If we look again and remind ourselves of the value and benefits of delegation, as I've illustrated them in this book, then delegating, that is to say delegating and delegating well, appears to be a no-brainer. Nonetheless, just like anything that has such wide-ranging advantages, it rarely comes easily, and the greatest reasons that stop it happening well (or even at all) are barriers which first need to be understood in order to be overcome.

Many of the managers and business owners I speak to about delegation highlight barriers to it and many refer to themselves as ‘control freaks’, that is as being unable or unwilling to let go or share their responsibilities with anyone. And yet, even before I started researching delegation in earnest, I knew instinctively that there was more to it than this, because ultimately there are very few people (i.e. nix) whom I have met who wouldn't value more time, or less work to do, and so even if they were worried about letting go many would be happy to do so because of the rewards (time/less work) on offer.

In the initial round of research the results were clear: time is actually and proportionately the biggest barrier to delegation. Often when I stand at the beginning of a workshop or in a keynote and ask for a show of hands, control or trust is identified as the likely biggest barrier in the room, but at the end it is generally agreed that – ironically and in the same way that money begets money – time is the biggest stopper to gaining more time.

Here's an extract from a blog I wrote entitled ‘Money begets money and time begets time’:

When I stand at the top of a workshop or keynote and ask who would like to have more time, there is usually a 100% show of hands. If delegation frees up time then surely it is a must? Everyone nods agreement, so when asked, what stops you delegating? It is usually ‘control’ that yields the greatest response on the first pass. By the end, time is usually the thing that everyone is looking to find in order to increase the delegation in their lives, jobs and businesses.

My own research shows the barriers – in order – to be:

• Time
• Trust/control
• Money
• Know-how

To really paraphrase, let's start at the bottom.

If you don't delegate enough because you don't know how, time in the first instance is likely to be what stops you from learning.

If you don't delegate enough because you don't have the money to outsource or employ anyone to help, more time would help you earn more in order to generate cash to pay someone else.

If you don't delegate enough because you don't trust anyone else to take on some of your workload or responsibilities, it is likely to be because you haven't taken the time to find a person you can trust and train them to help in a way that meets your timescales and standards.

And so if everything loops back to time, having time would enable one to create more time. Ergo, as the saying goes: money begets money, so time begets time. If we take each barrier in turn and examine it more closely, the link back to time becomes all the more evident.

Know-how

If you don't delegate enough because you don't know how, time in the first instance is likely to be what stops you from learning. My own research shows that 80% of managers are not actually sure how to delegate. I find this amazing on one hand, but logical on the other. It's tricky. Some of this inability (to delegate) comes from lack of confidence in their own position and sense of achievement, or lack of comfort with their own authority. In a corporate sense, in truth this is not how this should work at all and its roots, I think, lie in our shift away from older managers. The old way was years of experience (and limited reference to genuine evidence of leadership skills).

I've included a chapter in this book about leadership and new managers because it is incredible how many new managers without delegation training or experience turn into established or ‘experienced’ managers. This happens because of the marvel of inheritance, where everyone knows their job within the team and the manager doesn't actually ever have to delegate anything on their own initiative because it is already done and accepted by the team. It's therefore not surprising that know-how comes up a lot even from apparently established managerial or supervisory staff.

In an SME context, know-how is a biggie because 74.3% of the sector does not employ anyone but the business owner and the majority of the rest never will.¹ If they did, it would be under duress and, even if it were voluntary, their knowledge would be limited. Increasingly so, the act of being self-employed (see my blogs on zero hours contracts et al.²) is the act of creating your own small business but with no expectation of ever being any more than the only employee and therefore a means to creating one's own job. This means that the Office of National Statistics will no doubt find in the future that the number of SMEs employing anyone (currently only 25.7%) will drop even lower. A new category may or may not emerge in terms of self-employed categorization.

