Most people inherently know that they should delegate more, and delegate better, but one big obstacle keeps them from doing it…

It might not come out right

…so I better jump in and make sure
it is going OK or just do it myself.

Who’s at fault?

It it doesn’t come out right, the uncomfortable question this raises is -
did this person fail to do a good job because:

1. They are not good enough at the job? or
2. I am not good enough at delegating?

It’s not about getting comfortable with worry

The real secret of successful delegating is not to learn how to deal with the emotional discomfort of letting go, and learning to live with being worried about the outcome, or accepting bad outcomes…

It’s about preventing reasons to worry

Your job is to delegate, let go, NOT micromanage… AND create structure, support and processes so you ensure that it is going to get done right.

You don’t deal with the worrying, you ensure it’s not necessary.

Ways to build comfort and insurance into the project
without micro-managing

1. Let the person create the timeline, define the deliverables and how you will measure them.  The encouragement and trust goes a long way, and you either get the pleasant surprise of a better plan than you would have come up with, or you get an early warning that this person needs more support.

2. Tighten the Outcomes.  If you are concerned that the person is not capable enough to run with the project, Instead of a 6 month outcome, discuss outcomes that occur every two weeks.

3. Focus on the outcome, not the activity. No two humans will do a task exactly the same way.  If they deliver the outcome, it shouldn’t matter how they do it.  Let them worry about how and what.  You worry about WHY, and what needs to be true when it is done.

4. Create an actual process and tracking system for long term or repetitive tasks – a software development lifecycle with checkpoints is a good example.  But why not define a project lifecycle with checkpoints for a quarterly analyst presentation, a press release, or a marketing campaign?

5. Third party reviews. Get yourself out of the position of always being the one to judge whether a deliverable is good enough or not.  Get the actual consumers of the deliverable to review and provide feedback.  Your employees will learn far more this way.

6. Don’t forget to inspect and measure things along the way.  If you set up a timeline with review steps along the way, you must follow up.  A great deal of your comfort comes from the fact that people take you seriously and actually do the committed work.  A long time mentor of mine always put it “You get what you INspect, not what you EXpect”.

7. Teach. When you are delegating things you are personally good at, always think of delegating as a teaching opportunity. If you need to sometimes jump down and do the work yourself, make sure someone is watching and learning.
See also Let People Fail.

Bottom line…

You need to delegate effectively if you want to get anything significant done, get anywhere in your career, and save yourself from an un-doable workload.

If you are either doing the work yourself, or worried about the work not getting done, you need to change your strategy.

You can delegate and feel comfortable that the work is getting done as long as you do the higher level work of setting up the systems, processes and measures that ensure the right things are happening along the way.

Note to the micromanaged…

I will write another post on this because many people suffer from this.

But the short answer is, you need make your boss comfortable that he will get what he wants in some way other than by micromanaging.   Some of the techniques above can be useful with your boss too.

Category Note: I filed this post under “CONNECT Better” because it is critical to always be building a broad base of support. Getting your team and others to accomplish work that you need done is a critical element of business effectiveness and career success.

Here is a useful checklist of the things that make the difference between careers that break through and careers that stall.

Feel Free to forward it to others!

DO Better

Are you working on the right things?

• Can you explain how your company makes money?
• Can you show specifically how your work is adding value to the business?
• What percentage of time do you work on key initiatives, vs. stay busy with tactical activity?  What should it be?
• Do you have the ability to stop doing things that have a lower payoff?

Are you working in the right way?

• Are you a work-horse? Does the work just keep getting piled on because you do it so well?
• How much time do you schedule for yourself to think?  How much should you?
• What things do you do things specifically to make more time and make room?
• What do you do to manage your energy?

Are your working at the right level?

• Do you delegate well?  Do you jump in and do work for your team?
• Do you ever “cover” for work your team does that is not good enough?
• What are the top 3 critical leadership tasks to be done at your level?
• How do you measure if you are creating value in the business or just delivering work?
• Do you find ways to reduce the cost of doing what you did last year?
• What are you learning about this year on top of your job description?
• What are the learning goals you have set for your team this year?
• Do you have the right team?  Do you need to upgrade your team?
• What do you do on purpose to build trust through your behaviors and communications?

