No one is an island. – Randy Pausch (2008)

Whether you like it or not, you can accomplish a lot more with help.

I also was not a fan of delegating. But by reading the biographies of successful people, I realized that they’d delegate anything they possibly could. I couldn’t stop reading “outsource, delegate, automate everything you can, even choosing what clothes to put on, and what meals you will eat through meal prep!”.

HOW TO DELEGATE

Ask yourself “which of these tasks can only be done by me?”. The answer I am afraid to hear you say is the following: “Everything!”. At least, that was my stubborn answer. The main reasons for this was:

• I didn’t like to rely on people in doing the work as well as I did it
• I didn’t feel confident enough to ask people for favors
• AI (artificial intelligence) was an unknown world that was out there and I didn’t even know it. It could have made my life so much easier, and, more importantly, save me some time.
• Even if I did find a software who would do things for me, I would find it “too expensive” putting money on a pedestal, at the cost of my time

I realized soon enough that I’ll never be successful if I don’t learn about delegation.

DELEGATION

• If on your to-do-list you have written “pay the rent”, then set up an automatic monthly payment. It will go out of your account to your landlord’s monthly. You set it up in max 20 minutes and you will save time. You can do that for any other bill. It’s a small change, but it all adds up!
• You need to answer 20 emails. In this case, you can hire an assistant or VR (Virtual Assistant). At Upwork.com or Fiverr.com you hire VAs to deal with comments and emails. Eventually, you will be able to delegate this very time consuming activity to your VA. Yes you pay him/her, but you are also saving a lot of time. People outsource these types of tasks to good English speakers who live in Asia as their wages are cheaper. This will leave you more time to do the tasks that only you can do such as creating a live video for your personal brand, prepare for a job interview or even write a very personal blog post.

If something can be done 80% as well by someone else, delegate. – John C Maxwell

AS A STUDENT

Wrong.

If you are a Business student at University, don’t you get a ton of group work? Isn’t this a good opportunity to test your leadership skills by learning the vital skill of delegating? You can focus on the 20% most important tasks while you delegate all of the other minor tasks to the rest of the team.

Learning how to delegate, and dealing with people, is extremely tough. Delegating goes hand in hand with clarity: not only you need to pick the right person to do the task, you also need to make it crystal clear what you want done, and when. Moreover, since most people do not do all of the work we have done until now, they fail at it and end up getting frustrated, blaming it on other people rather than their lack of direction.

The bottom line is: don’t waste your time on tasks that anyone can do: you need to focus on tasks that require higher commitment and that are of higher value.

SMART REMINDER

The last arguments I’d like to cover are the Habits 4, 5, and 6 by Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and how they work together in discovering alternative and creative solutions.

Habit 5

Stephen Covey says “Synergy is everywhere in nature. If you plant two plants close together, the roots commingle and improve the quality of the soil so that both plants will grow better than if they were separated. If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold much more than the total weight held by each separately. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three or more.”.

Thus, Covey directs our attention to the power of effective relationships: we can achieve so much more when we engage in effective relationships with others than if we acted alone. It´s the idea that 1+1=3. He notes that synergy is difficult for many of us as independence is promoted as a strong value in the Western world today. Achieving synergy requires high trust and high cooperation and can lead to better solutions than anyone thought of alone.

Habit 4

Once you’ve found someone who would complete or make your work better, we can tackle Habit 4 which explores the notion of “Win Win”.

More often than not, people act in their own best interest. The objective here is to get into the habit of looking for a solution that benefits everyone involved, not just ourselves: “It’s not your way or my way; it’s a better way”.

We are often told that there is only one winner, or if “You win, I lose”. I believe we can find solutions for mutual gain, which have positive outcomes for everyone. Not everyone finds this easy, as it requires trust: it is a habit which has to be learned and practiced.

Habit 6

Stephen Covey believes this principle is the key to effective communication. This habit is about communicating with others. Effective communication starts with active listening.

How many times have we been so focused on what we want to say next, that we didn’t listen to what the other person was saying? If we start by understanding the other person’s point of view, we will be able to communicate our argument in a more relevant way to them, making more of an impact.

You can start practicing this right now: in your next conversation with someone put your natural and automatic responses aside and focus on genuinely understanding them. Ask questions such as:

• how did you feel
• what did you think?
• what’s important for you ?
• then what happened?

You don’t have to get it all right the first time. This is part of a life journey of learning and developing. You will get there if you’re willing to spend the time and effort developing new habits. Food for thought.