TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prior to Starting The Delegator
How to Effectively Use The Delegator:
- Amend or Add to the List of Activities to Delegate That Was Identified in The Rainmaker's Dilemma Exercise
- Stack Rank Activities by Ease of Delegation
- Delegate Each Activity To a Team Member With a Degree of Delegation
- Select a Reasonable Timeframe to Have Each Activity Fully Delegated Off Your Plate
- Review the Delegation Plan
- The Results
Next Steps: Create Standard Operating Procedures
What is the Delegator
The purpose of The Delegator tool is to allow a business owner to hone their delegation skills by walking through a framework for delegating activities effectively. By working to delegate activities off their plate, an owner is reducing their business’s reliance on their everyday involvement, which frees up time for them to pursue interests and hobbies outside of their business and invest more energy in business activities that fully leverage their unique skillset and positively impacts the value of their company.
Prior to Starting The Delegator
- Share the Module 7 Agenda which outlines the pre-work that a business owner should complete prior to your meeting. This can be found in Contacts > Value Builder Engagement Program > +Module > Meeting Agenda.
- Ask your client to watch the Tutorial Videos in Module 7 which explain why getting their Value Builder Score is important and how to improve their score.
- Check your Value Builder Engagement Settings. As this is in BETA, by default this new tool will be set to disable and business owners will not see The Delegator exercise. You can make it visible to owners in the Engagement Settings, by going to Module Settings > Module 7: Hub & Spoke Settings > Use the New Module 7 Tool: The Delegator (Beta) > Enable.
- Have your business owner complete The Rainmaker's Dilemma exercise to determine the business activities they would like to reduce their time on or stop altogether and delegate off their plate.
How to Effectively Use The Delegator
Follow the steps below to run an effective meeting using The Delegator Tool:
Start a New Exercise
1. Amend or Add to the List of Activities to Delegate That Was Identified in The Rainmaker's Dilemma Exercise
Have your owner review the list of activities to delegate that was taken from The Rainmaker's Dilemma exercise. Add any additional business activities that the owner does in a typical workweek that are causing frustration or boredom, are of lower importance, or are better done by someone else as they do not leverage their skills.
2. Stack Rank Activities by Ease of Delegation
Have them stack rank the activities they do in a typical workweek by ease of delegation. Drag activities to the top of the list that are easier to delegate to someone else or hire for, as they are teachable in a short timeframe. Drag activities to the bottom of the list that are harder to delegate as they may require additional training, systems, or processes in order to be fully delegated.
Activities that appear in the green are “quick wins”. These are activities that the owner could easily complete themselves but will save time by delegating them to someone else. Have the owner adjust the delegation threshold to pull in additional quick-win activities that they will focus their efforts on delegating first. Please note, the activities that appear in the green area will be the only activities that are carried into the subsequent steps.
3. Delegate Each Activity To a Team Member With a Degree of Delegation
Have your business owner select who they would like to delegate each activity to and the degree of delegation they will give to the responsible team member. Review the legend and the 4 Degrees of Delegation to ensure they are selecting the correct level of autonomy and decision-making discretion that will be given to the delegated team member. Please note, if 'Automate' is selected as an option for delegation, they will not be requested to select a degree of delegation.
4. Select a Reasonable Timeframe to Have Each Activity Fully Delegated Off Your Plate
An owner will select a starting date to begin the delegation process and a realistic deadline for when they believe it would be possible to have each activity fully delegated to someone else.
5. Review the Delegation Plan
Review the business owner's Delegation Plan. Create immediate next steps that the business owner can act on in the next month or prior to meeting again. The action items create here will appear in the overall Hub & Spoke Action Items list but will be distinguished by indicating it came from The Delegator exercise, "Delegate: <Action Item Name>."
The Results
Once the owner clicks "View Results" they will be taken to a Gantt chart which provides a plan for delegating that they can look back on and makes edits to track their progress. Also visible will be the immediate action items that they should focus efforts on completing prior to your next meeting to works towards fully delegating those activities off their plate.
Next Steps: Create Standard Operating Procedures
Now that you have completed The Delegator tool with your client, have them review and create any additional actionable steps they can take to achieve their 30-day goals set at the beginning of your meeting and work on having their business thrive without their everyday involvement.
One way to help your clients avoid the Hub & Spoke discount is to have them create Standard Operating Procedures. SOPs allow a business owner to:
- Provide their customers with a consistent experience.
- Train new and existing employees.
- Minimize their time spent problem-solving.
- Avoid or minimize an earn-out.
The ultimate benefit of creating Standard Operating Procedures is that when their company can thrive without them, it’s worth more to a buyer.