Knowing how to delegate for small business owners is essential even if they employ no one. It's common for small businesses to start their delegation journey with a bit of outsourcing to other companies, bookkeepers, virtual assistants, designers and so on. The principle of successful delegation remains the same and so therefore does the know-how, which is essential to get the best from the relevant suppliers. However, it's usually easier in a client/supplier relationship because the recipients of delegated work in this instance know their job and what is needed from their clients (or employers) and are expert at extracting this. The same is less true, of course, of employees and they are more likely to be much more dependent on the employer delegating well.

Know-how or lack of it covers a broad spectrum, and in research can come from simply not knowing how to start the process of recruiting or handing over, or from not knowing what to divest, who to look to for help and how to find them as well as knowing why it would be beneficial in the first place. We tackle all of this in later chapters of this book and through the associated online programme as an ongoing piece of learning.³

In many leadership theories, I find delegation is regarded as a lowly one on the spectrum of management skills. Here I cite in particular a model from one of my MBA textbooks where delegation is clearly shown as a habit acquired early on in the journey of management development on a spectrum of increasingly masterful skills.⁴ Kolb et al. portray delegation as being one of the lowliest of skills managerial toolset whereby entrepreneurialism is the apparent jewel in the glittering crown of successful leadership. I don't mean to sound disparaging but this theory backs up my own thought that delegation is somehow expected to come naturally; it's just a thing that managers acquire pretty early on in their career, almost through a process of osmosis. To my mind, it is comparable to parenting: just because we've all been children doesn't necessarily mean we'll all make good parents. More encouragingly, a research piece by Banford et al. has a reference point that is quoted as follows: ‘Delegation is an under-researched management practice. This paper contributes to the delegation literature by exploring its value to management in a global context.’⁵

Money

In a small business, if you don't delegate enough because you don't have the money to outsource or employ anyone to help, more time would help you to earn more cash to pay someone else. The converse is therefore (as with needing time to get time) that you need money to get more money. In a large or small business it is simply a fact that you may not have the team members to delegate to or the finance to outsource work. Money is an issue, of course, but it can be overcome.

The origins of my research into delegation were driven by its potential economic and commercial value and so, in truth, money is therefore arguably one of the easiest to combat as a barrier. This is so for a number of reasons.

In challenging the traditional definition of delegation we open up the possibility of technology helping to facilitate delegation, especially if it is appropriate to start small with the easiest tasks. It is not appropriate to be specific here but safe to say that applications are available for next to no investment and are geared up to helping people streamline, offload or automate their workload. The point of this within the context of this book is that, in starting to delegate, people that I have worked with are encouraged to start small with basic elements of their workload and to enjoy the little benefits that this brings. It is also a micro trip through the delegation pathway, with all the same principles concerning time investment, thinking through processes, taking time to find the right application (as opposed to the right person), deciding on quality measures, checks and timescales. For next to no money, the delegation process can begin, and then be valued.

So, in most cases where money is the sticking point, the requirement is to build the case for delegation and the resources required to action it. This is relatively easy in the context of an SME but regardless of your own vantage point (business owner or otherwise), to understand this section is a useful basis for building a case for recruitment or outsourcing in any context, either corporate or domestic.

Later on, we cover what to delegate and who to delegate to, but for now let's assume all of that has been done, or at least has been assessed through the completion of a Task List Profile and skillset identification (which we'll cover later in the book as part of your Delegation Plan). As part of this process, let's assume our case is a small business owner. It may or may not be a sole trader; it doesn't really matter at this point. The fact is it/he or she has decided to delegate and gone through a process of deciding what and to whom. It has costed this delegation, either through researching or deciding upon a fair market salary or through having its requirements estimated by a suitable supplier.

So in sparse terms, the owner knows how much the delegation is going to cost. Naturally, there is also the cost and opportunity cost of sourcing or recruiting the supplier or employee as well as time spent training and the lack of return that the employee brings until they are properly up to speed. Insofar as it can be estimated, all of these costs are ideally included in the business case to give a true reflection of the necessary investment and therefore a more accurate prediction of return.

Having fully documented the cost of delegation, it becomes time to return to the ‘why’. Time and again, the ‘why’ (as in, ‘Why do I want to delegate, what's in it for me?’) question comes up. If you get a personal benefit or benefits from a certain action, the action itself becomes habit forming. This is why it is vital to keep that in mind, even if the result feels a long way off and always when things are not going right (we cover that later too).

