don’t have the knowledge to evaluate the efforts of those you hire, you need a trusted evaluator in your corner or enough structure in the working arrangement to surface problems before they compound.
How Do You Know If Delegation Is Paying Off?
You need two things. The first is defining what done looks like before you hand anything off. The second is confirming that you’ve received exactly what you’ve defined.
Although this may seem obvious, few business owners actually take the time to do either of these effectively.
To define what “done” looks like, you need to ask yourself, What will I see when the task is completed? You also need to have a timeline for completing the assignment. Depending on the size of the task, you will want to set milestones, so you have check-ins to make sure things are progressing well or to intervene before things get too off track.
If you can’t define what “done” means, you’re not ready to delegate.
The second thing is to take the time to confirm that things are done to your specifications, independently of what you’re told.
Their word is not your measurement system.
You need to be able to point to something that exists. If you’re not an expert in the task you’ve requested, you’ll need help in evaluating the results.
When delegation is working, you know it. Your time frees up for higher-value work, and that’s your signal that the effectiveness of delegation is truly paying off for you.
What Delegation Failure Really Costs You.
I’ve told you just two of my stories about delegation failures.
I also have my own story about making a bad hire.
I paid several thousand dollars to work with a search firm to find the right VA. After interviewing a handful of candidates, I made a thoughtful selection. The person I hired performed well. So well that I eventually gave them direct access to two clients.
Both clients complained. I thought they complained because they’d been working with me for years and missed having as much interaction with me. It must simply be the adjustment period taking a little longer than I expected, or maybe it was a personality issue. I had no thought at all that it could be a performance issue.
A month or so after the complaints and my attempts to make things right by holding meetings with my VA and the clients to verify how things were going, and to approve the work products, both clients left. They represented about 15% of my total revenue.
What I didn’t immediately understand was that she was ghosting them. She eventually did the same to me after we’d been working together for a couple of years.
Sure, there was the cost of the search firm, but the real cost for me was the client relationships, the revenue, and the months of making a bad assumption about what was happening.
Lost clients, stalled launches, missed market windows, unrealized revenue, projects rebuilt from scratch while your competitors keep moving forward… The effectiveness of delegation isn’t an abstract metric. It shows up in all kinds of places, which means it impacts every profit lever in your business.
The hidden costs of running your business without the right systems in place are much more than you might expect on the surface. Poor delegation is just one of the places where hidden costs lurk.
Effective delegation takes effort, but the payoff for it makes the risk and effort worthwhile.
If you’re struggling with delegation and are curious about how to activate this and other profit levers in your business, schedule a 15-minute conversation to see if you’re a fit for my process.
