December 27, 2021 • 14 mins
Learn the foundational principles for what makes someone good at delegation. Brantley unpacks the four ways in which someone with no experience can become an effective—even good manager—even if they are a control freak! He'll show you how to gradually trust someone, build trust, and create skillset that lets you recover your time and your peace of mind.
This episode covers the topic of delegation, management, time management, hiring, micro-management, build a business, team structure, reporting, and business administration.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pierce Brantley (00:04):
Welcome to lunchbreak a special weekly series of the
eternal entrepreneur that gives yousized pieces of wisdom on how to do
the function of faith and business.
Each episode unpacks, a short, actionabletopic you can put into practice this week.
Let's get into it.
Well, hello and welcome back to theeternal entrepreneurial podcast.
(00:25):
I am Pierce Brandley co-host of the show.
I hope most of you are listening to thisat least on Tuesday, not Christmas day.
I know I'm enjoying time with family.
It gets much needed time offand just reflecting on just how
faithful God has been over the lastyear in my life with my business.
And so I hope that the same has been truefor you as well, that you're cozied up.
(00:49):
You're drinking some hot chocolate.
You're giving yourself some agencyto go gain a little extra weight
while you enjoy some extra pie.
My wife made four pies.
We literally have a pie drawer in thefridge and it makes me really happy.
It makes me really, really happy.
I've been doing keto like all year.
And the fact that I've got twococonut cream pies, two cherry pies,
(01:13):
I think a something with Maranguand I don't know, I don't care.
I'm going to try it justputs me in a good place.
Another thing that puts me and everyone inthe good place is the topic of delegation.
How's that for a segue?
I'm joking.
No, but we are going totalk about delegation to.
(01:34):
And specifically, I want to talk to thosefolks who may have been diagnosed with
what I like to call control, freak, itis.
I think that is the medicalterm and it's a debilitating
predicament wherein you can't doanything without doing it yourself.
(01:54):
And no one else can doanything without you doing it
yourself for them through them.
And so this is where the power ofdelegation really comes into play.
And it's something I've been studyingfor the last year and a half.
I'm working on a book.
And so I want to sharesome concepts with you.
(02:14):
If you're in a place where, you know, youneed to start offloading work to someone
else, but the thought of doing so is alittle bit daunting either because a,
you don't know where to start in termsof what to hand off or B the thought of
handing something off actually scares you.
(02:34):
It gives you anxiety.
This is what I want to talk about is kindof how to move away from the work so that
you can be more effective so that you canrecapture your time and believe it or not,
delegation actually gives you leverage.
You get more done through otherpeople when you employ delegation.
(02:54):
Rightly so to illustratethe effectiveness.
Delegation, think back to your highschool days, this idea of a fulcrum,
a fulcrum is a simple machine.
You can think of like a, it's gota pivot point in it with like a
board, a top, a top, like a Seesaw.
And you can lift a lot of weightbecause of that pivot point, that
(03:16):
point, that fulcrum point thatallows you to get leverage out of
something on the other end of some.
We call this mechanical advantage.
You probably familiar with the termfor back in the day, in the same
way you have managerial advantagewhen you leverage the expertise.
(03:39):
And the time of someone else, you areable to lift more work and just like
in a fulcrum where the farther you moveaway from that point, the more weight
you're able to lift, the farther you moveaway, systematically from the jobs being
done, the more you're able to leverageother people's time to get more done.
(04:04):
It's a fascinating phenomenon.
Your fulcrum, meaning thatpoint at which something pivots,
there are four phases of it.
Meaning delegation has four very clearways in which you can move systematically
away from the work you are doing.
(04:25):
And the four fulcrums, the four positionsof the folk are moving away from the work
are firstly, you don't know what else.
Second is you can't do what I can do.
The third is, you know what I don't know.
And fourthly, lastly, we have,you can do what I can't do.
(04:49):
So, what do all of thesekinds of four positions mean?
First off the baseline one, the onethat every control, freak, every
micromanager or just someone who'sreally comfortable and close to the
work who has to move away from it.
You don't know what I know.
This is the the corefear and the core belief.
(05:09):
And possibly to some extent the truththat anyone who has to move that work off
their plate for the first time you have tocome to terms with what is kind of keeping
you from getting someone to do the work.
And you don't know what I knowis the first admission of that.
