I'm often asked by people...
It's one of the most asked questions I get on small businesses.
How can I get my business...
How can I get people where I can delegate?
How do I delegate? How do I delegate?
How do I delegate? How do I delegate ?
And really you can't even ask that question
until you've done a whole lot of preparation.
And you've got the right people in the right seats to delegate to.
Organizations that delegate well
are fanatical about a bunch of different things.
Hiring and firing
to create an environment
and the right kind of people in the seats to be able to delegate to.
Compensation. Unity. Loyalty. Communication. Recognition .
You create a culture .
You create an environment inside the organization
that is delegatable.
That is predictable. That you can follow through on.
Delegation is probably one of the most misunderstood
and abused areas of leadership.
We think we can delegate to someone based on their talent.
And that's not it.
Talent is part of it.
But there's a whole process of going on with this.
The process of building a team that concepts can be delegated to
is lengthy.
You can't just hire someone, sit them in the slot,
and delegate to them.
You can delegate, you know: Make copies... Make coffee...
but I'm talking about delegating entire business systems
and sections to someone.
You can't do that without spending some effort and some time on this.
Hiring and firing. Take time to find thoroughbreds.
And have the courage to get the donkeys out!
I tried to mix thoroughbreds and donkeys for a while
and they don't like each other.
Donkeys don't like thoroughbreds around
because the very presence of a thoroughbred
exposes a donkey's "donkeyness".
Thoroughbreds don't like having donkeys around
because... well, they're donkeys.
They don't care.
They're lazy, they're bullheaded, they're belligerent.
And they don't care. Did I mention that they don't care?
Thoroughbreds don't want to hang around that!
See, you get a couple of talented people in a stable full of donkeys,
They will leave!
Because they don't wanna hang out.
Thoroughbreds don't wanna hang out with donkeys.
We do a thing called 90 at 90-day point.
Once you've been with us 90 days,
we all get in a room, and buy chicken fillet wraps, whatever,
and we all sit around and do "Wrap with Dave" we call it.
And the new people, I sit and talk with our new team members.
50 or 40 of them, whatever there is in the last 90 days.
And I'm sitting with them... This last Monday I did one of these.
And they ask me questions about things.
Then we ask them what their AHA moment is.
What's something that kind of called you to go:
"Wow! I didn't see that coming!"
since you've been here.
Tell me what your AHA moment is...
And you'd be amazed at the number of them go:
The other night it was a developer.
And he goes "I thought I was gonna come in here
and this is a company that's all about financial stuff
and radio and all this...
and I didn't think the developers would be up to par.
I figured I'd be kind of, you know, better than all of them.
And he goes: It didn't take me about three weeks
to figure out they were all better than me!
And they got me on my toes,
I'm running with thoroughbreds.
And the AHA moment is often:
I get to work with smart people that care. Wow! what a cool thing!
And that requires the hiring and firing process.
Accidentally sometimes you hire a donkey.
And you have to have a "donkeyectomy" then.
You've done it. I've done it.
I mean, you hire somebody, you thought they were right,
and then you find out "This is just... it was a bad idea."
Compensation is a reflection of your value system.
If you value thoroughbreds plan on paying them well.
I've checked the marketplace,
and thoroughbreds cost more than donkeys.
You do get what you pay for.
Most of the time, not always.
There's no guarantee
that just because you pay a lot you're gonna get a lot.
But there's pretty much a guarantee that if you don't pay a lot,
you're not gonna get a thoroughbred.
You're gonna pay a little more to get somebody
that really brings the water.
Really knows what they're doing,
and that really cares deeply,
and thinks critically. They think above the problem.
They're not just trying to get by.
And they don't say "take it easy" and mean it.
"Thank God it's Friday!" "Oh God, it's Monday!"
How quick can I get out of here and how late can I come.
You know? Right?
It's a different world when you hire a thoroughbread.
But they cost a little more
because they have a little more expectation of you
and of the organization and they need an upward trajectory
that they can grow with the company.
And as the company grows maybe their income grows.
You know, you have to be generous, this is what it amounts to.
And it's great ROI though,
because you don't have to hire as many thoroughbreds to do the work
as you do donkeys.
People are only loyal when you're loyal to them.
Creating loyalty, creating unity, is a constant battle.
It does not randomly occur.
People are not loyal to corporate America
for one simple reason: corporate America is not loyal to people.
That's what's going on.
And you have the ability,
particularly those of you that are leading in small businesses,
owning and running small businesses.
You have the ability to be different.
To actually be loyal to someone.
