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Did you know that I used to write, edit, and design all of the newsletters at Newsletter Pro?
It’s funny to think back on now because my skills don’t come anywhere close to what my current creative teams can produce in half the time! But I remember when I first hired a designer and an editor to take over those roles. It was rough — for all three of us!
The reason it was rough in the beginning is the same reason many businesses today plateau. You may be smiling to yourself already because you know exactly what I’m talking about: letting go of the reins.
Man, it is hard!
I have coached so many companies over the years where I have seen the CEO bottleneck a process because they wanted to hang on tightly to what they’d always done. There’s a lot of trust involved in letting someone else take tasks off your hands — tasks that have a high impact on your company, that you developed a process for, and sometimes even that you do the best.
Thinking back to my first designer and editor, I was stressed and distracted from my own work as I focused with a magnifying glass on theirs. If I looked over the shoulders of my current team half as much as I did those first two employees, they would probably slap me. It’s hard to put trust in someone new, especially in areas that directly affect the company and your clients.
But it is necessary if you want to grow.
So, here are a few ways I handle the growing pains whenever I offload something I’ve been in charge of for a long time:
- Adjust Expectations. No matter how incredible someone is, they are not going to do everything the exact same way you’ve been doing it. History has taught me that a lot of the time, their new way of thinking actually helps more than hinders. When looking over their work, I ask myself, “Does it accomplish what it needs to? If I were a client, would this wow me?” If I can’t be objective about it, I get a second (or sometimes third) pair of trusted eyes on it. It is necessary to “trust but verify,” but we’ve got to be objective about it.
- Once Trained, Don’t Look Over Their Shoulders. If you’re going to give someone an opportunity, give them the opportunity. You can still look over the end result after they’ve been trained, but we all know that people don’t produce their best work while a pair of eyes are staring at them.
- Breathe. Seriously. There’s a lot of “fake it till you make it” going on when giving up those reins. One thing that does really help with this is experience. My company has never been permanently affected when we’ve had to let someone go who either lied on their resume or couldn’t do the work properly. On the other side, it has grown in leaps and bounds as the quality of the work continues to rise!
I cannot imagine how small we would be right now if I had succumbed to that uncomfortable feeling and kept doing half of the things I used to do. We would not be the company we are today, that’s for sure!
If you know you’ve been hanging on to a task that you shouldn’t be doing anymore, stop cutting yourself off at the knees. Whether you delegate it or outsource it, I guarantee that taking it off your plate will be the best thing you can do for your company.
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