The Campbell Academy Blog (2)

Better or different

For many, the art or act of delegation is perhaps the hardest thing to do when building an organisation, business, family, charity, football club, or anything else that you're working on.

When we start to build something from very small to bigger, we tend to do all the work ourselves.

Our worldview suggests that we're the only ones who know how to do it, and the outcomes depend upon our interaction with the work itself.

But of course, this is almost always simply not true.

Once we get to a size where we are overwhelmed with whatever it is that we are doing and decide that we need help, this is where the trouble begins.

Deciding what we can give away and trust someone else to do is the hardest thing because instinctively, we feel that they will be unable or unwilling to do it to the standard or the approach or provide the outcome that we would if we were to do it ourselves and perhaps in cases that is true.

This is something that I have wrestled with, from starting a business in Nottingham with four people and a business in Derbyshire with two people and building those up to multiple people to much bigger sizes and understanding that we had to give away.

It's hard to walk past someone doing something when you think that you see that you would do it better when, in fact, all that you would do is do it differently.

This is a fundamental shift.

Understanding that when you delegate something (and delegating is asking someone if they would be able to help you with tasks), you are accepting the fact that they will do the task differently to you.

No, two people work the same, never exactly the same. If you wish to create an organisation full of robots who mimic exactly what you do, then that is a fool's errand and will never work. It's best that you revert back to being a single-handed freelancer now without any other staff, team, or means of help.

The other option is to embrace the fact that just because someone does something differently doesn't mean it's not as good just because someone does something in a way, which is unlike the way you would do, doesn't mean they will not get the same or better quality results than you.

It's fascinating to try it and to let it give away.

Sometimes, it will be the case that it would have been better had you done it, but the vast majority of the time, it will be at least as good or better, allowing you to go off and be better at something else.

Worth remembering that there is a fundamental difference between delegation and abdication.

To delegate is to say to someone, "Please would you help me with this and come straight back if you need any help from me and let me know how you get on".

Abdication is "Do this and hurry up".

Understand the difference and then watch people grow (watch out, though, because when you start to delegate, almost everyone becomes better than you).