LOOK Better

• How do you create positive visibility for the work you and your team do?
• Do you know who all of your stakeholders and influencers are?
• Who are the people who have a say in what happens to you (even if you don’t interact directly)?
• Do you know what you are known for?  Is it what you want?  Do you know why?
• Do you do things to build your credibility on purpose?
• How well do you know your boss’s boss? Your boss’s peers?
• How do you learn what is most relevant to your business stakeholders?
• Do you know how they would describe it?  What words would they use?
• Do you focus as much effort on how you sell your ideas as the ideas themselves?
• What is your process to regularly communicate with people outside your organization?

CONNECT Better

• Do you have mentors?
• What sort of mentors are most necessary to help you meet your goals?
• Are you a mentor?
• Do you regularly GIVE things to people in your network?
• Do you do networking naturally?
• How much time do you spend doing proactive networking? How much should it be?
• Do you have relationships with people who challenge and fuel your imagination?
• Do you regularly interact with people in other organizations an industries to get fresh perspectives?
• Do you tend seek out help when you need it?
• What is your strategy to grow your network?
• What kind of network is expected for the next job you want?
• How many people who don’t work for you, would do work for you if you asked?

Want some help with all this?

If you’d like to get some more insight and support for how you can attack this list to position yourself better, be more effective, and get a bigger payoff in your career, I offer a unique opportunity to a small group of people to spend a day with me.

We work on building your personal plan to grow your career, raise your game as a leader, create your Personal Brand, increase your influence, and grow your network.  It’s a small group, so it is personalized to you.

I can’t do many of these workshops any more, due to the rest of my business commitments, so I do only two public sessions per year now.   

I have only 6 seats left in my next session on October 22 in San Mateo.

If you come I guarantee you will get at least one life-changing idea, and dozens of practical things you can start doing tomorrow to get more of what you want out of your work.

I share, from my personal experience, and everything I learned from smart people along the way, what things will have the biggest impact on your success, and which things are a waste of time and will get you stuck.

It’s been wonderful to hear the stories about the big promotions, and the career and life changing events that people have been able to create for themselves as a result of this workshop.

If you are interested, don’t wait.  Sign up Now.

There are only 6 seats left and the next session will not be until April or May of next year.

If you can’t make it to San Mateo, you can also get this workshop on DVD.

Thanks,

I have had a number of people recently express concern about looking for work
and being over 50.

The questions range from the very broad
to the very specific:

• Is age-ism an issue?
• How do I compete with younger people for jobs?
• Should I avoid using a photo in my online profile?

The New York Times recently published a series of opinion articles on being over 50 in the workforce.  Opinions were mixed. 

I can’t help but also note that Circuit City laid off all their “higher paid” employees – the older more experienced ones.  Did anyone else notice how much more annoying and frustrating it was to shop at Circuit City recently?  I guess so, they went out of business.

And Harvard Business Publishing just noted a study on air traffic controllers, which showed those over 50, with lots of experience, actually did better on more complex simulations, than their younger counterparts.

It’s a tough game, but opinions are mixed on whether older workers just cost more, or if they are worth more.  But what is true at any age, but perhaps more true if you are over 50, is that right now you need to do more than ever to stand out.

Companies are being really picky

Right now in this period of economic gloom, there are more people looking for work, so companies can be pickier than ever. 

I would imagine that all the “ism’s” are more prevalent when there are fewer jobs to be had, whether it’s age-ism, sexism, racism, never-been-at-a-small-company-ism, never-been-at-a-large-company-ism, never-executed-a-successful-exit-while-being-tall-ism…

So what can you do? 

Let’s focus on the topic of age, but the approach I’ll describe works for anyone wanting to stand out in a positive way, whether or not you are battling an -ism.

If you are fighting a real –ism, like age-ism, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it just means it’s harder.  You have to do more things on purpose.  You’ll need to source more opportunities and be more qualified.

If you are competing for a job and want to project the right image:

1) Be the best candidate
2) Be the most prepared
3) Be the best marketed
4) Be Current
5) Have energy

I have hired people in their 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s who showed themselves to excel in the above points.

