Ten Indicators You Could Benefit from a Business Coach

Here we are in 2022! Welcome. 

The pinning up of a new calendar leads many to envision a bright new future for themselves. And anyone who has ever set a New Year’s resolution knows that change takes more than just dreaming of what could be. It takes planning, action steps, accountability, and hard work. 

Today’s article is about the value of engaging a Coach to help you get where you want to go. We’re going to explore many of the reasons why a Business Coach might be a good investment for you in 2022, and what they can help you with. If you have considered getting a Coach, reading this article is a great step in your contemplation. Let’s dig into ten reasons a Business Coach might be a great option for you! 

1. You set great goals, but regularly fail to meet them

Is it you or is it the goal? Are you creating goals based on the expectations of others? Are you lacking motivation towards the goals all together?

Sometimes goals are impressed upon us, and we have no choice but to put forth our best efforts to achieve those goals. Other times we set goals for things that we really truly want to accomplish, but then nothing happens. Either way, there are likely underlying reasons why goals are not being met. A Coach can help you peel back the layers to understand where the barriers are coming from and how to address them. 

2. You feel like you have stagnated/imposter syndrome

As we grow and advance in our careers, it’s common to get to a point where we question our legitimacy. Do we really deserve the position we hold? Are our skills suited to the role we’re in? Coaching can help you process how you’re feeling, separate feelings from facts, acknowledge your skills and expertise, and grow professionally. 

3. Your work-life balance is not balanced at all

If everything feels like it’s out of whack, it might be time for a change. When a professional or career change needs to be made, it’s not uncommon to completely throw ourselves into work, to avoid thinking about the change. It might also be time for a change if you have no choice but to spend an excessive amount of your time working or stressing out about work. 

A Coach can help you take the emotion out of your situation. When we’re overworked and over-extended, it can be difficult to separate reality from our overwhelmed mental state. Having someone process your situation with you will not only help you feel more sane, it will allow you to make rational, planful decisions. 

4. You want a career change

Many people come to a point in their life where they want more. More money, more flexibility, more impact, etc. What you decided to do for a career when you were 18 or 22 or whatever, might not be the right fit for you at this stage in your life. A Coach can help you suss-out what is important to you and get you moving in a direction that will be fulfilling and rewarding. 

5. You know you need to grow professionally

Growth can be difficult, and something we unintentionally avoid. Without knowing it, we can actively circumvent opportunities to grow, because in the back of our minds we know it will be easier to maintain the status quo. Additionally, we all have blind-spots. No matter how great we are, there are always opportunities to improve. However, without help, we don’t necessarily see them. 

A trusted Coach can help you move past your self-imposed barriers to development. They can uncover your growth opportunities and work with you to create a plan that will allow you to evolve and thrive. 

6. You need better accountability

No one likes to be held accountable. If you’re the one in charge of your own accountability, it might just not happen. Think about most diets. No matter how committed a person is to losing weight and creating a healthy lifestyle, it’s difficult to stick to the plan. 

Many people find it very helpful to engage an accountability partner to hold their feet to the fire. By sharing your goals and plans with a Coach, they can keep you on track. They will remind you of why you set your goals, and the necessary actions you have committed to in order to reach those goals. 

7. You struggle to work “on” your business

The everyday grind can easily become the thing that keeps you from growing. When all of your attention is focused on the day-to-day operations, you will never think bigger, explore options, and dream about the future. Dedicated time with a Coach gives Business Leaders the time to work ON their business. This might be in the form of strategic planning, exploring new opportunities, evaluating operations, assessing how resources are deployed, and much more! 

8. You need someone to talk to about your business and career

It’s lonely at the top! If you are the leader of your business, there isn’t a coworker you can go to who understands the challenges and pressures you face. Some people find this support in other CEOs or leaders. Others like to maintain a high level of privacy about the things keeping them up at night. A Coach can be that confidant that you need at the top. 

9. You want to save time and money

Without a sounding board, leaders still come to great conclusions on their own. However, it usually takes much longer than if you were to bring someone in to help you process your thoughts and ideas. And, as they say, time is money. 

A Business Coach helps you process through difficult decisions, crucial conversations, problem solving, and more. Otherwise, these are often topics that are put off until it’s absolutely necessary to deal with them. By dealing with them in a timely manner, you will save yourself frustration; as well as time and money. 

