Episode 85

Learn How to Trust a New Hire and The Pillars of Delegation

Learn the foundational principles for what makes someone good at delegation. Brantley unpacks the four ways in which someone with no experience can become an effective—even good manager—even if they are a control freak! He'll show you how to gradually trust someone, build trust, and create skillset that lets you recover your time and your peace of mind.

This episode covers the topic of delegation, management, time management, hiring, micro-management, build a business, team structure, reporting, and business administration.


Transcript
Pierce Brantley:

Welcome to lunchbreak a special weekly series of the

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eternal entrepreneur that gives you sized pieces of wisdom on how to do

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the function of faith and business.

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Each episode unpacks, a short, actionable topic you can put into practice this week.

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Let's get into it.

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Well, hello and welcome back to the eternal entrepreneurial podcast.

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I am Pierce Brandley co-host of the show.

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I hope most of you are listening to this at least on Tuesday, not Christmas day.

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I know I'm enjoying time with family.

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It gets much needed time off and just reflecting on just how

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faithful God has been over the last year in my life with my business.

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And so I hope that the same has been true for you as well, that you're cozied up.

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You're drinking some hot chocolate.

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You're giving yourself some agency to go gain a little extra weight

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while you enjoy some extra pie.

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My wife made four pies.

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We literally have a pie drawer in the fridge and it makes me really happy.

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It makes me really, really happy.

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I've been doing keto like all year.

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And the fact that I've got two coconut cream pies, two cherry pies,

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I think a something with Marangu and I don't know, I don't care.

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I'm going to try it just puts me in a good place.

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Another thing that puts me and everyone in the good place is the topic of delegation.

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How's that for a segue?

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I'm joking.

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No, but we are going to talk about delegation to.

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And specifically, I want to talk to those folks who may have been diagnosed with

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what I like to call control, freak, itis.

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I think that is the medical term and it's a debilitating

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predicament wherein you can't do anything without doing it yourself.

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And no one else can do anything without you doing it

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yourself for them through them.

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And so this is where the power of delegation really comes into play.

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And it's something I've been studying for the last year and a half.

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I'm working on a book.

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And so I want to share some concepts with you.

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If you're in a place where, you know, you need to start offloading work to someone

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else, but the thought of doing so is a little bit daunting either because a,

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you don't know where to start in terms of what to hand off or B the thought of

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handing something off actually scares you.

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It gives you anxiety.

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This is what I want to talk about is kind of how to move away from the work so that

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you can be more effective so that you can recapture your time and believe it or not,

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delegation actually gives you leverage.

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You get more done through other people when you employ delegation.

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Rightly so to illustrate the effectiveness.

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Delegation, think back to your high school days, this idea of a fulcrum,

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a fulcrum is a simple machine.

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You can think of like a, it's got a pivot point in it with like a

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board, a top, a top, like a Seesaw.

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And you can lift a lot of weight because of that pivot point, that

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point, that fulcrum point that allows you to get leverage out of

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something on the other end of some.

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We call this mechanical advantage.

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You probably familiar with the term for back in the day, in the same

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way you have managerial advantage when you leverage the expertise.

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And the time of someone else, you are able to lift more work and just like

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in a fulcrum where the farther you move away from that point, the more weight

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you're able to lift, the farther you move away, systematically from the jobs being

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done, the more you're able to leverage other people's time to get more done.

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It's a fascinating phenomenon.

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Your fulcrum, meaning that point at which something pivots,

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there are four phases of it.

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Meaning delegation has four very clear ways in which you can move systematically

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away from the work you are doing.

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And the four fulcrums, the four positions of the folk are moving away from the work

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are firstly, you don't know what else.

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Second is you can't do what I can do.

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The third is, you know what I don't know.

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And fourthly, lastly, we have, you can do what I can't do.

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So, what do all of these kinds of four positions mean?

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First off the baseline one, the one that every control, freak, every

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micromanager or just someone who's really comfortable and close to the

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work who has to move away from it.

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You don't know what I know.

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This is the the core fear and the core belief.

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And possibly to some extent the truth that anyone who has to move that work off

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their plate for the first time you have to come to terms with what is kind of keeping

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you from getting someone to do the work.

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And you don't know what I know is the first admission of that.

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And so in order to solve.

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You need to move into knowledge, transfer really, really quickly.

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And you have to reverse engineer what you know, and teach someone now

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that doesn't make them an expert or good at the work, but it does help

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them understand both your mindset and tactically, how to do the job in front

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of them, that you will no longer do.

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So.

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The first part of delegation is you don't know what I know.

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And to change that, to move past that you need to communicate everything, you know,

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practically about getting the work done.

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Once you've done that, you can move to the second fulcrum.

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You can move your delegation expertise one step forward, which

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is you can't do what I can do.

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As we all know, head knowledge does not an expert make.

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You have to have that practical experience.

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And so to move someone into that practical experience, they need to start shadowing.

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And doing the work alongside you.

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This is like a show and tell versus just a tell you need both aspects.

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So for gated amount of time, a let's call it like a probationary period.

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In this second phase of delegation, you should be letting someone watch and

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learn the technique and then try it.

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They will not be perfect at it, and you should not expect

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them to be perfect at it.

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What you should expect them to do is have basically on the job training.

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And as soon as you see them getting past a threshold of, of

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acceptance, you should start to move away from that part of the work.

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And so the second folk room you can't do, what I can do is all about.

