Author: Anne

Consumed by your business?  

Tired?

Burnt out?

You can choose to alter and start managing wiser. There are a lot who would say they’re managing wiser, but are they really implementing the strategy or are they just investing lip service to the idea?

Working ‘On’ your Business

It was Michael Gerber who outlined on ‘The E-Myth Revisited’ the efficient strategy of managing ‘on’ your organisation rather than managing ‘in’ it.

One has to exhaust all her time in the day to day operations like accounts and managing staff. Managing your business requires you to Stop. Stop..take a deep brOne has to exhaust all his or her time in the day-to-day operations like accounts and managing staff. Managing your business requires you to stop. Stop, take a deep breath, and look at the entirety of your business objectively. This includes marketing, strategies, systems and procedures. Looking after your business gives you an opportunity to assess, evaluate and identify new improvements, possibilities and ideas. It’s the difference between your business providing you with a job and the success you truly deserve. This is essential to provide you with the knowledge and information you need to be effective.

The most essential aspect of managing on your business is that you take time about once every week to be away from your organisation with the only purpose of looking at it rationally. There are many things which can be considered in this time, which range from vision, strategies and systems. Until you stop and do this, your organisation is likely to keep managing you, leaving you jaded, uninspired and unable to reach your full potential. At this stage, don’t worry about the information on what you need to do in the ‘once’ every week – that will become apparent as you do it. Think about the concepts, improvements and opportunities you may see.

Wouldn’t it be better if it’s an organisation that you run and control effectively rather than an organisation that controls and runs you until you’re burnt out?

YES! Delegation is one of the most imperative management skills. Good delegation saves you time, develops your people, grooms a successor and motivates. Poor delegation will cause you frustration, demotivate and confuse the other person and result in failure in achieving the task or purpose itself.

Here are the simple steps to know when your delegation is a success:

Follow these simple steps and dive right into delegation. As you become more successful in delegating, you will feel more certain in adding to your ‘Stop Doing’ list. Then, use your time on something much more impactful for your business or much more pleasurable for you.

We have prepared the best tips for you to be better in management.

So, you have become a manager, but you are now looking for ways to be better in managing. Well then, you have come to the right place as we have prepared the best tips ever. Read down below, and enjoy the ride.

Strategise

There are many ways to outwit everyone else when it comes to managing a business. Since there are a lot of factors that need to be considered, the key is to maximising everything. Planning ahead is one proven way to a better management. You can do this by customising all the perils of management that was mentioned previously. Doing this can prepare you on future problems that you may face. It is never outdated to always hope for the best yet be prepared for the worst.

Delegate

Accepting that you cannot do everything is vital to be able to lead well. Having so many limitations makes it impossible for anyone to do a ‘one-man’ show and become successful.

Whilst it may give you a lot of peace of mind knowing that you are able to greatly perform tasks on the basis of your own standard of greatness, you can actually accomplish more by delegating other stuff to others. This will be possible if you are able to train them to think and do things the way you will. Proper delegation involves being able to delegate the tasks accurately with set expectations and troubleshooting methods in case the expectations are not met.

Hire Virtual Assistants

If you have budget constraints and will have difficulty hiring traditionally, getting help from virtual assistants is your best option. In fact, there are lot of cases wherein it was proven that hiring someone to work virtually is much more effective than hiring conventionally. Not only that virtual workers cost less, other matters, such as benefits, taxes, office resources, and supplies, will not be a problem. Setting up a virtual office is surely more cost-effective than having to set up an actual office. The key is to look for quality virtual assistants that can really help your business. Virtual assistants are abundantly available on the internet; they offer different skill sets and levels of expertise.

Gather Financial Resources

Whilst keeping your outflow fluid, it is also essential that you have solid backup resources when it comes to your finances. In the event that you are unable to sustain your cash outflow vis-à-vis your cash inflow, having alternative ways to gather up finances is very important. One best way is to strengthen up your credit rating. To be assured that in the event that you will need additional capital, having the ability to secure loans is very important. When a calamity happens or an economic bump is underway, being amongst the first on the list of qualified businesses that can avail of assistance, whether from a private or government agency, is great for your business. Keeping close ties with other business owners is also one great mode of securing your financial fluidity.