10. You need ideas!

An outside perspective can help you generate ideas that you wouldn’t have come up with on your own. Business Coaches tend to have rich experience in the business world and can provide creative solutions to try. When you feel like you’ve tried everything, it might be time to try visiting with a Coach.

These are just a few of the reasons it might be a great idea to engage with a Coach. Most Coaches (myself included) provide a free Discovery Call, where you can discuss your unique situation and see if Coaching is right for you. This is also a good time to interview the Coach to see if they are a good fit for you, your style, and your business.

If you would like to explore how a Business Coach could help you, schedule a 30-minute Discovery Call. You can also email questions to me at Kim@Athena-CoCo.com.

Kim Stewart

Kim is a mom, wife, lover of being active and the outdoors,
and helper of small businesses and nonprofits.
Kim@Athena-CoCo.com

The “I’m So Busy” Competition

What is the deal with this? People compete to be the most busy, the most rushed, and the most stressed. Like it’s an Olympic sport. 

I really love the meme that has been popping up lately that states: 

“We need to stop glamorizing overworking. Please. 

The absence of sleep, good diet, exercise, and time with friends and family is not something to be applauded. 

Too many people wear their burnout as a badge of honor. 

And it needs to change.”

What if, when standing around the water cooler, we bragged about how much sleep we got last night? Or how great we’re doing keeping our lives in balance? Wouldn’t that be a cool paradigm shift?  

To be clear, I’m not writing this from the perspective of someone who has never slipped into this mode. I’ve done it. Especially as a young professional trying to do everything. And as a working mom keeping many balls in the air. As I’ve gotten older and maybe a little wiser, I see how I contributed to the chaos in my life.

This article is not meant to shame anyone who is struggling to keep it all together. Rather, I’m going to share my observations on the topic as well as the importance of balance. A while back I wrote about Self Care, which relates closely to this topic. I also want to look at what we, as leaders, can do to help make this shift. 

So Much to Do, So Little Time

I recently came to the realization that I have more books that I want to read, than I will ever be able to get through in my lifetime. At first I was a little bummed when I recognized this. Then I mentioned this to a friend and he had a completely different reaction. He said: “Isn’t that awesome! There are so many great books in the world and so many options.” The difference a shift in perspective can make! 

While I would love to read all the books on my reading list (and all the books I have yet to discover), I don’t HAVE to get to them. I will read the ones I really want to get to. And I’ll read the ones I need for work or education. Some will just present themselves at the right time and I’ll get to them. 

The book thing got me thinking about all the things we fill our time with. If we were to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, there would still be projects to do or tasks to complete. Just like the book thing. We have a limited amount of time to give and we each have to decide for ourselves how much of it we are going to commit to the different areas of our life. Making this a thoughtful decision is key to balance and self care. 

How to Spend Your Time

First let’s focus on our work time. And the first step in this is deciding how much time you will work – full-time, part-time, project based, etc. If you’re self-employed, clearly define how much time you will commit to your business. 

Next I like to think of our work time divided into three categories: NEED TO, WANT TO, and SHOULD. 

  • NEED TO: There are the things we absolutely have to do. Likely these items are outlined on our job description or they are directives from our supervisor. If our job is important to us, then we have to do these things. 

Items on the NEED TO list can sometimes be subjective. For example, if an employee has a need for perfection, they may triple check their work. Another employee who has the ability to run through a project accurately on the first try might not have that need. 

  • WANT TO: These are projects that we believe will improve the company, culture, product or service. They are initiatives that we want to pursue, but are not required to work on. WANT TO projects provide fulfillment and engagement. Often these are the reasons we enjoy our jobs and make us care about the company. 

Depending on the amount of autonomy you have at work, this might be something you need to negotiate with your supervisor. Being clear about the things on your NEED TO list, and how your WANT TO items will benefit the company will help with your discussion. Also, if the WANT TO projects are the only thing keeping you at a company, they may truly be NEED TOs. 

  • SHOULD: Items on this list are things that are not required from you, and you probably don’t really want to do them either. It’s best to avoid SHOULDing on ourselves. The SHOULDs need to be evaluated to see what’s really going on there. You clearly feel an obligation to the task. Consider why that is and if it really belongs on the NEED TO list. 