And so in order to solve.
(05:31):
You need to move into knowledge,transfer really, really quickly.
And you have to reverse engineerwhat you know, and teach someone now
that doesn't make them an expert orgood at the work, but it does help
them understand both your mindset andtactically, how to do the job in front
(05:51):
of them, that you will no longer do.
So.
The first part of delegationis you don't know what I know.
And to change that, to move past that youneed to communicate everything, you know,
practically about getting the work done.
Once you've done that, you canmove to the second fulcrum.
You can move your delegationexpertise one step forward, which
(06:14):
is you can't do what I can do.
As we all know, head knowledgedoes not an expert make.
You have to have thatpractical experience.
And so to move someone into that practicalexperience, they need to start shadowing.
And doing the work alongside you.
This is like a show and tell versusjust a tell you need both aspects.
(06:40):
So for gated amount of time, a let'scall it like a probationary period.
In this second phase of delegation,you should be letting someone watch and
learn the technique and then try it.
They will not be perfect atit, and you should not expect
them to be perfect at it.
(07:01):
What you should expect them to do ishave basically on the job training.
And as soon as you see themgetting past a threshold of, of
acceptance, you should start to moveaway from that part of the work.
And so the second folk room youcan't do, what I can do is all about.
(07:23):
Helping you come to terms with the factthat eventually they will be able to
do what you can do and you can stepaway from that piece of the work.
Then you gain even more of your time back.
Now, once you feel comfortable withhow someone can do the work, you
move to the third folk room, thethird phase, and now you're really
(07:45):
starting to get away from things.
So now someone has the head knowledge,they have the ability to do the job.
You've recovered a lot of time.
The next phase.
You know what?
I don't know, meaning because they arethe ones daily involved in the work
because they are the ones doing the job.
Now they actually have a betterpulse on that work than you do.
(08:10):
And that is a good thingthat this is where.
Entrepreneurs most first-timemanagers start to get a little
bit nervous, especially if theylike the details, because now
they're disconnected from them.
And so you need to be honest about that,but you can go and solve that too, because
just being good at a job and knowing howto do it doesn't mean they're actually
(08:32):
being an effective from a businessperspective, meaning they're meeting some
metrics or some KPIs that benefit the.
We all know that just hitting anumber for numbers sake does not
actually equate to a good output.
So in the phase of you don't know what,I don't know you're removed from the
work, but it becomes really importantthat you start to implement report.
(08:57):
Now in this phase of delegation,you need to start having weekly,
monthly, and quarterly meetups withthat person in order to understand
how they're maintaining the jobthat you no longer do that they do.
So weekly looks like kind of, more deeply.
(09:17):
Reporting.
You're looking to see if themain benchmarks goals, project
timelines, if they are gettingthe tasks done and you want to
understand blockers, but ultimatelyyou're removed from the details.
And so that time of meeting once aweek needs to be a fairly high level.
You just want to understand basically.
(09:37):
Are you moving along successfully?
Do you have any blockers and what arethe notable things that happened in
the last week and the monthly phase?
You're looking to head up from that.
You're looking at projects, you're lookingat milestones, you're looking at overall
effectiveness and growth of the employees.
I think quarterly or even yearly,depending on the type of business
(09:58):
you have, you're looking muchmore at how their role is helping
shape the business over time.
And so this third phase, while it's oftenthe hardest one for an entrepreneur to
struggle with is the one that helps youmake sure that the machine is well oiled.
So if you think about a gear in itsplace The effectiveness of the gear
(10:21):
depends on where it's positioned.
And it depends on whatpart of the machine.
And that's all about finding theright person, putting them in the
right role, making sure they can dothe job, making sure that machine
is well oiled is all about reportingand it's something that is an active
maintenance so that you can trust themachine is working the way it should.
Now, lastly, the lastfulcrum, this is when you are
(10:42):
completely sort of abstracted.
So the person knows what they are doing.
They can do the jobeffectively without you.
And they actually now know morethan you do about the day in the
life of the work getting done,and they are shaping the business.
So at this point you are.
(11:02):
More or less gettingpretty good at delegation.
And the only thing you're nowconcerned with is the fact that
they can do what you cannot do,meaning they are now the experts,
they know more they've lived in it.
And because of that, theyactually can do more than you
originally could do in that role.
