Delegate With Caution
Many of us can barely remember online purchasing before PayPal or mass marketplaces such as EBay or Amazon. Recently I was reminded of that long-ago era when a rare individual would sell directly to the consumer. Derek Sivers is one of those rare individuals, and he writes about it in his book Anything You Want. This short 40-lesson book tells his story beginning in the early 2000’s in the days before Amazon Music, iMusic, Spotify and easy to use music platforms. Sivers created a very successful online music outlet to sell his and his friends’ music without a major record label. He sold music CDs directly to the consumer. Soon every independent musician around wanted him to sell their music on his website CD Baby. When he cashed out, he sold his company for $22 million dollars, and instead of keeping the profits, he immediately put that money into music education trusts.
The book is a short 85-page read in easy-to-understand business talk. His story has so many nuggets for leaders. The one I want to focus on is one I’ve spoken of before in this blog. The need to delegate, freeing up precious time for leaders to work on growth and opportunity. It is a challenging but necessary step in the growth process. What Sivers offers us in his book is the cautionary tale about what can go wrong when you delegate without a clear process in place.
Delegate, but don’t abdicate.
In today’s multi-generational workforce, we know many employees enjoy being a part of the decision-making process. At the appropriate level, time and framework this can be a great way to get employees to feel ownership in the organization. As leaders, many of us have delegated certain decisions to trusted members of our management and staff.
Sivers shares that his lack of interest in certain aspects of the business led to him gladly delegating some decisions to his employees and how one really cost him. Initially, he had delegated office organization and the choice of health care plans very successfully. When it came time to set-up the profit-sharing aspect of the company, he delegated that as well – just like he delegated the other things that had worked so well; with no clear guidelines, direction or mandatory approval process from him. Six months later, his accountant called him to let him know all the profits were being directed 100% to the employees. His response, “Oops.”
This mistake caused him to cancel the profit-sharing program, and he was very unpopular with his 85 employees. He said,
“…I realized that there’s such a thing as over-delegation. I had empowered my employees so much that I gave them all the power.”
The damage was beyond repair, and he never saw or spoke to his employees again. He had relinquished his authority in good faith, but with no guidance or oversight. A valuable lesson to learn when delegating, Sivers says, “Delegate, but don’t abdicate.” As a leader, the checks, and balances of the decision-making needs to be clear and up front with employees and supervisors. Don’t fail to delegate, when necessary, but never abandon the decision-making process completely. As a leader the ultimate responsibility comes back to you.
Keep growing your leaders,
Jeff