An example is a project that you don’t want to do, but that would make you look really good to your boss. If you are actively working to advance at work, then you might want to shift it to your NEED TO list. On the other hand, if you are new to a position and it makes more sense for you to focus on your primary responsibilities, then this item probably needs to be removed altogether. 

Too often we approach everything that comes our way as a NEED TO. By thinking through how to categorize the many demands on our time, we can make decisions that will keep us from becoming overworked. 

Not Just a Work Problem

While at work, the NEED TOs take priority, in our personal life there should be a better balance between NEED TO and WANT TO. Being overworked or overextended is not just a work problem. Homes, family, friends, hobbies, volunteering, and more quickly fill up our non-work time. The problem is usually amplified for women who tend to carry the majority of home and child care duties. 

Categorizing tasks and activities can be applied to our personal time as well. This process can be a useful tool for families to use in order to distribute tasks or to decide what is really important. Having a clean kitchen might be a NEED TO for one person and a SHOULD for another. There might be items on your SHOULD list that really need to be outsourced because no one wants to do them, but eventually they NEED TO be done (hello housecleaning!) 

Evaluating the ways you spend your time can also reveal opportunities for positive change. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, scrolling social media for an hour before bed could be the culprit. When we think intentionally about how we spend our time, we will probably choose quality sleep over looking at cat memes. 

Leading Change

As a leader the categories still do not change. The biggest difference is that you are the one making decisions about what NEEDS TO be done for the company or organization. With this difference comes the power to drive change. As I see it, there are four key areas where today’s leaders can help reduce the glamorization of the overworked: 

  • Create jobs that are manageable – evaluate jobs regularly to ensure that they can be completed in the allotted time. Avoid filling every minute of a staff person’s time. Encourage creativity and staff taking initiative. This can lead to new solutions and  processes, and energize staff. 
  • Ensure NEEDS TO are really needs – your role is to divide the many tasks and projects that it takes to operate your business. As time goes on, priorities change. The leader’s job is to make sure that tasks remain relevant and true NEED TOs.
  • Set a good example – monitor your own use of time. Nothing encourages balance like the leader making it a priority. If you do need to put in extra hours, don’t make a show of it. The leader’s behavior will create the culture.  
  • Encourage balance – beyond demonstrating work-life balance, talk about it. Tell staff why it’s important. Help them figure out how to manage their role in a healthy way. If you observe a staff person engaging in the “I’m So Busy” competition, have a conversation with them. 

In today’s job market, leaders need to provide jobs that people want. This means work-life balance, opportunities for meaningful contributions, personal development, and a culture they will enjoy. Businesses that figure out how to do this will attract the best employees. 

Need help with creating a healthy culture? Email me at kim@athena-coco.com to schedule a free 30-minute discovery call to start creating a culture that celebrates work-life balance. 

Kim Stewart

Kim is a mom, wife, lover of being active and the outdoors,
and helper of small businesses and nonprofits.
kim@athena-coco.com

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: Three Simple Steps to Get Started

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

There are many voices out there on this topic. Many are going to be more qualified than me to speak in-depth on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. In this article I will be sharing my perspective along with some thoughts on how to start these conversations in your workplace, or even in your family or friend group.

I had the honor of serving my community through the YMCA for several decades. The work I lead and was involved with was important and impactful. One initiative from the YMCA of the USA that I have been very impressed with, and have carried with me throughout the years, involves their work on Dimensions of Diversity. This work has resonated with me because it goes far beyond gender, skin color, and age. Those are big and often obvious categories, which over-generalize who people really are. Generalizations are necessary for studying trends, creating non-discrimination policy, and supporting marginalized groups; however they create problems when we use them to lump all people together. 

While working with a client recently, she shared her story of being a young black woman who excelled in the violin. For a long time she felt like an outcast. “Black people don’t play in the orchestra” was something she heard and felt on a regular basis. In discussing her experience she used this phrase:

Black is Not a Monolith 

Having only heard the word “Monolith” recently in relation to the one discovered in Utah last summer, I did a bit of research. Apparently it’s a phrase that’s been around for a while, and has resurfaced with the release of Lena Waithe’s Queen & Slim. While I have not seen this movie, it sounds like the phrase is used to express the fact that all black people are not necessarily from the ghetto. Essentially, black people come from all kinds of communities and backgrounds. When you think about it, that doesn’t seem like something that needs to be stated. However, it’s human nature to try to categorize and simplify things we don’t understand. 