Let me address points 4 and 5 first as they are more specific to the age topic.

4. Be Current. 

The problem with age is not just the number, it’s if you come across as “old” in your attitude, your actions, and your appearance.  The company needs to do business today, and is looking for people to help build the future.

The deck may in fact be stacked against you if the company has a policy to push out people over 50.  You’ll  need to work even harder to neutralize a potential age objection. 

But the point is, at any age:

If you do not come across as current, you appear less qualified. 

It’s as simple as that. 

Current Behaviors:

What you talk about.  Make sure you have fresh professional stories.  Whatever your offer is to a company, make sure you tell stories that highlight that offer in the context of today’s business environment.  Use your network.  Tell your stories to young people.  Get their feedback on what seems interesting and exciting, and what seems old and boring.

Have an online presence.  If you are not versed and present in the online social media communities you will appear out of date.   Check out my prior post on this topic for more on this. 

Be someone that people want to spend time with.   A big part of winning a job interview is the social part.  You need to fit in socially with the people you will work with. (This is equally true for young people going for big jobs where everyone is older.)  You don’t need to pretend to be young, but you need to be comfortable in, and add interest to the world you are joining. 

Join non-profits, or community activities and spend time with younger people.  Be comfortable and engaged for real, and you will come across as comfortable and real in your interviews. 

Current Appearance: 

It matters what you look like.  I am not talking about a beauty contest, I am talking about looking current and showing an effort.

Make sure your appearance is up to date.  If someone walks in with a hairstyle, eyeglass frames, or clothes from 20 years ago what impression do you think that gives?

It’s certainly not current, quality, or well managed.  Why would I want to hire someone to take care of and represent a piece of my business who puts no quality or management into how they present themselves.

Men: grey hair is fine as long as you have a current-style hair cut.  Go to a real hair dresser, then go to a department store and let them dress you, and get new glasses. And men over 45, if you grew facial hair in your 20’s to look older, let me break the news to you — it is still working. 

(One more thing.  Men: if you don’t want grey hair, please go to the hair salon.  If you think it’s embarrassing to go to the salon, at least make sure to take a mirror outside in full daylight and check out your home dye-job, and then decide which is more embarrassing.)

Women: Make sure your hair style and makeup are up to date.  Get your make-up done professionally every 2-4 years.  Styles change, and you change.  If you’ve never done this, it’s free at any department store.  Same goes for women on the eye-glasses and clothes.  Anything you have had for 20 years needs to go. 

5. Have energy: 

Age doesn’t matter if you have real energy.  Physical energy, mental energy and social energy.  You need to show you are in the game fully.  If you show up “old”, it’s not the age-ism that will limit you, it will be your own lack of energy. 

You need to be as ambitious about the job as anyone.  If you come across as un-committed and with no enthusiasm, it’s not your age that is in your way, it is your attitude.

…OK, now here’s the stuff that applies to everybody.

1. Be the best candidate

The simple way around any “ism” is to be the best candidate.  If you are not the best candidate, your age isn’t the problem, your qualifications are.  Make sure you continue to develop yourself so you can go into an interview as “the best”. 

2. Be the most prepared – start doing the job!

One of the most impressive things you can do is to start doing the job in the interview.  Know enough about the job before the interview and come in with ideas, plans, proposals, and even deliverables.  Make them feel like they can’t live without you by doing the job impressively as part of your interview.

3. Be the best marketed

Make sure your marketing package is complete.  Your resume needs to tell a compelling story.  You don’t need to put all your experience on your resume.  Put the things on your resume that you are most proud of, get the most energy talking about and trigger your best stories.

You need a clearly defined “offer”.  Be specific about what you offer.  What do you DO?

Are you a planner, communicator, organizer, creator?  Think about what is common to what you have done over and over again in all your jobs – what makes you stand out from all the other people who have similar skills and job titles on their resume? Make sure that comes across.

You should also write articles about your area of expertise, publish references, and case studies of your work to reinforce yourself as a stand-out candidate.

Your photo: There are mixed views on this.  Some believe strongly that you shouldn’t use a photo because it presents an opportunity for discrimination.  You need to make your own strategic choice on this.