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Helping you come to terms with the fact that eventually they will be able to

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do what you can do and you can step away from that piece of the work.

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Then you gain even more of your time back.

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Now, once you feel comfortable with how someone can do the work, you

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move to the third folk room, the third phase, and now you're really

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starting to get away from things.

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So now someone has the head knowledge, they have the ability to do the job.

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You've recovered a lot of time.

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The next phase.

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You know what?

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I don't know, meaning because they are the ones daily involved in the work

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because they are the ones doing the job.

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Now they actually have a better pulse on that work than you do.

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And that is a good thing that this is where.

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Entrepreneurs most first-time managers start to get a little

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bit nervous, especially if they like the details, because now

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they're disconnected from them.

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And so you need to be honest about that, but you can go and solve that too, because

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just being good at a job and knowing how to do it doesn't mean they're actually

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being an effective from a business perspective, meaning they're meeting some

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metrics or some KPIs that benefit the.

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We all know that just hitting a number for numbers sake does not

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actually equate to a good output.

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So in the phase of you don't know what, I don't know you're removed from the

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work, but it becomes really important that you start to implement report.

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Now in this phase of delegation, you need to start having weekly,

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monthly, and quarterly meetups with that person in order to understand

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how they're maintaining the job that you no longer do that they do.

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So weekly looks like kind of, more deeply.

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Reporting.

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You're looking to see if the main benchmarks goals, project

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timelines, if they are getting the tasks done and you want to

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understand blockers, but ultimately you're removed from the details.

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And so that time of meeting once a week needs to be a fairly high level.

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You just want to understand basically.

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Are you moving along successfully?

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Do you have any blockers and what are the notable things that happened in

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the last week and the monthly phase?

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You're looking to head up from that.

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You're looking at projects, you're looking at milestones, you're looking at overall

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effectiveness and growth of the employees.

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I think quarterly or even yearly, depending on the type of business

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you have, you're looking much more at how their role is helping

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shape the business over time.

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And so this third phase, while it's often the hardest one for an entrepreneur to

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struggle with is the one that helps you make sure that the machine is well oiled.

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So if you think about a gear in its place The effectiveness of the gear

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depends on where it's positioned.

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And it depends on what part of the machine.

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And that's all about finding the right person, putting them in the

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right role, making sure they can do the job, making sure that machine

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is well oiled is all about reporting and it's something that is an active

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maintenance so that you can trust the machine is working the way it should.

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Now, lastly, the last fulcrum, this is when you are

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completely sort of abstracted.

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So the person knows what they are doing.

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They can do the job effectively without you.

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And they actually now know more than you do about the day in the

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life of the work getting done, and they are shaping the business.

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So at this point you are.

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More or less getting pretty good at delegation.

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And the only thing you're now concerned with is the fact that

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they can do what you cannot do, meaning they are now the experts,

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they know more they've lived in it.

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And because of that, they actually can do more than you

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originally could do in that role.

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So they are now the, the SMI the subject matter expert and the person who is best

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positioned in the organization in the organization, other than you actually

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more so than you to get the work done.

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And this takes a little bit of time, but depending on the person and depending

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on the work you might get there faster than you think at this point.

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They can do what you never could have done before.

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They're in a position to start leading other people because they

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are now capable of re replicating the process that you just did with them.

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They know more than the average person they've been in the role for a long time,

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and they have the ability to walk through.

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Again.

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So depending on kind of the trajectory of your own business, once someone

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is in a position that they know more than you originally knew, and

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they can do more than you could originally do, it's time to consider.

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If it's right for the organization, for them to actually move into management,

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if they're the right person for it, from the temperament and desire and your

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business needs to grow in that direction.

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This is probably a time at which they can start replicating that

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delegatory process all over again.

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These are the four phases of delegation, the four fulcrums, the

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farther you move away from the work, the more work you will get done.

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First phages, you don't know what I know, meaning you're the expert.

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The second phase is you can't do what I can do.

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Meaning you may understand that.

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Computationally, but you don't have that practical expertise.

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So give them that practical expertise.

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Thirdly, you have, you know what, I don't know, meaning they are living day in the

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life more than you are, which makes them the best person to go to about facts

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and details and progress in that role.

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And then lastly, You can do what I can do.

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They are now the foremost expert in the organization, both from a head

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knowledge and expertise, position of things to lead that area of your business

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completely and likely if they're the right person, they're a good candidate

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for management and to replicate that delegatory process all over again.

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So this is a lunch.

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If you're a control freak.

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If you have trouble letting go, just like me, I hope these four

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phases have been effective for you.

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What I would ask is the next time that you bring someone into the organization,

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you know, that that's kind of a pain point where you got to bring somebody

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in, instead of just shoveling everything off to them from a, because you have

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to, because time is of the essence.

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Go through this phase, these phases methodically move from

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teaching to modeling and doing, to reporting to letting them

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replicate the process through.

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All over again.

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All right.

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My friends, I hope you have had a fantastic holiday break.

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Merry Christmas.

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God bless you.

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And don't forget to think the tunneling.

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Thank you for listening.

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If you enjoyed the show, do me a favor and leave a quick review.

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When you do it helps other entrepreneurs find this content and

About the Podcast

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Eternal Entrepreneur—Equipping Christian Businesses
Podcast for the Christian Business, The Kingdom Business, and Faith-based Entrepreneur

About your hosts

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Pierce Brantley