 In talking further with this client, she shared with me that she was from a small town. She told me her town “only had four high schools.” This is when the complexities of diversity really struck me. My town had exactly one high school. In fact it had exactly one school of any kind, Kindergarten through 12th grade. In the years since I graduated they have added a preschool. Still one school. As a member of the tiny little Generation X, my graduating class had 26 people in it. 

This started me thinking about other personal experiences where the diversity in our backgrounds was very striking. When I worked in Chicago one of my staff, a woman in her 40s, had never had a drivers license. Or a car. She taught me how to use the bus and the L – explaining routes, lines and transfers – from memory. Growing up on a farm I wouldn’t have been able to participate in afterschool activities, have a social life, or a job without a license and a car. It was unimaginable to never have a car or a license. Growing up the way she did, she couldn’t believe I’d never used public transportation. 

These experiences and reflections keep bringing me back to the Y-USAs Dimensions of Diversity. Looking at one dimension of a person and defining them by it is part of our society’s problem with embracing diversity. It leads to limiting beliefs and stereotypes. All black people are fill in the blank. LGBTQ+ people never fill in the blank. People living in poverty are all fill in the blank. Women just aren’t meant to fill in the blank. None of us should be defined by one aspect of our identity. Least of all marginalized groups. 

Today, many companies and organizations are in the position of knowing they need to “do better” with diversity, equity, and inclusion; but they might not know where to start. This is understandable; it’s a huge, complex and often controversial topic. I’d like to offer you three simple steps to get you started. These can be implemented with no cost, no additional staff or resources, and very little change to your operations.

  • Mindset – leadership commitment

First and foremost, the leadership of the business or organization needs to be genuinely committed to shifting the culture. The top leader especially, but also the leadership team needs to believe in the importance of celebrating diversity, valuing equity, and driving inclusion.

In order to ensure that you are ready for this, it will likely require some challenging conversations as a team. The discussion must go beyond: “Is everyone good with this?” Each and every leader needs to be committed to driving change, supporting difficult conversations and situations, and being an agency-champion for this transformation. If every single person isn’t 100% on board, the leader has a decision to make. Does she/he postpone this initiative until the timing is better or do they make the changes needed to create the leadership team that will move the company needle on DEI. 

  • Commitment to understanding

As you begin your initiative around Diversity, Inclusion and Equity, one of the first tenements to establish is the commitment to understanding where people are coming from. Impressing upon staff the importance of listening and being open to understanding the journey their co-workers are traveling is key to building your foundation.

It doesn’t matter what other people think about Meghan Markles’ skin color. If she identifies as black, that’s a dimension of who she is. Self-identification is up to the individual and it doesn’t matter if other people agree with it or not. Supporting DEI means accepting others as they identify, and striving to understand.

The leadership sets this expectation and supports staff as they work to learn and grow. They also watch for those team members who are resistant to this change and take action with anyone who is not a match for the culture they are trying to create.

  • A little bit of time in each and every staff meeting

The first two steps are really about mindset, setting the tone, and creating a culture. This one provides action items you can take and use right away.

The most valuable communication tool that leaders possess is the staff meeting. If your staff meetings are not important, engaging, effective, and driving communication and culture, consider reading this. Incorporating mini-activities into your team meeting (and every other staff meeting in your company) can start the exploration of diversity, equity, and inclusion with the broad base of your business.

Hopefully your staff meeting includes some sort of a transition or opening. This aspect of your meeting is meant to help team members shift from whatever-they-were-doing-before-the-meeting to full-on-meeting-mode. Good things to include in this phase of the meeting are things like:

  • An opening thought
  • Check-in
  • Company headlines
  • Celebrations

In order to get everyone thinking about the diversity of their team, consider adding a “backstory question.” This tool can be fun, but at the same time it helps everyone to start to understand more about their teammates. If time is tight this activity can take as little as 2-minutes by doing it “whip style.” Or if you want, you can add a reflection component to dig deeper.