The key thing I want to emphasize about a profile photo – make sure it’s a good one.  If you are concerned you look “old” in your photo, and that it will be a liability you have a few options.  1) Update your look as described above.  2) Get a professional photo that makes you look interesting, open and engaging.  3) Crop the photo in an interesting way that is less revealing of what you actually look like. 

In my book interesting, open, and engaging with grey hair is way better than young-looking, boring, and low quality.

4) Of course your other choice is to not use a photo. On one hand you need to consider the possibility discrimination, but on the other hand, showing no photo could also cause discrimination. 

No photo could say either you are hiding something, you don’t know how to upload a photo into your profile, you do not follow though to complete things you do, or your are not enthusiastic about connecting with people.  None of those are good for a job search!   Decide your strategy and if it is to use a photo, do it well.

If these things sound like changes you don’t want to make, that is fine unless you want to get full consideration professionally.  If you want to stand out, and be current and relevant, you need to do things on purpose to stand out, be current, and relevant.  

The best way to overcome any -ism is by being the most qualified, and by presenting those qualifications in a more compelling way than all the other qualified people. 

I am not yet over 50.  But I’m a girl.  I have faced many times in my career where being female stacked the deck against me.  My approach has always been to ignore that part, and any possible associated -ism, and to just focus on being the best candidate, and doing more things on purpose to stand out and win.

The only other choice is to stay stuck, so you migth as well give it a try.

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90% of people asked will say they are an above-average driver!

When working really hard and doing excellent work, many people tend to feel that they are above-average.  I have had discussions with many talented people who are surprised to learn that consistently doing excellent work and flawlessly delivering on their job description does not make them a top ranked employee.

As I mentioned in the last post, Be More Relevant:

Deliver excellent results — that is a must.  But don’t expect that alone to make you relevant.  Doing your job keeps you from getting fired.  What makes you stand out, and makes you highly relevant is finding additional ways to add value to the business over and above what is in your job description. 

So in this post I want to talk about some ways you can this: 

1. Generate Revenue
2. Reduce Cost
3. Improve Productivity
4. Develop Talent
5. Communicate
6. Innovate

1. Generate Revenue

Nothing will make you stand out more than having a direct impact on revenue.  For an executive, taking on a troubled sales region and turning it around, or shoring up a struggling product line so it becomes profitable and growing are the shortest paths to big career gains.

Not everyone is in a position to do this, but don’t be too fast to assume you are not in a position to impact revenue.  Here are just a few ideas:

• Going on a customer visit and realizing that you could make small change to an existing product and have a new product and revenue stream for a new segment.
• Doing customer support and finding a recurring new service opportunity
• Being the one to search twitter for discussions of your company’s products and turning unhappy customers into loyal purchasers.
• Implementing a system that helps sales reps close more business

2. Reduce Cost

So many times we set our sights on getting the biggest budget possible so that we can deliver the most value with it.  Sometimes it is important to step back and understand what is going on across the business and give some money back.  Get famous internally for being business minded, and personally helping with brilliant and createive cost management, that doesn’t sacrifice value.

It is critical for any leader to reduce the cost of doing the same things year over year.  If you ask for the same budget as last year to do all the steady state stuff and incremental budget to do new stuff every year, your credibility will degrade.  You need to self-fund some of the new stuff by reducing cost of maintaining current programs.  No one should need to tell you do to this.

3.  Improve Productivity

Every year, you should have one explicit agenda to improve productivity in your team.  Your team should be more capable next year than this year.  Some ideas: have better meetings, make project review processes more efficient, build a process for handling chaotic ad-hoc work, implement a better measurement and accountability framework, use the web for better employee communication…  the list is endless.  You should always be working on at least one productivity improvement for yourself and in your team. 

4. Develop Talent

One of the things that makes people stand out from their peers is to be the one who is mentoring and coaching others.  Anyone in any position can be a mentor.  It is critical for managers to be on the look out for talent, and develop leaders below them in the organization, but it is also important to think about developing talent as a personal agenda.  Share your knowledge.  Help others learn and grow.  I have interviewed hundreds of people for management and executive positions.  The ones who talk about developing people without being asked was about 5.  They stood out.

