If You Need Something Done, Do It Yourself
One of the great benefits of being a leader, manager, business owner or any other similar position/title is that you get to delegate task and get away from micro-managing.
However is this benefit really a golden jewel or can it be a curse in disguise. Many have become successful by learning the art of building strong, knowledgeable and talented teams around them and then letting those individuals do what they do best and in the process they lead the heads of their companies into millions and make them look like pure geniuses.
On the other hand when you depend and count upon another individual to get something done for your company without keeping a close eye on the progress of the assignment or project, you soon can begin to lose sight of what is going on within your company.
You never want to get so out of touch that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing, because that other hand could be doing things that totally go against your visions and goals for the company.
Even on a much smaller scale while you’re operating a project with a partner you must be totally sure that you know what is going on within the business and if something is of major importance, it might not be a bad idea to go ahead and complete the task yourself.
Recently with one of my ventures I told my business partner to get some important paperwork and secure a deal on some insurance for one of our contracts we were pursuing.
As a result the task went a couple of days without being done and I mistakenly didn’t follow-up, but instead I just assumed that it had been handled.
When about three days passed and I hadn’t heard anymore about the issue, nor had I received any faxes about the paperwork I got suspicious and phoned my partner, only to find out that he too was very busy and accidentally forgot all about contacting the insurance broker.
As a result we didn’t have the proper paperwork to submit our bid like we had planned and who knows it could have been a lost deal.
There is nothing wrong with delegating task; in fact it is an excellent thing for an entrepreneur to do.
However always stay in touch and communicate with your associates as much as possible to ensure that things are done according to schedule. In fact if something is of great importance, it would be smart to tackle the task yourself just to eliminate lost time and minimize hiccups and mistakes.
4 Comments
Gina Laverde
December 13th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
great point william. NO ONE can understand the passion that goes into OUR particular work — so, often times we are the best “guys” for the job. I find sometimes that I complete tasks quicker than people on my team because the end result means more to me.
William
December 13th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
That’s true Gina, now I’m trying to make sure I stay on top of task myself instead of delegating.
In the past I would sit around and “expect” things to get done instead of stepping up to the plate and doing them myself. So when a deadline came around it would be too late because I wasn’t staying on top of my projects properly!
However I’ve improved greatly in this area, thanks for your comment.
David Askaripour
December 13th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
I once read that a businessman who stops micro-managing is a businessman who stops running a business. I think that that’s pretty accurate to a large degree, especially from my own experiences. Thanks, William!
William
December 14th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
I would say that’s definitely a true statement David.
When you’re not micro-managing then you truly don’t have any idea what’s going on.
However many successful entrepreneurs have run companies like this, like say Warren Buffet, he writes his company’s executives a letter at the beginning of the year of the goals he wants accomplished for the year and that’s it!
He leaves the rest up to them, but as we all know Warren Buffet is a very unique entrepreneur/investor who always has done things completely opposite of his counter-parts.
For now my businesses are very small and there is absolutely no need for me not to micro-manage unless I’m just being lazy! Thanks for your comments David and Gina I enjoyed the discussion!
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