Here’s an example:

  1. Have everyone go around and share what their first job was and something they learned from that job that they still utilize today. If you have 10 people in the meeting, this will probably take 5-minutes at the most.
  2. Those wanting to dig deeper can pair people up (preferably connecting those with the most differing first jobs, like walking beans with interning at a magazine).
  3. Have one person spend 2-minutes asking the other person questions about their first job.
  4. After their time is up they switch roles.
  5. You can close with a group reflection on what they learned about other people that may have surprised them.
  6. Doing the full activity will take a maximum of 15-minutes.

Here’s a list of ideas of backstory questions you can use to get started:

  • What was your first job? What did you learn that you still use today?
  • How did you get to school when you were little? How was that the same or different from other kids at your school?
  • What’s the first team you remember being part of? How did that experience shape you?
  • How many kids were in your family? Where are you in the birth order? What does that say about you? 
  • What was your favorite subject in school? How have you carried that with you? 
  • Share about the kind of home you grew up in? 
  • How did you decide what you wanted to do for a living? 

As time goes on your questions can progress towards being more probing. Another idea is to have volunteers come up with questions for the next meeting or create a sub-group of volunteers to work on questions and activities.

As you and your team become more comfortable exploring diversity there are many more activities you can incorporate and initiatives you can drive. Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. Hopefully these simple steps can spark the beginning of your journey. 

Need help creating a plan that is right for you and your team? Want an outside resource to facilitate crucial conversations around DEI? Email me at kim@athena-coco.com to schedule a free 30-minute consultation to discuss ideas that will help you get started. Calm the Chaos and create a great culture so you can find time to focus on what’s important to YOU! 

 

Kim is a mom, wife, lover of being active and the outdoors,
and helper of small businesses and nonprofits.
kim@athena-coco.com

The Biggest Mistake Leaders Make

bananarama quote

This is obviously an opinion article. Much has been written on the mistakes of leaders and there are varying opinions on which ones are the most egregious. Why is that? Probably because as leaders, we all make mistakes. And, people who observe leaders all have a different take on which mistakes result in the most negative impact.

Before I share what I believe to be the biggest mistake of a leader, I want to be very clear that I am a big fan of mistakes. So much so that I make them all the time! We make huge progress by trying lots of new and different ideas to see what works. In exploring what DOES work, we have to go through a lot of what DOES NOT work. We learn so much from mistakes. Often the lessons we learn from the mistakes we make are the ones that best stick with us and teach us how to move forward in a better way.

By writing this article I am not looking to create leaders who are risk-averse. Quite the opposite! I want you to keep trying new things and making big decisions, and exploring new opportunities. The biggest mistake we make is not really a thing we do. So please, keep doing and trying and exploring.

Decision Drift

If it’s not a thing you do as a leader, what is it? The biggest mistake I see leaders make is mixing up their roles when making decisions. We all fulfill different roles. One of those is probably a company leader. Another might be a spouse or family leader. You may also be a community volunteer and leader. Maybe you have more. Most people have two big categories of business leader and personal-life leader. And sometimes it can be difficult to keep your focus on making decisions appropriate to your role. I call this Decision Drift.

Decision Drift is when you should be wearing your “leader of the company” hat, but you let your “leader of my personal life” hat slip into your decision making. When a leader makes a decision based on what is easiest for them personally, that’s Decision Drift. When a leader makes a decision based on which will cause them the least amount of personal discomfort, that’s Decision Drift. And when a leader makes a decision based on how much they will personally gain, you guessed it, that is Decision Drift. Those decisions have drifted away from what is best for the company.

Now, you might be thinking that this sounds crazy, and that no decent leader would make those kinds of decisions. But the challenge is that it’s easy to convince yourself that you are making decisions for the right reasons. Leaders will talk themselves into Decision Drift, and then they convince themselves that it’s not for personal reasons. For example, if there’s a difficult conversation that needs to happen, and the leader dislikes confrontation – they will convince themselves that it’s best not to have the conversation because it will have a negative impact on the culture. Or, maybe more often, when faced with a decision that will benefit the employees vs one that will benefit the leadership, leaders frequently convince themselves that the option that benefits the leaders is the right one, because they know best.

What are you being paid for? 

