Delegating is not the easiest task in the world. No one is a born leader. There are too many nuances to the topic and few come from talent alone. I realized this once again this weekend at the soccer game coaching my 10-year-old son’s team. As a player and even years later, I didn’t fully understand what a coach brought to the game. Now I finally see it. He is a leader who has learned to “read” the game. He sees plays before the players do and can consequently direct his team.
The manager of a company must have a similar skill. The team is often so wrapped up in the details that they often don’t have the more global perspective that ties things together and can anticipate steps to be taken.
1 Create a structure
2 Define a process
3 Set a task (next step)
4 Follow-up
5 Turn task into routine
Create a structure
I have learned several things these past 12-18 months. To start, you need a structure so that things can go more smoothly. In our case, it has been the implementation of Jira and Confluence. We have identified it as one of the best things we whatsapp data have done in 2023. It has allowed us to make a qualitative and quantitative leap in terms of tasks that we have been able to complete.
Define a process
Then you need a process. We have decided advantages and disadvantages of a sales methodology to work in sprints. Every two weeks each of us has to account for what we have done. If we do not comply with what was previously promised, it must be explained. It is a process that is repeated every two weeks. Right now we are implementing new purchasing and shipping processes. I notice that there is resistance because we have always done things in a certain way and now we are going to do it more slowly (because of having a process to follow).
Set a task
Another thing we always need is a next step. In the deb directory past and we continue to do so, we always say something but there are no consequences. “We should…”, “it would be a good idea…”, “I have to…”, etc. These are all sentence starters that indicate some kind of action. In our case, I now jump in and ask “do we have a task for that?” or “please have a meeting for that topic.”
Follow-up
A meeting is a form of follow-up, but in my case I always have to ask again. This morning, an issue came up that I have to follow up on. There is a product that we cannot buy in large quantities at once, but can only buy in units of 2-10 on Ebay and Wallapop. It is a recurring task and we have set it as such. In theory, I should not have to follow up on it, but I am almost sure that when I ask the question in our update we will have stopped doing it.