(11:23):
So they are now the, the SMI the subjectmatter expert and the person who is best
positioned in the organization in theorganization, other than you actually
more so than you to get the work done.
And this takes a little bit of time, butdepending on the person and depending
on the work you might get therefaster than you think at this point.
(11:45):
They can do what you nevercould have done before.
They're in a position to startleading other people because they
are now capable of re replicating theprocess that you just did with them.
They know more than the average personthey've been in the role for a long time,
and they have the ability to walk through.
(12:09):
Again.
So depending on kind of the trajectoryof your own business, once someone
is in a position that they knowmore than you originally knew, and
they can do more than you couldoriginally do, it's time to consider.
If it's right for the organization, forthem to actually move into management,
if they're the right person for it,from the temperament and desire and your
(12:31):
business needs to grow in that direction.
This is probably a time at whichthey can start replicating that
delegatory process all over again.
These are the four phases ofdelegation, the four fulcrums, the
farther you move away from the work,the more work you will get done.
First phages, you don't know whatI know, meaning you're the expert.
(12:58):
The second phase is youcan't do what I can do.
Meaning you may understand that.
Computationally, but you don'thave that practical expertise.
So give them that practical expertise.
Thirdly, you have, you know what, I don'tknow, meaning they are living day in the
life more than you are, which makes themthe best person to go to about facts
and details and progress in that role.
(13:20):
And then lastly, You can do what I can do.
They are now the foremost expert inthe organization, both from a head
knowledge and expertise, position ofthings to lead that area of your business
completely and likely if they're theright person, they're a good candidate
for management and to replicate thatdelegatory process all over again.
(13:42):
So this is a lunch.
If you're a control freak.
If you have trouble letting go,just like me, I hope these four
phases have been effective for you.
What I would ask is the next time thatyou bring someone into the organization,
you know, that that's kind of a painpoint where you got to bring somebody
in, instead of just shoveling everythingoff to them from a, because you have
(14:03):
to, because time is of the essence.
Go through this phase, thesephases methodically move from
teaching to modeling and doing,to reporting to letting them
replicate the process through.
All over again.
All right.
My friends, I hope you havehad a fantastic holiday break.
(14:25):
Merry Christmas.
God bless you.
And don't forget to think the tunneling.
Thank you for listening.
If you enjoyed the show, do me afavor and leave a quick review.
When you do it helps otherentrepreneurs find this content and
benefit from it to see next week.
Welcome to lunchbreak a special weekly series of the
eternal entrepreneur that gives yousized pieces of wisdom on how to do
the function of faith and business.
Each episode unpacks, a short, actionabletopic you can put into practice this week.
Let's get into it.
Well, hello and welcome back to theeternal entrepreneurial podcast.
(00:25):
I am Pierce Brandley co-host of the show.
I hope most of you are listening to thisat least on Tuesday, not Christmas day.
I know I'm enjoying time with family.
It gets much needed time offand just reflecting on just how
faithful God has been over the lastyear in my life with my business.
And so I hope that the same has been truefor you as well, that you're cozied up.
(00:49):
You're drinking some hot chocolate.
You're giving yourself some agencyto go gain a little extra weight
while you enjoy some extra pie.
My wife made four pies.
We literally have a pie drawer in thefridge and it makes me really happy.
It makes me really, really happy.
I've been doing keto like all year.
And the fact that I've got twococonut cream pies, two cherry pies,
(01:13):
I think a something with Maranguand I don't know, I don't care.
I'm going to try it justputs me in a good place.
Another thing that puts me and everyone inthe good place is the topic of delegation.
How's that for a segue?
I'm joking.
No, but we are going totalk about delegation to.
(01:34):
And specifically, I want to talk to thosefolks who may have been diagnosed with
what I like to call control, freak, itis.
I think that is the medicalterm and it's a debilitating
predicament wherein you can't doanything without doing it yourself.
(01:54):
And no one else can doanything without you doing it
yourself for them through them.
And so this is where the power ofdelegation really comes into play.
And it's something I've been studyingfor the last year and a half.
I'm working on a book.
And so I want to sharesome concepts with you.
(02:14):
If you're in a place where, you know, youneed to start offloading work to someone
else, but the thought of doing so is alittle bit daunting either because a,
you don't know where to start in termsof what to hand off or B the thought of
handing something off actually scares you.
(02:34):
It gives you anxiety.