When you are hired as a company/nonprofit leader, or you are the leader of your own business, your role is to make decisions based on what is best for the company. Period. While it’s challenging to remove your personal interests from those decisions, that is what you’re paid to do. Or, if you are the owner, it’s your commitment to the success of the business and the people who work for you. The people who hired you and the people who work for you are counting on you to make decisions based on what is best for the organization, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

None of this is to say that you shouldn’t make decisions that benefit you personally. It’s just that those are decisions you make when wearing your “personal life leader” hat. In your personal life – you, your family, and maybe your friends are counting on you to make decisions that are good for you (and your family and friends). That is when you make decisions about what you’re comfortable with, what will be best for your life, and what will preserve and protect you.

Keeping those two decision-making categories separate is imperative to being a good leader. If you need to make a business decision that’s best for the company, but not so good for your workload or mental health, it leads you to needing to make a personal decision. Does the increased workload fit with the demands of your personal life? Is the stress affecting your family and friends? If questions like those are answered with a “yes”, it’s time for you to consider what you need to do personally to adapt to what is best for the company. This could be anything from adding in some self-care to changing careers.

There you have it. The biggest mistake I see leaders make is Decision Drift. They try to avoid having to make challenging decisions in their personal life by making business decisions that are best for them, rather than what’s best for the business. It’s easy to do. It’s better for you. But by doing so, you are not fulfilling your role as the leader of the company. You’re letting down stakeholders and team members. And you’re holding your business back from where it could go and what it could accomplish.

Servant Leader = a leadership philosophy in which the main goal of the leader is to serve. This is different from traditional leadership where the leader’s main focus is the thriving of their company or organizations.

If you look at this definition, you might think that I’m contradicting the concept of Servant Leadership. That’s not the case. I believe very strongly in Servant Leadership, and I think that it is a part of what I’m talking about. With some exceptions, the most valuable asset of most companies is their workforce. A Servant Leader knows this. Part of serving their team members is likely making decisions based on what is best for them. And very often what is best for the staff is also what is best for the company.

Google says. . .

A quick search of the biggest mistakes leaders make will give you several options of lists similar to this one:

  1. Micromanaging

  2. Leading from a position of power or ego

  3. Not listening

  4. Not valuing followers

  5. Failing to grow themselves as leaders

  6. Lacking boundaries

  7. Not providing or receiving feedback

I would argue that each and every one of these mistakes (and the similar ones that land on other lists) can be tied back to Decision Drift. Let me show you:

  • Micromanaging is often a mask for a leader who doesn’t know how to empower, delegate and build up their staff. Rather than pushing themselves to grow as a leader, they decide to use their time to nitpick their staff.

  • Leading from a position of power or ego – This comes from a lack of humility and confidence. Power and ego is used to mask personal deficiencies, rather than deciding to do the hard work of growing as a person and a leader.

  • Not listening – As a leader it takes a lot of confidence and security to be open to the ideas of others. Again, it’s easier to mask insecurities by pretending like you have all the answers, than to work on personal growth.

I could go on with the list above, but my comments would continue down a similar path. Decision Drift comes from a leader’s need to protect themselves, their time, their ego, etc. True leaders know how to separate self-preservation from organizational leadership, and make decisions in the company’s best interest. .

It’s hard to separate business decisions and personal decisions. Outside help can see the issues without the emotion that leaders bring. Email me at kim@athena-coco.com to schedule a free 30-minute consultation to see how we can help you make better decisions for your company and for you personally. 

Too Busy to Lead

perfection is the enemy of success

Are you running your business, or is the business running you? Do you spend your days putting out fire after fire and never getting to the tasks or projects that you want to work on? Is there so much on your plate that you barely have time to answer your staff’s questions, let alone provide valuable leadership? If your answer is an annoying little “yes” to any of these, it’s time to talk about delegating.

FACT: Running a business (or a nonprofit) is hard work. There is always more to do than what you have time for in a day. As the leader, you feel responsible for making sure everything gets done, and gets done right. And the more successful you are, the more work there is to manage.

FACT: Every successful leader in the world has had to figure out how to delegate. And they have likely all struggled to figure out what and how to delegate. Effective delegation is key to managing your business while also leading your team.