Innovate

There is no sense arguing about all industries being saturated already. The business world is, no doubt, highly populated already; both with big and small players. There is no way that your venture will be successful unless you are able to provide new and fresh offers and contributions to your industry. If you cannot offer any innovation, then you will be amongst the thousand hopefuls whose dreams were turned into nightmares. It is important that you will be able to offer new and exciting stuff to your target market. Whether it is a new marketing strategy or a unique brand, the key is to be perceived different. If you will just follow the leaders in your industry or plan to duplicate one company’s success, the likelihood of getting your own success will be very remote. And if for some luck you did get successful by reproducing other’s triumph, it is expected that unless you innovate, your success will not last for so long.

Leaders, business owners, directors, entrepreneurs, whatever you call them, make decisions everyday – decisions that will be significant to the success of the company. It requires years of training and experience, years of ups and downs and years of trials and tests. These are the people who refuse to give up, persevere and kept on moving forward when all else fail.

These are the kind of people who identify the problem, focusing on the solutions instead of the situation. Once you have identified the problem, this will determine your steps as to where to start. Think through the key details about the problem, and collect any significant information.

Often, the act of gathering information is the first step towards resolving the issue. Sometimes, it’s worth talking to your next in line because most of the time the underlying cause of a problem is not conspicuous.

Once you have identified the problem, then you can generate possible solutions. Try to think on multiple solutions, and treat each worthy of consideration. Brainstorming is most of the time worth trying by gaining fresh viewpoints. Get the facts and figures, think on the pros and cons of each idea and compare.

At this stage, you have already spent a fair amount of time on the problem at hand, and of course, you want to see it taken care of. Make the decision, but before you go any further, it’s important to look critically at the problem and review your decision.

By applying experience or divergent thinking, a leader can distinguish similar situations and can be confident with the decision. You have to accept responsibility for the decision. As Tony Robbins said,

It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.

Tony Robbins

Many companies and businesses stop growing because they refuse to delegate. It is a result of thinking that tasks can be handled by one person only.

If big companies, such as Yahoo and Google, delegate tasks – even allow home-based jobs – then why can’t you?

Psychologically, entrepreneurs are scared of delegating what they have created. They are afraid of taking the BIG leap of delegating tasks and letting others oversee them; afraid of making mistakes along the way; afraid that someone brighter than them would handle the tasks with flying colours and end up being their competitor instead of being their worker. But hey, if big companies see that they are growing through the delegation of tasks to tons of people, then probably it’s worth the try. Don’t you think so?!

Regardless of what the argument is, the result of delegating tasks has been proven and tested already, and all you have to do is follow what the BIG guys are doing. Who knows? You might see yourself one day enjoying with your family at your favourite beach, with your favourite cocktail drink in your hand. You might be enjoying the clear blue skies and loving life whilst you’re confident enough that your business is running smoothly because of the BIG leap that you took that you thought was scary.

Businesses these days must be smart. Entrepreneurs look for ways to stay in the business lane. Some look for alternatives to survive because of their inability to thrive within large businesses.

Realising this truth, businesses should be able to evolve in the rapidly changing market. Indeed, businesses these days have to be smarter to survive.

What are Leadership and Delegation?

Delegation is the act of assigning tasks and responsibilities, together with the necessary authority (leadership) to carry them out, to your employees. Effective delegation can save you time and motivate your team by demonstrating that you trust them and value their abilities.

Common Mistakes Managers Make When Delegating

• Don’t give enough freedom
• Don’t communicate clearly
• Aren’t open to new ideas

How to Delegate

Firstly, concentrate on the most important matters yourself. You should be doing activities that only you can do (that involve a high level of skill and, ideally, that you enjoy doing). When delegating, set broad controls and allow your team to make mistakes.

Communicate Clearly

Take the time to make your requirements known to your team member. Give a clear picture of the results you expect, the time limits involved and the authority being transferred to that team member. Also, make sure other people in the organisation know about the delegation so they can support it.