5. Communicate

Most organizations (any organization bigger than 1 person!) suffer from ineffective communication.  Be the one to organize information and share it with others.  I have been amazed throughout my career about how stepping up to be the one who consistently communicates scores huge leadership points, and is a stand-out trait.  I started this in the days of voice mail!  I gave weekly updates to my team, I copied my peers.  A following developed.  It evolved to email and web based communications over time,  but the important part is to share useful information consistently.  (Hint: I always found that the consistency was even more important than the content.  Set a regular schedule and communicate.)

6.  Innovate

Sometimes we tend to think of innovation as only inventing a new product, or getting a patent on a new idea (that can be turned into a product).  Why limit innovation?  For starters it absolutely applies to the above: generating revenue, reducing cost, improving productivity, developing talent and communicating. 

Innovation should occur in all aspects of the business.  Here are some places I think businesses have opportunities to innovate: How your phone is answered, how you manage business processes with partners, how you deal with IT issues, how you evaluate the competition, how you use social media, how you bundle and price, how you re-use information…  Don’t leave innovation to “the lab”.  Understand your business at the grass roots level, and look for ways to make an impact. 

Getting it done.

Don’t try do all of these things at once.  Pick one.  Schedule some time to do it.  Involve your team.

One of the reasons I talk so much about making room, and making more time is that you can’t do “bigger” stuff, at the expense of your current job.  You need to find a way to master your current job and do really well it in less time, so that you make room for other things. 

If you stay consumed doing an excellent job at your job you will not be seen as above-average.  That requires doing more.

Related Articles:

Better with Less
Make More Time

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It’s ugly out there…And I want to help.

So I have decided to make
membership FREE for you into 2009.

Career Insurance & Opportunities

Membership topics next year will help you:

• Build and preserve your value to your company
• Strengthen your Personal Brand value, and
• Grow your opportunity base for your business and career.

Members get access to:

• Monthly Webinars
• Monthly live coaching time with me
• Podcasts of the monthly member calls
• Transcripts of the member calls and live discussion sessions
• Articles and more.

If you are not already a member you can join here for free.

THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT AWAY

1. Browse the Archive

Is there anything you missed this year?

2. Download Podcasts

All the member webinars are available as podcasts.

Here’s what the membership topics were this year: Download away!

Authentic Networking                 Making Room
Investing in Strengths                 Your Personal Brand
Ruthless Priorities                       What really matters to You
Building Your Credibility             Leading vs. Managing
Networking vs. Politics               Making time & Energy
Managing Your Boss

3. Tell your friends

One of my favorite comments I got from a member was that Azzarello Group is my secret place I go to get tips how to operate.  I share the site with my friends, but not my peers. 

If you know someone who would benefit from having another career advantage in their toolkit, (who you are willing to share the secret with!) please forward this to them, and encourage them to look around and join.   Membership will be free to them as well. 

And I’d really appreciate the referral.

4. Sign up for January’s webinar on Increasing Your Value. 

I am very excited about this one, as we will be joined by Jack Mollen, EVP or HR for EMC on the topic of Increasing Your Value to your Company, sharing an “insiders view” of how companies are assessing their workforce and what you can do.

You can register for this webinar now, right here.

5. Give me feedback

I want to make membership even more valuable.

If you have any thoughts, questions, or topics you would like to see covered next year, please leave your comments below or email me. 

One of my personal brand values is “useful” so I am always striving to make the topics as relevant and useful as possible:

• What have you valued the most? 
• What would you like to see next? 
• Have I annoyed you?

The “Group” in Azzarello Group

As we conclude 2008, it’s hard not to think about the big challenges we face next year, personally and professionally, in this remarkably ugly economy.  But there are bright spots to be found and things you can do to stack the deck in your favor. 

I look forward to working with you, sharing my experience and insights, and connecting you with other really smart people who I admire and learn from, as well as each other.

I hope Azzarello Group membership gives you a place to go when you have real questions, and a significant advantage as you build your career!

Thank you to our long time members!
If you’re not already a member, you can join for free here.

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