Emily Morgan is the CEO and Visionary of Delegate, a company focused on providing strategic workforce options to entrepreneurs to help them grow more efficiently and effectively. With an innate heart for supporting others, Emily’s mission has always been to create freedom for people to do what they love and have a big impact. This was born out of her desire to carve a meaningful professional work from home set-up so that she could be available to raise her young son. As a champion for remote work, she has also been featured in Forbes as a Top 50 Remote Employer. These days, she speaks all over the country on delegation, automation, remote workforces, and flexwork culture— topics she holds dear to her heart. In her free time, you can also find her serving locally on her township’s Economic Development Board, out on the trails riding her bike, meditating, reading, or practicing her hobbyist interior design skills around her home.
Being too busy is a habit most of us would easily fall under the trap of. As an entrepreneur, a CEO, or a business leader, the things to do on your plate seem to feel like a never-ending task. But are you filling your time with high-value activities, or just complaining about being busy all the time? In today’s episode, I have a chat with Emily Morgan on the power of delegation, the challenges that go along with it, and how EOS can help you get your metrics and systems in place.
4:26 Delegation is an energy management system
8:32 How to work through the Delegate and Elevate tool of EOS
16:19 Emily gives an overview of the five bottleneck behaviors of entrepreneurs from her e-book. Download a copy through this link: The Elevation Freedom Guide™
19:58 How to know if you need an assistant or an Integrator
28:34 Helping a dreamer get out of his stuck spot
29:28 Emily talks more about the isolationist and cocooning
30:51 How EOS tools help eliminate a lot of fear in the business
34:05 Handling your spare time
35:22 Entrepreneurs are notorious for the hero bottleneck because we like to attribute our self-worth to being needed
43:25 Delegation is all about having systems and processes in place
47:41 Emily’s passionate plea to entrepreneurs
Value your time because your time is what you’re here for.
Know more about the Elevation Quarter™ Workshop here.
GET IN TOUCH:
MARK LEARY:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
EMILY MORGAN
https://www.linkedin.com/company/delegate-solutions/
https://www.delegatesolutions.com/
Production credit:
Engineering / Post-Production: Jim McCarthy
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
You're Doing It Wrong with Emily Morgan
June 9, 2021, Wednesday
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
delegate, delegation, work, integrator, people, quadrants, bottleneck, great, behaviors, elevate, week, plate, entrepreneurs, business, dreamer, organization, important, stuck, person, conversation
SPEAKERS
Emily, VO, Mark
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson, Leary and my name is Mark. And I have a passion as you know by now that you should feel in control of your life. And so what I do is I help you get control of your business. And part of how I do that is by letting you listen in on these conversations with people who love to geek out on these entrepreneurial topics. And so today we're going to talk about delegation. And I have Emily Morgan, who is somebody who is obsessed with the concept, and the power of delegation and the challenges that go with it. Her entire business is built around that. And so I'm excited to pop the hood and dig into delegation and how to free our lives by getting things off our plate. Welcome, Emily, how are you?
Emily 00:43
Awesome to be here. Thank you. For that great intro.
Mark 00:46
It's intense, right? We had to hit a regular volume conversation, and then we start going and suddenly it's like, what does happen? So how are you? We actually started in full disclosure, you started you're suffering with a migraine right now and trying to power through. So I'm grateful for you being here and pushing through that. So keeping it real is probably one of my core values. So let's be fully transparent on that. And so that's important. Good to know. Yeah,
Emily 01:10
I'm loaded up with CBD. But it's not it hasn't. It hasn't shown itself yet. It's just kind of waiting to rear its head. So I'm all good. Yeah. Thank you.
Mark 01:20
So don't how did you find yourself first exposed to the importance of delegation.
Emily 01:28
Um, you know, I had a career as an admin before, before starting my business. So I was working with people in academia. And they had embraced delegation. And they were, they taught me some very foundational things about, you know, how to delegate and what to delegate. And I was always really excited about helping people elevate to do more of the things that they're good at and make the contribution that they want to make in the world. And that all comes down to having enough time to do that, or as much time to do that.
Mark 02:02
So what did you do with that realization?
Emily 02:05
Well, I started a business that helps people figure out what to delegate and how to delegate and puts a system together to help them do that really well. But we work only with entrepreneurs. So, you know, for me, it's a passion project, because it's all about helping entrepreneurs increase their overall impact through the contribution they're trying to make.
