REALTOR® Magazine Online: Delegation: Tips on Letting Go

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			*Becoming a leader* MAKING TIME TO LEAD
	Developing Leadership Skills Communicating Like a Leader Leading Others Making Time to Lead Handling Difficult Employees Developing Your Team Dealing with Stress More Resources		It’s all too easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day activities of running a brokerage and fail to do the strategic thinking and training that will make the company a success--especially for new brokers without experience managing a company. Delegation: Tips on Letting Go It's hard for entrepreneurs to rely on others, but delegation identifies you as a leader. It improves your productivity and frees up time to focus on how best to achieve the organization's goals. Use these tips to become better at delegation. Decide what to delegate. List your typical daily activities, and determine what items you must personally complete. Then eliminate needless tasks, and delegate whatever is left. TIP: Push each function as far down the hierarchy as possible. If you can get something done 70 percent as well as you could do it for 30 percent of the cost, it makes good business sense to consider the compromise. “Learn to Be a Master Delegator!” Joseph P. Klock, Real Estate Today , March 1995 Provide a mix of tasks. Don't delegate tasks simply to avoid them. Delegate not only mundane tasks, but good ones as well. Challenging assignments give your staff an opportunity to learn, grow, and increase their value to the company. Delegate to the right people. Assess your staff members’ attitude and capabilities, and choose the right person for each job. Explain tasks thoroughly. The time it takes to teach someone else to do the job is far less than you'd spend over time doing it yourself. Make sure the person understands what needs to be done. Don't expect perfection. Delegation requires an acceptance of risk and tolerance for failure. Give people permission to make mistakes. Consider delegation a learning opportunity, not an excuse for finger pointing. Assign responsibility. Give delegates authority to make decisions and develop judgment, and inform all staff which tasks have been delegated. Don't relinquish responsibility. Create a procedure for monitoring progress on tasks that you have delegated and establish checkpoints so you can make sure workers are on the right track. Assess progress. Determine how often or at what points you will require a progress report. What information will you want? Should it be in written form or in a short face-to-face meeting? TIP: Delegate more than you want to and earlier than you need to. Sarah Gracie, “Delegate, don’t abdicate,” Management Today , March 1999. Time Management for the Manager These tips will help you prevent others from squandering your time and increasing your stress. Control your time. Don't let subordinates gobble up your time by delegating up, or leaning on you to solve their problems. Show them that you're sympathetic, then make your best suggestion or delegate elsewhere so you can get busy on your own work. Don't oversupervise. Be sure your staff understands what needs to be done, then turn to other matters. Avoid micro-managing or hovering. Minimize interruptions. It can take you five minutes or more to resume productive work after an interruption. Set a schedule and let others know when you are available for visitors and phone calls. Schedule smart. Group appointments outside of the office so you only have to leave the office once or twice a day. Minimize interruptions . Ask workers to send you routine questions via e-mail or voice mail. This allows you to choose when you’ll take time to respond. Set limits on appointments and meetings. Tell your visitor you can only give them five minutes. This forces them to focus on the important issues and avoid socializing. Assert your needs. Tell visitors or workers when you're working on an important project that must be completed by the end of the day. Offer to make an appointment to talk later. Keep discussions focused. If it begins to drift into social chitchat, ask the person what they need or how you can help them to redirect the interruption to business issues. Send nonverbal cues. Stand when someone enters your office to signal that the conversation should be short. Other signals to keep the interruption brief or to cut short a discussion that has wandered into social chitchat include moving papers on your desk or glancing at your watch. Portions adapted from “How to handle Interruptions that steal your time,” Steve Kaye, The Canadian Manager, Summer 1999, and “15 time wasters for supervisors, Robert D. Ramsey, Supervision, June. TIP: For help training yourself and your staff in better time management skills, visit the prepackaged sales meeting on time management . Better Ways to Provide Feedback >

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