Encourage Participation

Employees are least satisfied and least motivated when they can’t inject their own ideas into the project. They need to be able to display their own talents.

Examine Results Not Methods

An effective delegator needs to accept varying approaches to achieving results. Since no two people approach a solution in exactly the same way, you need to concentrate on whether the desired results are being achieved or not or whether they are being achieved your way. A poor delegator says, ‘This is what we want to achieve, and this is how we will proceed.’ An effective delegator says, ‘Here is the result we have agreed we want to accomplish; give me your best recommendations as to how we can get that result.’

Show Trust

Allow your team members to get the job done without micromanaging. Excessive checking will convince the employees that they are not really responsible for the job.

Delegate Credit Only

You cannot delegate blame. Remember that you bear the final responsibility for the actions of your team

Know Your Team

You need to know what and how much you can delegate to a person. You should gradually increase the level of responsibility and importance of the tasks as results are successfully achieved.

Things to Avoid

Don’t let the chain of command get too long. If there are too many levels of responsibility, some information will never trickle all the way to the bottom.
Don’t ask one subordinate to report to two people. It will be impossible for the subordinate to decide whose work comes first.
Don’t make fuzzy job assignments. Grey areas between positions simply invite overlap, conflict and duplication of effort.
Don’t be too rigid. Try to maintain flexibility to provide for situations that inevitably crop up and need nonstandard solutions.

Exercise

Make a list of three things you are doing today that you should be delegating. Identify who you will delegate them to, and write down how you will go about doing so. Then, delegate.

We have prepared six ways to your successful delegation, so chill out; have others do your work.

To realise everything you are capable of achieving and to be able to concentrate on those few tasks that can make the greatest contribution to your life and work, you must become excellent at delegation. Whether you are a boss or an employee, it is a universal key to success. You must be continually seeking ways to outsource, delegate and get other people to do things that pay you a lower hourly rate than you desire to earn.

There are several ways in which you can become more effective at delegating and outsourcing or hiring other people to do parts of your work so that you can do the parts of your job that pay the most.

When to Delegate?

1. Instead of You?

Ask the question, ‘Who can do this job instead of you?’ Remember, you have to delegate everything possible in order to have enough time to do those few things that are most important.

2. Better than You?

You should ask, ‘Who can do this job better than me?’ One of the characteristics of effective managers and successful leaders is that they have the ability to find people who are superior to them in specific tasks. You should continually be looking for people who can do certain parts of your work better than you.

3. At a Lower Cost?

Evaluate the job and ask, ‘Who can do this job at a lower cost than I require?’ Many companies and individuals are finding that they can outsource major parts of their operations to companies who specialise in such areas. Companies that specialise in a particular function can usually do the job cheaper and faster than a company that does that work as part of its other activities.

4. Can It Be Eliminated?

Ask yourself and others, ‘Can this activity be eliminated altogether?’ What would happen if the job was not done at all? Many of the routinised tasks and activities in a company or business could be quite easily eliminated with no loss of productivity and a massive increase in ineffectiveness.

It is amazing how many activities go on in a business and private life that could be quite easily discontinued completely, with no loss or inconvenience to anyone. Rooting out these opportunities for increased efficiency can dramatically escalate profitability for an organisation or department.

To achieve everything you are capable of achieving, and to be able to concentrate on those few tasks that can make the greatest contribution to your life and work, you must become excellent at delegation. Whether you are a boss or an employee, it is a universal key to success. You must be continually seeking ways to outsource, delegate and get other people to do things that pay you a lower hourly rate than you desire to earn.

There are several ways that you can become more effective at delegating and outsourcing, or hiring other people to do parts of your work so that you can do the parts of your job that pay the most.

What are Leadership and Delegation?

Delegation is the act of assigning tasks and responsibilities, together with the necessary authority (leadership) to carry them out, to your employees. Effective delegation can save you time and motivate your team by demonstrating that you trust them and value their abilities.