This is what I want to talk about is kindof how to move away from the work so that
you can be more effective so that you canrecapture your time and believe it or not,
delegation actually gives you leverage.
You get more done through otherpeople when you employ delegation.
(02:54):
Rightly so to illustratethe effectiveness.
Delegation, think back to your highschool days, this idea of a fulcrum,
a fulcrum is a simple machine.
You can think of like a, it's gota pivot point in it with like a
board, a top, a top, like a Seesaw.
And you can lift a lot of weightbecause of that pivot point, that
(03:16):
point, that fulcrum point thatallows you to get leverage out of
something on the other end of some.
We call this mechanical advantage.
You probably familiar with the termfor back in the day, in the same
way you have managerial advantagewhen you leverage the expertise.
(03:39):
And the time of someone else, you areable to lift more work and just like
in a fulcrum where the farther you moveaway from that point, the more weight
you're able to lift, the farther you moveaway, systematically from the jobs being
done, the more you're able to leverageother people's time to get more done.
(04:04):
It's a fascinating phenomenon.
Your fulcrum, meaning thatpoint at which something pivots,
there are four phases of it.
Meaning delegation has four very clearways in which you can move systematically
away from the work you are doing.
(04:25):
And the four fulcrums, the four positionsof the folk are moving away from the work
are firstly, you don't know what else.
Second is you can't do what I can do.
The third is, you know what I don't know.
And fourthly, lastly, we have,you can do what I can't do.
(04:49):
So, what do all of thesekinds of four positions mean?
First off the baseline one, the onethat every control, freak, every
micromanager or just someone who'sreally comfortable and close to the
work who has to move away from it.
You don't know what I know.
This is the the corefear and the core belief.
(05:09):
And possibly to some extent the truththat anyone who has to move that work off
their plate for the first time you have tocome to terms with what is kind of keeping
you from getting someone to do the work.
And you don't know what I knowis the first admission of that.
And so in order to solve.
(05:31):
You need to move into knowledge,transfer really, really quickly.
And you have to reverse engineerwhat you know, and teach someone now
that doesn't make them an expert orgood at the work, but it does help
them understand both your mindset andtactically, how to do the job in front
(05:51):
of them, that you will no longer do.
So.
The first part of delegationis you don't know what I know.
And to change that, to move past that youneed to communicate everything, you know,
practically about getting the work done.
Once you've done that, you canmove to the second fulcrum.
You can move your delegationexpertise one step forward, which
(06:14):
is you can't do what I can do.
As we all know, head knowledgedoes not an expert make.
You have to have thatpractical experience.
And so to move someone into that practicalexperience, they need to start shadowing.
And doing the work alongside you.
This is like a show and tell versusjust a tell you need both aspects.
(06:40):
So for gated amount of time, a let'scall it like a probationary period.
In this second phase of delegation,you should be letting someone watch and
learn the technique and then try it.
They will not be perfect atit, and you should not expect
them to be perfect at it.
(07:01):
What you should expect them to do ishave basically on the job training.
And as soon as you see themgetting past a threshold of, of
acceptance, you should start to moveaway from that part of the work.
And so the second folk room youcan't do, what I can do is all about.
(07:23):
Helping you come to terms with the factthat eventually they will be able to
do what you can do and you can stepaway from that piece of the work.
Then you gain even more of your time back.
Now, once you feel comfortable withhow someone can do the work, you
move to the third folk room, thethird phase, and now you're really
(07:45):
starting to get away from things.
So now someone has the head knowledge,they have the ability to do the job.
You've recovered a lot of time.
The next phase.
You know what?
I don't know, meaning because they arethe ones daily involved in the work
because they are the ones doing the job.
Now they actually have a betterpulse on that work than you do.
(08:10):
And that is a good thingthat this is where.
Entrepreneurs most first-timemanagers start to get a little
bit nervous, especially if theylike the details, because now
they're disconnected from them.
And so you need to be honest about that,but you can go and solve that too, because
just being good at a job and knowing howto do it doesn't mean they're actually
(08:32):
being an effective from a businessperspective, meaning they're meeting some
metrics or some KPIs that benefit the.
We all know that just hitting anumber for numbers sake does not
actually equate to a good output.
So in the phase of you don't know what,I don't know you're removed from the
work, but it becomes really importantthat you start to implement report.