Mark 02:26
So you said entrepreneur, let's get right into the heart of this entrepreneurs, who it's one of the five leadership abilities, we teach delegation, it's absolutely one of the fundamental things you have to get good at. And it's not as easy as people think. So whenever an entrepreneur comes to you and says, I would love and usually I'm guessing there's probably some people who are, as I was told, I must delegate more tire companies screaming at me to delegate more. And I would like your help. Where are they stuck? What do you tell them? And what's what's the best path?
Emily 03:01
Well, I believe there's three parts to delegating. Well, I think there's an art side. So that's really what you're going to delegate. There's a science side, which is how you're going to delegate. And then there's a discipline side, which is your own mindset and ability to actually commit to the process of successful delegation. And what does that look like? So when all those three things come together, you're able to come up with a plan that is actually going to move the needle for you, and an execution strategy to do that well, and then just some awareness with your own behavioral patterns that could get in the way from you being able to delegate really well.
Mark 03:39
So I want to slow this down to make this super tangible and digestible for people because I recently started teaching this idea that delegation is not about assigning someone else, you're the work you used to be assigned. It is your new job, it is now your requirement that you observe the work product that is now being done by somebody else. And that's a whole new skill set. And I've seen the light go off for a lot of people go on rather, for a lot of people go, Oh, I was abdicating not not delegating a totally different and understanding of that transformation. And that's a very new skill set for people. What is how? What's the language look like? When somebody comes to you? And you say, let's figure out what to delegate? What are the words in those conversations?
Emily 04:26
Yeah so, the the main theory that I would present to your audience is that delegation is an energy management system. And when you think about it in that way, it's all about preserving energy so that you can do more of what you love. So rather than it being like a chore or some level of obligation, like you're talking about, it's really about what do I need to do to protect my own energy to do more impactful work? And so when clients come to us, the first thing we want to understand is what are your goals? What are you trying to do? And as long as you can articulate what those things are, we can start to pull the delegation out of those particular goals. And, you know, maybe there's some automation in there. But it's all about, you know, one being clear on the goals and then to finding some of the low hanging fruit task level things that are still stuck on your plate that you can hand off so that you can start to build trust, and trust in the process, trust in the people that you're working with. So it's like big picture, but then sort of micro mundane type activities as well.
Mark 05:31
Okay, so what would the big picture be, I would like to have more time with my family or you said rock, though. So it might be it's a long long term would be like, I want to work 30 hours a week and enjoy my life on a totally different level. And in short term is like, I want to not handle scheduling anymore,
Emily 05:50
So a lot of the times like, it could be a rock for the quarter, it could be a rock for the year. But being able to share that and have a partner that can help you break that down into a system that you can actually delegate through around those key topics is always where we start, because that's what's really going to move the needle for you with delegation, and where you're actually going to get ROI out of it. But it's in that small, low hanging fruit activities that you build momentum and trust. So we try to do a mix of both
Mark 06:22
examples make up a rock that would be very likely that somebody would bring to you.
Emily 06:26
So one rock could be I need to increase sales by 30% in the next quarter, right? And so we'll say to the to the client, okay, well, what needs to happen for you to do that? And they'll say, Oh, I need to have meetings with 12 key influencers. Okay, perfect. Do you have their name and contact info, okay, let's come up with a template that we'll use to outreach or let's give you a time block so that you can outreach to those people, then we'll handle the scheduling will send a meeting confirmation will help you with any to do's coming off of that meeting. So it's about taking that larger thing, and finding the 80% of all the other things that need to happen for that rock to get done, that aren't tied to the 20% that you're going to do.
Mark 07:09
Okay. And so what is the first first step of that start? Usually, the first step is obviously make that plan and how does it start to manifest? What is the first thing so people start really not doing anymore?
Emily 07:21
So I think there's, you know, I can share my own experience with that, I think I'm constantly asking myself, do I need to do this? Do I have time to do this, who can do this for me, and start to either like, put a delegation plan together around that or give myself some time blocks to work on those different things, or find little pieces of it that I can delegate off to someone else,
Mark 07:44
Gino at the EOS conference, and he said this before, but at the US conference in his which was, this is May when we're recording this and that was three weeks ago, four weeks ago or so, he said that he delegated one thing every quarter for 25 years, somebody said 100 things 100 things were delegated. And that was a major factor. So but I thought that was interesting to think about one thing a quarter. And that gave gave me some pause on you know, is it my delegating cleaning the kitchen? Am I delegating? checking my email and I delegating responding to my you know, what are the kinds of things so top top, top three things that at any given quarter, you would love to see an entrepreneur delegate.
