How can delegation strategy help entrepreneurs efficiently lead a growing business?
One of the most difficult transitions for SME entrepreneurs is to let go some control and start delegating tasks to their team. They feel excited and involved by doing most of the business activities themselves as they have created everything brick by brick, be it their products & services, Buyers & Suppliers or delivery channels. So when it comes to scaling the business, their responsibilities become more complex and time demanding. To meet the ever growing requirements of the business, entrepreneurs need to lead their team by engaging them and sharing the priorities through delegation.
SME Business owners put their family legacy, sweat, time and equity in creating and running their business. What most business owners do during the initial phase is managing everything! This gradually sets into their management style commonly referred to as micromanagement. The experience of closely working with SME promoters for over a decade now, I conjure their image of a superhuman holding on to anything to everything in the organisation.
Most SME entrepreneurs believe that they should get things done themselves as far as possible. While it is a right strategy when starting up, but as the business grows it requires a lot of time and energy beyond what an entrepreneur can effectively manage. Delegation is a key requirement for managing a growing business more so in the current business environment led by technological disruptions. It is a time tested strategy that allows entrepreneurs to undergo transition from engaging in their business to leading their business.
The simple questions which may arise in the entrepreneur’s mind are:
1. Why delegate?
2. What to delegate?
3. How to delegate?
Why delegate?
Delegation free-up necessary time space to keep your focus on the top priorities in the business both in immediate and long term. Moreover, it make the business economically efficient. As a leader you have the capabilities to generate more business and new ideas while routine tasks can be handled by your team. Effective delegation with clear objectives and accountability help create a better working environment and also help building capabilities within the employees.
What to delegate?
This is an area where the tasks for delegation will require careful examination and analysis depending upon the size & type of business, capacity of the team besides other factors. However going by the general rules you can delegate tasks which are Frequent-Less critical-Carry low business risk. These may include tasks which are:
- Repetitive & routine
- Procedural
- Technical
How to delegate
Now that we understand the importance of delegation and have identified what needs to be delegated, it’s time for executing the strategy. The need for delegation arise when the deliverable and responsibilities of a leader hit a ceiling threshold. What should follow is a gradual process of identifying tasks and competent team members to take up those responsibilities alongside fixing the accountability. This may need checking-off the task from your list and creating a work flow or brief process for time-consuming tasks that can be handled by the employees.
Once you check off any task from your list, it is imperative to have a periodic review of those tasks. This shall help maintain the quality of work, mitigate financial risks if any and also keep a check on the working of the employees. One simple way is to prepare a MIS related to the delegated tasks that can be reviewed by the Business owner periodically (say week/Month etc) depending upon the criticality of the tasks involved.
There can be situations where your team icapable of executing an important technical/procedural task. In such situations you may opt for hiring external experts to achieve the desired outcome (commonly known as outsourcing).
Making any change is a difficult proposition so implementing delegation can take some time, effort and few prop up actions. Key is to start slowly by delegating small tasks and improvise with time and requirements. As a leader of a growing enterprise you need to gradually assess investing your time on selective work demands. Thus saying Yes to some and No to others and engaging on the priorities and managing the rest through the team.
Rajeev Saraswat is the Cofounder of Solvera Consulting, a management advisory company engaged in advising SMEs and Start-Ups. He has been passionately involved in transforming Small & Medium sized businesses into a robust and profitable enterprise.