The idea of delegating might seem impossible. After all, don’t you have to have everything organized in order to delegate it to someone else? The answer to that is no, and we’ll talk more about that later. Effective delegating is one of most important skills you can learn as a leader. In order to learn the skill, it helps to have some basic structures in place to make delegating easier. These three components create a solid foundation for effective delegating:

  1. Establish the right structure

  2. Hire quality staff

  3. Understand your strengths

Structure

Finding the right structure for your business not only helps with delegation, but it sets you up for success in many other ways as well. This means establishing and communicating a clear chain of command, thoughtfully creating positions and departments, and ensuring everyone knows what they are accountable for and how their work impacts the success of the company. You can read a lot more about this topic by reading Structure – Getting it Right to Grow.

Quality Staff

Quality staff does not always mean that you pay the very best or you provide the most glamorous jobs. Quality staff are those people who you trust. Those whose values align strongly with yours and those of your company. Those who have a positive attitude about the success of your business. In order to have confidence in delegating, you need staff who are willing, able, and motivated to help advance the work.

We all know that solid staff don’t grow on trees. And I’m not suggesting that this is a simple step. However, I do have a few tips to help. In addition to creating the right structure (mentioned above) for your business, here are some proactive steps you can take to create a breeding ground for quality staff.

  1. Communicate your vision. All. The. Time. When staff do not see the bigger picture vision for your business, then all they have is a job. But when a picture is painted of the direction you are taking the company, and their role in helping to get there, then it becomes much more. They see the work they are doing as valuable. They want to help accomplish goals. And they understand better why things need to be performed a certain way.

  2. Communicate your values. All. The. Time. Use your values when you talk about the big picture of your company. Use them to make hiring decisions. And use them in performance conversations. The first step is obviously to establish your values and to ensure that they truly reflect who you are as a company. Then, the more you use them, the more closely your staff will align with the values you hold dear. Staff will either self-select out if they don’t have the same values, or they will be drawn in if your values resonate with them. Both of those consequences create a stronger team.

  3. Practice your listening skills. People want to be heard. Even if you cannot accommodate their requests, people feel better when they have been genuinely listened to. When we truly listen to someone, they feel valued and respected. What a great gift to give to someone! And don’t you think that staff who feel valued and respected will also be motivated to help you and your business? Listening is one of my very favorite topics, you can read more about developing these skills here and here and here and here. (Clearly a favorite topic.)

Your Strengths 

This part isn’t just about understanding your strengths. It’s also about understanding the things you love to focus on; as well as the things you’re not that great at or don’t like to spend time on. Here is a fairly simple exercise to help you determine what you should be delegating. Take a piece of paper and divide it into 4 quadrants. Label the boxes as follows:

  • Top left = enjoy, not great at

  • Bottom left =  don’t enjoy, not great at

  • Bottom right = don’t enjoy, great at

  • Top right = enjoy, great at

From there, insert all of the tasks, responsibilities, and relationships that are on your plate. Look back at your calendar for a few weeks to make sure you capture everything. Once everything is recorded, it should be pretty easy to see which items would be good to delegate. Additionally, by practicing your listening skills, you will hopefully have an idea about staff who would enjoy or be good at the things you don’t like or don’t excel in.

Just Do it

Back to the point at the beginning of this article. Leaders often feel like they have to have everything in place, just right, before they can give a project or task to someone else. As the quote above states, perfection is the enemy of success. Perfection is an illusion, and if you keep waiting for everything to be perfect, you will never be able to let go. By creating the right structure, nurturing quality staff, and communicating consistently you will create a culture of trust. When that exists, you can trust your staff to handle projects and ask for help when needed. Also, your staff will trust that you will support them, even when they get stuck and need additional guidance.

The last point that I want to share on this topic has to do with the fact that you cannot be an effective leader if you are running from one crisis to the next and never taking the time to “work on the business”. A good leader spends time thinking about the direction they are taking their company. They spend time strategizing on how to reach their goals. They focus on how to lead and develop their team members. All of those things take time. Time spent away from the doing and fixing and scrambling. So as you consider what and how much to delegate, make sure you are giving yourself enough time to lead.

Need help establishing the right organizational structure for your business, creating a strong culture, or figuring out how to effectively delegate? Email me at kim@athena-coco.com to schedule a free 30-minute consultation to see how we get you moving on the path to growth.