Assessing your role in the business
You've given everything to your business, but what are you
giving to it on a day-to-day basis? Even if you're working around
the clock, are you working as smart as you could be? Is your
business benefiting from what you do best? It's not easy to do, but
it really can pay to occassionally consider your own role and think
about delegating to other manages. This guide will look at:
- Why assessing your role helps
- Warning signs - when do you need to step back
- Assessing strengths and weaknesses
- Delegation
Why assessing your role helps
Continually reviewing your role within the management structure
and company as a whole is crucial to business success. Expansion
makes it difficult, if not impossible, for one individual to
oversee everything - it's simply unhealthy to remain the centre of
all activity. Perhaps more importantly, an owner tied up with
day-to-day minutiae won't have time to move the business forward
strategically. In turn, if strategy isn't your strength it's better
to recognise that and draft in those skills.
- It becomes impossible for one person to do everything
- You need to be freed up to work on strategy
Warning signs you need to step back
The greatest danger is that you simply take on too much. Yes,
the work gets done, but if you find that you're leaving the office
at 9.00 or 10.00pm, then it's time to think about delegating work
to others. Consider whether your managers have sufficient space -
if you've appointed a new head of sales but you're still sitting in
on all the pitches, consider structural change. If you try to do
everyone's job all the time it will cause morale problems.
- Working late all the time
- Crowding managers
- Doing everyone else's job causes morale problems
Strengths and weaknesses
One way to reduce your workload is to focus on what you're good
at - look carefully at your own strengths and weaknesses. In the
short term that can be as simple as cutting down on work that
others can do better. However, a more strategic approach is to look
at the management skills that the company needs to move forward.
Put your own skills on the table along with those of other
managers. If you find gaps, it's time to bring in new talent. Make
focus your mantra.
- Assess your strengths and weaknesses
- Delegate work that others could do better
- Focus
Delegation
Delegation can be tough, especially if you think you can do the
job better. Let go because unless you do, you'll stop the business
progressing. Let people do their jobs so you can focus elsewere.
Look at bringing in specialists with track records in achieving
your strategic goals so you're sharing the load and diluting the
risk. Even consider if it's right to relinquish the role of MD or
CEO altogether in order to focus solely on strategic rather than
operational matters.
- Delegate to focus
- Bring in skilled senior management you can trust
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