Common Mistakes Managers Make When Delegating

• Don’t give enough freedom
• Don’t communicate clearly
• Aren’t open to new ideas

Firstly, concentrate on the most important matters yourself. You should be doing activities that only you can do (that involve a high level of skill and, ideally, that you enjoy doing). When delegating, set broad controls and allow your team to make mistakes.

Take the time to make your requirements known to your team member. Give a clear picture of the results you expect, the time limits involved and the authority being transferred to that team member. Also, make sure other people in the organisation know about the delegation so they can support it.

Encourage Participation

Employees are least satisfied and least motivated when they can’t inject their own ideas into the project. They need to be able to display their own talents.

Examine results not methods

An effective delegator needs to accept varying approaches to achieving results. Since no two people approach a solution in exactly the same way, you need to concentrate on whether the desired results are being achieved or not or whether they are being achieved your way. A poor delegator says, ‘This is what we want to achieve, and this is how we will proceed.’ An effective delegator says, ‘Here is the result we have agreed we want to accomplish; give me your best recommendations as to how we can get that result.’

Show trust

Allow your team members to get the job done without micromanaging. Excessive checking will convince the employees that they are not really responsible for the job.

Delegate credit only

You cannot delegate blame. Remember that you bear the final responsibility for the actions of your team

Know your team

You need to know what and how much you can delegate to a person. You should gradually increase the level of responsibility and importance of the tasks as results are successfully achieved.

Things to avoid

Don’t let the chain of command get too long. If there are too many levels of responsibility, some information will never trickle all the way to the bottom.
Don’t ask one subordinate to report to two people. It will be impossible for the subordinate to decide whose work comes first.
Don’t make fuzzy job assignments. Grey areas between positions simply invite overlap, conflict and duplication of effort.
Don’t be too rigid. Try to maintain flexibility to provide for situations that inevitably crop up and need nonstandard solutions.

Exercise

Make a list of three things you are doing today that you should be delegating. Identify who you will delegate them to, and write down how you will go about doing so. Then, delegate.

So, success; how does that really work, yeah? And you may be wondering how to be successful in your business? Well, the idea itself is the most important. The very concept of success will blast you.

‘Success doesn’t come to you, you go to it.’
– Marva Collins

We’ve all had them. Those days when discouragement threatens to defeat purpose and conviction and start us down the steep, slippery slope of self-doubt.

The early days of entrepreneurship are filled with activity and busyness. Once that initial phase passes and things settle down to a more or less predictable routine, when our fantasies of tremendous wealth have not materialised after six months of endeavour, when someone is critical, when those orders just aren’t coming in no matter what we do or how many hours we work … we get discouraged and begin to question whether we really do have the right stuff for this business, after all!

So, how do you get through those times of self-doubt and back into the saddle? The first thing is to prepare for them. KNOW that there are going to be ‘days like these.’ If you expect them, then you
will be better able to recognise them for what they are and not give them greater prominence than they deserve. Nine times out of ten, things really DO look better in the morning!

Next, get right back to basics. What motivates you and keeps you focused? What are your motivation and purpose in starting your own business? The strength of your purpose will ultimately determine your level of motivation and hence determination. Is your purpose clear in your mind? If not, maybe you need to remind yourself of the reasons why you want to work for yourself. You may find that your reasons aren’t sufficient motivators. If not, find some that are.

Remind yourself of your purpose when you need to motivate yourself. If you’re a mom, perhaps your purpose in starting your home business was so you could be home with your children rather than in the paid workforce. So, when you’re feeling discouraged because you didn’t land that account you wanted or didn’t make that sale, remind yourself why you’re doing this in the first place. Picture your children. Visualise your purpose as vividly as you can. Then harness that motivation and turn it into energy you can direct back into your business. Use that energy to examine why you didn’t land the account or make the sale and then change whatever needs to be changed. By making changes in response to such stimuli, you are increasing the odds of being successful next time around.

Your response to setbacks will also be determined by your personal confidence level. A confident individual is more resilient in the face of setbacks, whereas a less confident person is more likely to react to a setback as an indication that he or she is not really capable of being successful. Your response to setbacks is critical to the future success or failure of your business. If you’re someone whose self-talk is positive, you will tell yourself, ‘Well, that approach didn’t reach what I wanted. I’ll have to try something different.’ If, on the contrary, your self-talk is pretty negative, you are much more likely to tell yourself ‘Well, that obviously didn’t work. I just don’t have what it takes to be a success at this.’

