S2 E76: Collaboration, Not Delegation

From movies to concerts or sports - everywhere you look in the field of entertainment, you see how specialists come together to create a whole that’s better than its parts. 

Those specialists aren’t order-takers. They’re captains of their own work...even when that work is part of someone else’s whole. When leaders forget that, chaos ensues.

This week’s podcast episode explores the mistake most leaders make when they delegate (a word I believe should never be spoken again) and what they should do instead to build a business they love, supported by a team they love. 

In this episode, you’ll get:

• Why most leaders fail to successfully delegate work
• The 2 sides of delegation - and how neither of them work
• How collaboration creates impact for a business
• What most business owners are doing wrong when it comes to making hiring decisions
• The 3 questions that need your laser focus to build a business you love

And...when you have a business you love, supported by a team you love, that’s For Love Of Team.

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Connect with Winston

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#TeamLOVE Book. Join the bold book writing journey as we write and share our first draft chapters from our upcoming book - Team Love: 28 Ways to Demonstrate Caring at Work here in season 3 of the For Love of Team podcast.

Be notified each week about a new episode and follow our journey at TeamLoveBook.com

Transcript

Winston Faircloth: 0:00

See, we start with your special assignment, your greatest impact in business, your commitment, your values, your vision for how you're going to change the world. Those are going to be supported by becoming laser focused on a series of clear and compelling. What does success