(08:57):
Now in this phase of delegation,you need to start having weekly,
monthly, and quarterly meetups withthat person in order to understand
how they're maintaining the jobthat you no longer do that they do.
So weekly looks like kind of, more deeply.
(09:17):
Reporting.
You're looking to see if themain benchmarks goals, project
timelines, if they are gettingthe tasks done and you want to
understand blockers, but ultimatelyyou're removed from the details.
And so that time of meeting once aweek needs to be a fairly high level.
You just want to understand basically.
(09:37):
Are you moving along successfully?
Do you have any blockers and what arethe notable things that happened in
the last week and the monthly phase?
You're looking to head up from that.
You're looking at projects, you're lookingat milestones, you're looking at overall
effectiveness and growth of the employees.
I think quarterly or even yearly,depending on the type of business
(09:58):
you have, you're looking muchmore at how their role is helping
shape the business over time.
And so this third phase, while it's oftenthe hardest one for an entrepreneur to
struggle with is the one that helps youmake sure that the machine is well oiled.
So if you think about a gear in itsplace The effectiveness of the gear
(10:21):
depends on where it's positioned.
And it depends on whatpart of the machine.
And that's all about finding theright person, putting them in the
right role, making sure they can dothe job, making sure that machine
is well oiled is all about reportingand it's something that is an active
maintenance so that you can trust themachine is working the way it should.
Now, lastly, the lastfulcrum, this is when you are
(10:42):
completely sort of abstracted.
So the person knows what they are doing.
They can do the jobeffectively without you.
And they actually now know morethan you do about the day in the
life of the work getting done,and they are shaping the business.
So at this point you are.
(11:02):
More or less gettingpretty good at delegation.
And the only thing you're nowconcerned with is the fact that
they can do what you cannot do,meaning they are now the experts,
they know more they've lived in it.
And because of that, theyactually can do more than you
originally could do in that role.
(11:23):
So they are now the, the SMI the subjectmatter expert and the person who is best
positioned in the organization in theorganization, other than you actually
more so than you to get the work done.
And this takes a little bit of time, butdepending on the person and depending
on the work you might get therefaster than you think at this point.
(11:45):
They can do what you nevercould have done before.
They're in a position to startleading other people because they
are now capable of re replicating theprocess that you just did with them.
They know more than the average personthey've been in the role for a long time,
and they have the ability to walk through.
(12:09):
Again.
So depending on kind of the trajectoryof your own business, once someone
is in a position that they knowmore than you originally knew, and
they can do more than you couldoriginally do, it's time to consider.
If it's right for the organization, forthem to actually move into management,
if they're the right person for it,from the temperament and desire and your
(12:31):
business needs to grow in that direction.
This is probably a time at whichthey can start replicating that
delegatory process all over again.
These are the four phases ofdelegation, the four fulcrums, the
farther you move away from the work,the more work you will get done.
First phages, you don't know whatI know, meaning you're the expert.
(12:58):
The second phase is youcan't do what I can do.
Meaning you may understand that.
Computationally, but you don'thave that practical expertise.
So give them that practical expertise.
Thirdly, you have, you know what, I don'tknow, meaning they are living day in the
life more than you are, which makes themthe best person to go to about facts
and details and progress in that role.
(13:20):
And then lastly, You can do what I can do.
They are now the foremost expert inthe organization, both from a head
knowledge and expertise, position ofthings to lead that area of your business
completely and likely if they're theright person, they're a good candidate
for management and to replicate thatdelegatory process all over again.
(13:42):
So this is a lunch.
If you're a control freak.
If you have trouble letting go,just like me, I hope these four
phases have been effective for you.
What I would ask is the next time thatyou bring someone into the organization,
you know, that that's kind of a painpoint where you got to bring somebody
in, instead of just shoveling everythingoff to them from a, because you have
(14:03):
to, because time is of the essence.
Go through this phase, thesephases methodically move from
teaching to modeling and doing,to reporting to letting them
replicate the process through.
All over again.
All right.
My friends, I hope you havehad a fantastic holiday break.
(14:25):
Merry Christmas.
God bless you.
And don't forget to think the tunneling.
Thank you for listening.
If you enjoyed the show, do me afavor and leave a quick review.
When you do it helps otherentrepreneurs find this content and
benefit from it to see next week.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.