In revisiting the ‘why’ at this point, it is with the intention of valuing it, or its potential. Table 5.1 lists some examples and how one might value their place in one's life.

I've always tried to find a way to delegate things I'm not keen on doing, or things I'm not good at. This, I think, has always been my natural default. However, when I set up my first ever business, I knew that its ability to grow and its value to any potential purchaser would be substantially higher the less dependent on me, or anyone else for that matter, it was. Even the very small business-for-sale agents acknowledge that a delegated business is worth twice as much.

Having valued the prospective benefits of the delegation, one is in a clear position to build a business case and/or return on investment, or ROI. For a business owner working as a sole trader, government statistics tell us that their average turnover will be £60k. If they plan to delegate 10% of even their 40-hour week, that's four hours. The work is basic admin and will cost them £20 per hour all told, so £80 per week. Their revenue per week based on their having no holiday at all during the year or, at least, continued income while they're away (note all of this serves to under-egg the financial benefit) is £1154. If they aim and manage to increase that by 20%, they will add £231 per week to their revenue, which works out as an 89% ROI. This is illustrated in Figure 5.1.

Thus in regarding delegation and in particular its costs as an investment, we can treat such investment with the expectation of a return and, in doing so, build a business case for delegating in the first place.

Of course, the above is an extremely simple example but it works for everyone if they can find a way to value the benefit. In this example, if the uplift had been only 7% the costs would still have been covered. Health, happiness, the opportunity to retire can be argued as priceless and therefore very difficult to value, especially in advance when the risk is there that it doesn't happen, but for sure if nothing changes, nothing will change.

For an employee, if you're not directly involved in sales or represent more of a cost centre, it's clearly more tricky. There is, however, always a way, because delegation done right (in the right way, of the right things, to the right person and for the right reasons) simply always has benefits that can be valued.

Here's a lovely example from a firm whose ‘heads of’ are involved in a session thinking about delegation and gaining financial benefits in order to build their case for getting more staff. The timing is in the midst of our recent hard-bitten recession and they're feeling overworked, underpaid and distinctly overqualified for a lot of what they are being asked to do. During the part where they are asked to identify – through a Task List Profile – what they would and should most like to delegate, the head of HR talks about reviews that she has to do, write up and add to staff records on a central database. The meetings themselves, she likes; typing up the notes of the meeting, she deplores; and she is not great at the online filing of things either. It drains her energy. She has to gear herself up to do the latter parts and often ends up late with them as they just do not feel like a priority. She has no one to delegate to, particularly because any staff member would need to be in the HR department to protect staff privacy and there is not the budget to provide her with anyone. She could definitely outsource the typing but knows that when other ‘heads of’ are also screaming for resources she is unlikely to get authority for the budget.

As she describes her situation, the head of IT starts to fidget. He wants to say something and can't wait until she finishes. He has an idea and asks if the meeting would be okay to be recorded. She replies that providing the staff member was aware and the recording was kept private she saw no reason why not. He beams and suggests that she could therefore use a software program used elsewhere in the business to record and upload the meeting to the same staff record ready to be searched and listened to if required. A deal is done (sideways or peer-to-peer delegation, which plays to strengths) and he agrees to set it up forthwith. It doesn't take her long to start doing the maths and recognize that in saving the proportion of her salary devoted to doing reviews three times a week she has built a case for delegation. She knows exactly what she wants to do with the six hours a week minimum she has just saved and knows therefore what her next project is going to be and how to value the resources needed.

For the sake of pedantry (and in order for me to claim a victory for delegation), this is the assumed value of that little transaction:

By saving it is appreciated that the salary will still be paid to the Head of HR but it then becomes what she does with that time – to develop her role, department, career – that is of distinct benefit and similarly able to be valued financially at a later point in terms of its benefit. Therefore in this case, the delegation potential is worth so much more than the £11 000 calculated above. So if money is the issue stopping delegation then the answer to overcome it is to regard it as an investment, play it safe, start small and see the return. Taking the time to do this, rather than rest on gut feel, is essential, because if money is spent and delegation doesn't go well, the effect is double reverse. The spending stops, the work is clawed back and the symptoms and frustrations of less delegation rear their ugly head again.

