This is an open invitation for all of my Linked In friends to tell me about their experiences regarding this topic as it is a real challenge for any decision maker in any business. Help me out here by commenting on this post!

If you are a Business Owner, CEO, or Sales Manager, then I am sure that at least once in the past week you had to make a snap decision – delegate this task or do it myself. Am I right?

The variables relating to this topic are endless depending on your company structure, so I am sticking to my basic no bullshit approach, and it is only an opinion based on decades of experience in senior mangement roles dealing with this dilemma.

For me, if a task is of such value, maybe a new deal worth $squillions in new sales, the first question you ask yourself may be ‘who can I trust’ to deliver the results that I know I would achieve by doing it myself? It’s pretty simple really – you stay involved in every step of the sales process but delegate ultimate responsibility to another member of your team. Then when you can see activity moving towards closing that $squillion deal you can step back and watch your employee who is now empowered with the task of closing the deal perform at his or her optimum. Why? – Because you place your trust in them that’s why!

So it is a delicate balance of knowing your people and their skills, empowering them with your trust, working with them to ensure the end result is commensurate with the objectives of the task, and once the deal is done – recognise and reward their efforts in a meaningful and tangible way.

The real key is knowing your people and I don’t mean looking at performance statistics in an excel spreadsheet – I mean KNOWING YOUR TEAM! Understanding their personalities, strengths and weaknesses, personal challenges etc.

So when not to delegate a task?

Sometimes, you are so close to your business (if you are a business owner say) in a personal sense that you are unable to relinquish any form of control over day to day stuff. This is a precarious position for you and even if you are CEO of a corporation the basics are still applicable.

The simple answer is that if you have the right people in clearly defined roles, then you have no excuse not to delegate tasks even if you need to be involved hands on for that task.

Summary

This simple article is all about TRUST. I have learned this many times over in business and when others trusted me – results followed. When I trusted and empowered others – results followed.

Happy Revenue Growth!