Unknown: 0:20

hey there multipliers it's

Winston Faircloth: 0:21

Winston and welcome back to Episode 76. upper left of team This is the podcast where leaders simplify teamwork helping you surround yourself with teammates doing the work they love simplifying your business processes so that you can serve more focused on the work that you love. And Episode 75. We talked about procrastination, and many people give this word a negative connotation, but the moral equivalent to words like lazy slot avoidance distraction. And when we're asked to face our procrastination, we can feel many negative emotions, perhaps even anger or shame about ourselves as a founder or leader. Now see, I think there's power in procrastination for you as the leader of the team that you love. I shared a brief exercise last time to uncover parts of your business that you're drawn to, and the parts of your business that you dread this contrast between drawn versus dread. See, I think procrastination is your inner wisdom, your inner knowing about the parts of the business, which are potential candidates for future teamwork. And in an upcoming episode, I'll give you a tool for helping you figure out what parts of the business you are drawn to, and what parts of the business you dread. But today, let's tackle the dreaded D word of delegation. Wikipedia defines delegation as the assignment of authority to another person to carry out specific activities is the process of distributing an interesting work to other people. Now, in the context of work that you love, here's my somewhat a reverent definition of delegation. So often, these are tasks that you're not good at performing you procrastinate about, or even dread doing, we go one of two ways with this, we either have limited instructions and information, or we micromanage every little step in the process. And as a leader, we're seeking a person that we can persuade with an amazing opportunity, or we just pass it over somewhat like a command for someone to take it on. And by the way, this, this person may or may not be well suited for this task. Ultimately, this is so that we can free ourselves up from the nitty gritty associated with the effort. And that's not a really great definition of delegation. It's a little countercultural, but if we really peel back the meaning and the feeling behind delegation, I think many of these will check a box for you. So this is sound like a recipe for success. I think this is the subconscious mindset for many leaders, we're looking for these tasks that can be avoided. But until the pain really becomes real, then we start searching for someone anybody to take it on often. And this is the compounding error in some of our ways. We delegate the responsibility without the authority, we can describe in painstaking detail how we want things done, but then they have to keep checking in with us or as visionaries, we take the opposite approach where we delegate task, and we describe these task is such a high level that the person's often wondering what just happened here? Well, I bet you've been on the receiving end of this definition of delegation multiple times in your career, you've been given tasks either from the micromanager or the avoidant leader, and neither approach really feels great for you as the leader or for them as the perceiver. Honestly, in some organizations, especially with longer term career professionals, delegation can feel like command and control. These leaders measure their worth by how many team members they have reporting to them. It's not their fault. It's how many were brought up. It was trained earlier in their career, and now it's being passed down to you. Well, just because it's a tradition doesn't mean it's the right thing these leaders present or bestow these as air quotes, opportunities where they can candy coat and gloss over the task with all the benefits for you in why use the team members should take these things on. Oftentimes what happens to the team member is they take on more and more of these duties, they begin to pile up. And if you as the team members unwilling to speak up and ask about priorities and sequencing, your leader may underestimate may not even grasp the complexity of the work or the competing priorities that you are juggling. Well, today I'd like to invite you as the leader, the future leader of a team that you love to take out your leadership dictionary and strike through the word delegation and pledge to never speak of it again. See, I think ultimately, the word delegation connotes hierarchy by its very nature in alternatively, I'd like to suggest that we adopt the posture and the term of collaboration now this word works especially well in the current economy the gig economy with lots of independent contractors i think people really kind of get this from a contractor or business to business perspective and i'm about to suggest that it can work equally well in an employer employee relationship and here's why i say that even when i was an employee of often viewed myself as winston inc when i applied for jobs i was interviewing them not the other way around and as i've grown older i've come to realize that my life and my career are finite my time is my most precious gift and i cannot waste it on a place that's a bad fit now when i was younger this was not always true some of my summer jobs were not a great fit not a great match i was not the captain of my career but an experience early on in my career taught me that opportunities are not given they are pursued when i was in my first professional role about 18 months in i decided to take my boss out to lunch my goal was to ask for his help to position me for advancement a few years down the road i told them about my goals and i asked for new assignments that would best prepare me for a role like i was imagining either here in this organization or somewhere else two to three years from now well those projects really were wonderful great expansion of my vision and mindset and i was surprised yet when it was about a year later that i was promoted from within to that role that i had described at lunch or from that moment on at unlocked a key to great teamwork and growth i don't think i would have put words to it at the time but subconsciously i began to seek teammates who embodied a similar mindset yes they were grateful for the job they're grateful for the income and the opportunity yet they were pretty confident in how they handled their career that they could certainly move on if we didn't work well together and as i grew in my leadership abilities i began to spot people like that and figured out ways that we could collaborate within the employee employer relationship i didn't know it at the time but looking back today i can see how this posture fostered my highest performing teams over my career this unspoken spirit of collaboration and going outside to the world that we can observe in the world of entertainment today let's think about musicians or filmmakers in filmmaking whenever they're approaching a new production they seek out the best and most gifted specialists they can find whether they're actors cinematographers graphic designers costume designers special effects wizards casting directors caterers these are all independent contractors and i would probably use the word today independent collaborators what they have in common they're working towards a special assignment and is they work towards that common goal a common special assignment they're bonding they're cooperating they're bringing their best selves to a final product relationships are formed talent appreciated in everybody as part of this project is well compensated in all the ways that matter most not just income years later they come back together they work on another special assignment some people are brought back other new blood is brought in but this ebb and flow of independent collaborators makes the magic that we see in so many movie productions so many creative endeavors so many businesses that we love see when it comes to building a business that you love who would you rather have on your team someone with an employee mindset or someone who's going to bring their gift to support your desired impact the words delegation and management they just feel like a real grind it harkens back to a factory assembly line style approach to business building you won't love it and the people you attract will keep you from realizing your best instead think collaboration a loose grouping of independently talented people or businesses all aligned to a common goal your special assignment which is your desired impact in your business you know this debate between contractors and employees and team building see that's not a business strategy that's not a leadership strategy that's just the approach to compensation see we start with your special assignment your greatest impact in business your commitment your values your vision for how you're going to change the world those are going to be supported by becoming laser focused on a series of clear and compelling what's what does success look like for your clients what is your success look like for the business what does success look like for your team and you wrap these around a vision of the world changing why that those What will make possible this is not about delegation. This is not finding hands that can do work for you. This is about us stepping up and coming with the kind of business the kind of strategy that will have these who's who have a special talents, special abilities that we need to come flooding our way. And when we have that kind of approach to team building, we will never have to speak the word delegation ever again. That's my hope. That's my prayer for you in leading a business that you love surrounding yourself with a team that you love, man, what could be better than that? So, friends, if you'd like to book a virtual coffee conversation I talked about in Episode 75. That number is my this is my text number 1754 194 61. It's a personal text number 1754 194 61. We'll have the conversation that we talked about in Episode 75. And we'll begin to unpack these kinds of discussions now how you can rid yourself of the word delegation, and instead begin to build your team through collaboration. And finally, remember, leader simplified teamwork, multiplying the your impact, income margin and freedom and business. We'll catch you on the next episode, friends