Greater Productivity via Effective Delegation

Among the many benefits of learning to delegate effectively is the increase in productivity that is possible.  Delegating and outsourcing allow you to be more strategic and intentional about how you spend your time, energy and attention.

As a high-performance coach, I often get asked by clients how to increase their own productivity and that of their team members.  Productivity is one of the most important topics in high performance because when you learn to focus on those activities that move the needle further, faster, and your learn to minimize distractions, your results improve dramatically.

It seems we all want to accomplish more things in less time and with less effort.

Learning what to outsource and delegate starts with your mindset.  Before you can learn to be effective at this critical skill, you have to be willing to let go and trust others.  The need for control and the difficulty of letting go is one of the biggest roadblocks to effective delegation. 

So, be prepared to let go.  And that does not have to mean completely abdicating responsibility.  In fact, if you just hand off a task to someone else, without the benefit of a process or system, you may not get the result you want.

My 7 Step Process is one such system.  And, having developed it over time, with trial and error and feedback from others, I think it's pretty effective in most cases.

(Get your copy of My 7 Step Process here).

But start with your mindset.  Ask yourself: what is my thought process when it comes to delegating and outsourcing?  On a scale of 1 to 10, one is something like “no one can do it like I can.” Ten is more like “there are lots of ways to accomplish things besides mine; I can’t wait to see what my team members come up with?”  Where would you rank yourself along this scale?

If you have difficulty letting go, you will have a harder time being more productive.  On the other hand, if you can develop a mindset around developing members of your team to take greater responsibility and ownership, you can become more efficient and effective with the use of your own time.

Over the next few weeks, I will be offering more tips and tools from my High Performance Coaching program.  If you have specific needs or requests or questions, I will do my best to address those.  Send me an email with the topics you are most interested in learning more about.