*The difference between the two is that the positive self-talker refuses to internalise a setback as a personal failure. By contrast, the negative self-talker doesn’t view the setback as just part of the external environment where the business operates but, rather, internalises the setback as a personal failure.*

So, watch your self-talk. The language you use in your thoughts makes an enormous impression on your subconscious. If you impress upon your subconscious that you are not deserving of success, your subconscious will busily go about proving the truth of that statement. Similarly, if you impress upon your subconscious that you are a successful, confident person, it will work just as hard to validate that presumption. The important point is this: your subconscious DOESN’T CARE where it takes you. It will literally take you WHEREVER you program it to go.

One highly effective technique to help remove the negative self-talk that can be so harmful to long-term success is self-hypnosis. There are many good induction tapes available that will guide you into a state of deep mental relaxation and then provide you with positive suggestions. If you are in a state of deep relaxation when you receive a positive suggestion, it will be absorbed much more readily by your subconscious, where those nagging self-doubts emanate from in the first place. Choose a tape that deals with such issues as self-confidence or positive thinking. By programming your subconscious with positive messages of confidence and success, it will actively go to work integrating those qualities.

Do not underestimate the value of positive programming and the danger of negative programming in determining the ultimate success of your business. It may very well mean the difference between stunning success and whimpering failure.

Do you feel stressed and overloaded?
If so, then you may need to brush up your delegation skills!

This is reality. You can’t do everything that everyone wants, and this can leave you stressed, unhappy and overloaded.

To delegate effectively, choose the right tasks to delegate, identify the right people to delegate to, and delegate in the right way. There’s a lot to this, but you’ll achieve so much more once you’re delegating effectively!

This is why delegation is such an important skill and is one that you absolutely have to learn!

Would you rather be focusing on all of the things you have to do, or do you want to use that time to get results that really matter to you? – Tony Robbins

The power of delegation

As an entrepreneur, your time is your most valuable asset, which is why delegation is so important. As a leader, your job is to concentrate on those things that only you, as the leader, can do. This is where the effectiveness of an organisation increases exponentially. Effective delegation is the secret to successful leadership. The purpose is twofold: to accomplish the task at hand and to develop the employee in charge of its completion. If applied properly, it’s a technique that saves time, money and morale whilst increasing the capabilities of your human resources. Mishandled, delegation can be a catastrophic failure resulting in poor performance, resentment and inefficiency.

Keeping Control

Take time to explain why they were chosen for the job, what’s expected from them during the project, the goals you have for the project, all timelines and deadlines and the resources on which they can draw. And agree a schedule for

Make sure that the team member understands that you want to know if any problems occur and that you are available for any questions or guidance needed as the work progresses.

We all know that as managers, we shouldn’t micromanage. However, this doesn’t mean we must abdicate control altogether. In delegating effectively, we have to find the sometimes-difficult balance between giving enough space for people to use their abilities to the best effect and monitoring and supporting closely enough to ensure that the job is done correctly and effectively.

The Importance of Full Acceptance

When delegated work is delivered back to you, set aside enough time to review it thoroughly. If possible, only accept good-quality, fully complete work. If you accept work that you are not satisfied with, your team member does not learn to do the job properly. Worse than this, you accept a whole new tranche of work that you will probably need to complete yourself. Not only does this overload you, but it also means that you don’t have the time to do your own job properly. Of course, when good work is returned to you, make sure to both recognise and reward the effort. As a leader, you should get in the practice of complimenting members of your team every time you are impressed by what they have done. This effort on your part will go a long way towards building team members’ self-confidence and efficiency, both of which will be improved in the next delegated task; hence, you both win.

Key Points

By delegating effectively, you can hugely expand the amount of work that you can deliver.

When you arrange the workload, you are working on the tasks that have the highest priority for you and other people are working on meaningful and challenging assignments, you have a recipe for success.