Copyright © TIGERS Success Series – By Dianne Crampton
You would think that delegating tasks to employees and team members would be a welcome respite for business owners and team leaders. After all, by delegating duties to competent, trustworthy staff, business owners would ideally spend more time doing what they do best – strategizing and growing a thriving business, especially in this weak economy. However, Red Baron Strategy/Consulting recently reported that just the opposite is true.
Why is that?
With the lingering lackluster economy, an organization’s team members, inventory, and business operations have been streamlined aggressively. So much so, business owners themselves are doing a larger percentage of the daily workload.
While caught up in the day-to-day operations, business owners are failing to analyze and delegate work effectively to promote growth in the organization. Downsizing and high unemployment has moved the owner’s focus away from fully developing their company brand and their team. Unfortunately, the mindset of “I have to do it all myself” actually devalues and disengages team members.
According to the findings in the 2011 Employee Engagement Trends, a key driver for employee engagement is purpose. Without purpose, employees merely show up for the paycheck and will jump ship if other opportunities arise leaving the small business owner with a high turnover rate.
By delegating tasks to team members, business owners engage them in the well-being of the business. By setting predetermined goals and giving key staff the authority to make decisions at a base level, employees become more accountable, make wiser decisions, and show a stronger commitment to the organization’s success.
The biggest asset small business owners must realize they have is their team members. By delegating tasks and authority, leaders build trust, cohesion, and productive team behavior.
A boon to productivity
Employees in today’s workplace are survivors and they are highly productive. For example, while deploying the TIGERS Team Wheel game for Mt. Adams Furniture, tremendous insights were revealed during game play. Employees shared what they needed to feel empowered within the organization and from those insights, objectives and goals were developed for founding team members and new hires. Tasks were delegated from the top down and processes were co-defined by all members. With processes defined and tasks delegated, chaos and employee conflict were removed from the team dynamic and innovative processes were born.
Since my facilitation with this team, teams improved workflow between sales and production and designed a new inventory control system. A research and development team began working with outside furniture designers to modernize the company’s product line. Unlike in the past, the company’s 40 employees determined its future.
“We’re not just told what to do anymore. We make decisions ourselves. Each team reaches deep inside to find its own strengths and ideas,” said Grace Wahsise, leader of a team that created a financial incentives program for employees.”
One goal of the TIGERS Team Wheel ™ game is to create cooperative teams by initiating trust processes through out the organiztion. When teams and leaders identify behaviors that build trust, which includes follow through, delegation is tends to be more successful when the leader leaves an open door for employees to seek guidance if needed.
Business owners discover that by delegating tasks, they can free up as much as 35% of their day to focus on the interactions or processes that are exclusively an owner’s responsibility for success.
With today’s highly productive workforce, employees are looking for purpose within their duties and leaders benefit when team building by delegation.
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