I was actually... I jumped out of a plane,
jumped into a car service in another state not long ago.
And the guy driving the limo thing ,
that little black sedan thing, the limo,
you know, the limo service, whatever we call it, the car service,
he's telling me a story driving me over.
I asked him: How long you've been
He said: I just started driving for these guys
about six weeks ago,
I used to drive for another company and they fired me.
And I went: "That's comforting"
Well, why were you fired? Pray, tell.
and he said: My wife and I are separated .
And she lives in New Jersey.
He was in a different state over in the Midwest .
He said: "My daughter got kidnapped and was missing for six weeks."
And I asked for time off
to go participate with the police and the searches.
And they finally found her in a park.
This guy dropped her off
after he had carried her around for six weeks.
A horrible story... this young 13 year old girl...
And this company because he took time off
to go find his daughter, fired him!
You know?
Like, you did what?
You know, maybe they didn't believe his story.
I don't know. I mean... who does that?
Companies do that. They do that all the time.
They have no soul.
And you have the ability to have a soul.
To go: My gosh! I can't even imagine...
of course you can take time off
and I don't know how long I can not pay you
I mean I can pay you to not work
but at least you can not be here for sure!
Your job will be here when you get back .
And how can we help you? And how can we...
oh my gosh,
what if my daughter or my granddaughter, I mean...
how would I, you know...
You treat other people like you want to be treated.
That's how you create loyalty .
Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.
Why is that hard?
Communication and recognition.
Organizations that delegate well
are overly intentional about communication.
And they are generous with recognition.
We over communicate.
I tell our team all the time...
We have a staff meeting, all 700 of them,
every Monday morning for an hour.
That's an investment in payroll.
That's how much we believe in communication.
Because if the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing,
people don't know what's going on.
If people don't know what's going on inside your company
You know what? They assume.
They assume the worst. They assume it's bad.
They automatically think there's a secret.
There's a bad thing. There's a conspiracy.
People never go:
"Well, I don't know what's going on, but I'm sure it’s awesome."
They never do that.
It's not human nature, right?
And so you have to over communicate.
You have to give them too much information.
Information that makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable.
Because you went so far into the details.
And you know, you're not insulting people,
we're not trying to throw people under the bus,
but we tell people what’s going on
you're grownups, this is not a kindergarten class.
We're gonna have an adult discussion here.
Here's some stuff that went on,
and here's the result of what went on,
and you need to know that you're gonna read this on Twitter.
and you're gonna see this coming
And you're gonna hear this about Dave Ramsey.
And here's what really did happen out of that.
Here's what really didn't happen out of that.
And you need to know that
because you work here.
instead of wondering: Well, I read the article
and I don't know...
I work here but I don't know what they really did...
You know? I just tell you, it's not hard.
Over communicate. Over communicate.
A lot of people are so afraid that if people have information
that they will somehow misuse that information.
Now, we don't tell people's secrets
we don't tell individuals people's stuff
and shame someone or harm someone
I don't mean that kind of thing
but you know...
corporately as far as information goes
we give you too much information.
It's ok for them to have information
it's not going to destroy them.
Lack of information will destroy them more often than too much information .
But our tendency is to hold back and go: " I don’t know if they can handle that."
What will all that do to morale?
Well I'll tell you what it'll do to morale.
It'll destroy it if you don't tell them what's going on.
That's what it'll do.
You create an environment that's not delegable
because they don't trust.
A lot of companies use mushroom communication:
keep everybody in the dark and feed them manure.
You gotta use real communication.
You know, in order for a leader to completely delegate
they have to come to trust the team members integrity
and their competency.
Circle that. Put stars around it.
That is the thesis statement of this lesson.
That is how you delegate, right there.
When you can trust someone's integrity
and you can trust their ability to do what you're asking them to do
you don't have to check it.
You'll just check the results.
You don't have to micromanage anymore.
And that takes time.
You cannot hire someone off the street
and in six seconds go: I trust your integrity,
and I trust your competency,
now that you just got past your resume.
No way, not unless you're a fool.
And the more time you spend with someone,
and the more you see them accomplishing it,
the more you can trust their integrity, right?
The more you can trust their competency.
So someone that has been with me for 20 years
and is running a 50 million dollar section of our business,
one of our EVPs as an example,
obviously I have a lot more trust
in that lady or that man's integrity and in their competency
than I do a new leader who just started with us six weeks ago.
There's no possible way . I don't have a track record with them .
I don't trust them based on their resume or what they did at the other place.
They get a shot at me trusting them
based on what they did at the other place .
But they earn the trust here.
They prove their competence here.