Trust/control

If you don't delegate enough because you don't trust anyone else to take on some of your workload or responsibilities, it is likely to be because you haven't taken the time to find a person you can trust and train them to help in a way that meets your timescales and standards. It's also quite possible that you don't have the money to take the time or the know-how that tells you how much sense it would make to invest the money and time. I'm aware I'm tying up my own barrier definitions here and blurring the lines to confuse. I do that deliberately to illustrate that all barriers are relevant depending on the journey; at times, some or one will be more prevalent than others and that will be a fairly moveable feast.

It's not that I don't trust anyone… it's just that I am a control freak.

It's necessary for me to club trust and control together as I see them as the same thing. I appreciate that I am often alone in this view. My basis sits in the fact that I often hear words akin to ‘I'm a control freak’, ‘I don't like to let go’, ‘I prefer to do it myself’, ‘I’m not sure anyone could do it like I do', ‘I know my own business better than anyone else does’, ‘There are some things other people can't do’ and so on. Guffaw, guffaw, I'm a control freak and that's a good thing. Being a control freak means one thing: you do not or cannot trust anyone else to do it for you. You are more likely to stay small as a business owner, restrict your skill set and experience as an employed manager and frankly break or burnout either way. I say that as a classic control freak myself.⁶

And if we get to that then as a client you are manna from heaven, because control freaks, or those who are prone not to trust others, are often the absolute best delegators in my observation (of hundreds of people). Here is an extract from a blog I wrote in 2012:

By their own admission, control freaks find it hard to let go, hard to believe that someone else will do as good a job, believe that only they can uphold their own standards and are reluctant to release time to hand over workload to someone else.

So why on earth might they make the best delegators? Delegation is an art form and it takes some doing. Those who do it well – like anything – get the most out of it and whilst control freaks take the most persuading to hand over elements of their business, they do it with thought and precision, clear briefing and clear expectation. They almost never just dump and run.

In addition, when it comes to using a call answering service or a virtual assistant (or Virtual PA Company for both), those who take the time to consider their requirements and expectations and bother to bash out and agree a process for each scenario (assuming your provider is receptive to this) get far better service.

My point is that once that trust issue is overcome, usually because a good job is being done and the delegator feels able to hand over more and check up less, the ability to let go of more grows. The delegator gets time to develop the business or the career and the benefits defined in the original ‘why’ become all the more real and achievable.

Naturally, though, if the trust turns out to be misplaced, for whatever reason, the work is not done well or in a timely manner or the delegate is just not performing, the delegator feels justified in his or her original belief that delegation was a bad thing because no one else can do it as well. Work is taken back, the delegator believes the ‘why’ to be unachievable and the status quo resumes (I refer the reader to Chapter 6: Over-capability.)

And here it is, the loop back to time. To overcome the fear of losing control when delegating one has to take time to think about what would be best to delegate – to start with, what the recipient would need to know in terms of timescales, standards, processes, systems and feedback in order to make it a more comfortable arrangement. Time to find the right person qualified to perform the tasks, right, in terms of chemistry and cultural fit, to stand a chance of making it work; and time to coach and mentor them, as well as train them to execute the work, hopefully without stifling any natural creativity and input that the incoming delegate may have to contribute.

Back to time

Given that time is the biggest output and also benefit to delegation, it also figures that time is the biggest barrier and time is the method to getting over that barrier.

A business partner of mine is always saying that sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. This is the case with delegation. You reach a point that, whatever your personal barrier is – know-how, trust/control or money – you have to take time to overcome it. Time to learn, time to recruit/train/manage, time to build the case for investment as well as, in all cases, time to think about what to delegate, time to think about when to delegate, who to delegate to and how to delegate and manage the recipient of delegated work.

So if investing money hopefully means that more money results, so investing time hopefully means that more time results. What one does with the resulting time is the ultimate benefit of delegation.