Emily 08:32
So one, run the delegate and elevate exercise once a quarter, because you're going to keep finding things in that lower right quadrant. And those are all delegation candidates.
Mark 08:43
For people who don't know the tool, even if you know the tool, it's worth remembering the delegate and elevate tools is a four box, two by two, the top left hand quadrant are all the things you're great at and you love doing. Dan Sullivan would call these your unique abilities, the highest contribution you can make to the planet in many cases, and certainly to yourself. The right hand, top right hand quadrant is the stuff you're good at. And you like doing stuff you could do lots of wear you out not necessarily the stuff you want to be eulogized over, but certainly things that that are not taxing the bottom two quadrants, the bottom left hand corner is the stuff that you're bad at, or you're good at rather, but you don't like doing and that's really important because those are the things that even though it kind of eats your soul, people keep bringing more at it to you and you keep doing it because you have a reputation for doing it. Okay. And then that's the stuff that really needs to come off your plate. And then there's the bottom right hand corner corner which is the stuff that everybody knows you're terrible at and you know you're terrible at it needs to needs to go away right away. Both those bottom quadrants need to be delegated as soon as is practical. So can continue with that.
Emily 09:53
Yeah, great. Great segue. So the top left quadrant things you love doing and you're great at As your support partner or your support partner in general should always be making sure that you have time to do those things. Because those are the things that are going to energize you, and they're going to move your vision forward. And I think it's really important to have clarity on what is living up there. Because when you start to clear all this other junk out of your time, that gives you the focus of what you're going to be spending your time on. And I think I see a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck there, because they don't have that bigger vision of how they want to spend their time. And so they enjoy kind of being in those lower two quadrants, because it's comfortable to them, and it keeps them busy, and they feel like they're making you know, this is their contribution.
Mark 10:46
Okay, that's my job, what you just said, that is a big deal. So that I love that and that we really got to slow that down, because people are feeling busy all the time. But it's that lack of clarity of truly what is at stake, what is my opportunity cost by sending that fax, you know, if I'm cleaning out my inbox, or organizing my office, or scheduling appointments and cleaning, and doing all that stuff takes a couple of hours or a couple of days, in some cases, what could you be doing? And you have to earn your work your way through that. I guess there's some earning that goes with that. Do you encounter people who don't know what their higher purpose is
Emily 11:28
100%. And I think you referenced coach, coaches a great way to focus on unique ability and figure that out, and EOS has the delegation and elevate tool that's going to force your thinking on it. But the other like behavior that I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is that once you get out of those bottom two quadrants, there's less fires, and fires energize you, and fires let you be the hero. And so, you know, having clarity on those top two quadrants of alright, I'm getting out of this, because I'm going to do these things instead is really the the visual to keep you going forward.
Mark 12:06
Yeah, it's a human need to feel significant, right to feel important. And if we don't know, a higher order, significance to contribute, it's very easy to says take an urgency approach. If you're the firefighter, if there's something that has to happen. Now I'm very important right now, even if that's a $10 an hour urgency, it's same emotional plugin to you like I'm being very important, I gotta get this email though, even though I could have people doing this over 100 times over for my my hourly costs this organization, because I'm not clear on what I actually should be doing.
Emily 12:43
Exactly. That's exactly right. And I think what you're going to find in that top right quadrant, and what I found up there is something that I liked doing, and I was really good at, but it was repeatable. And so for me what that was, was launching new clients. So I used to be the one to go on the kickoff calls, help with the delegation strategy, run that all over again, I was good at it, I liked it, but I was doing it over and over again. And when you find something up there, that's repeatable, that can either be a new seat on the accountability chart, it could be a new process you create, but it's a candidate for delegation, because you can take it into a process.
Mark 13:21
I love that, I think that needs a highlighter on it, too. When you put something in that quadrant, and I get it, if you got constrained budget, and you've got 100% of your time available to do all four quadrants. That's it, we're not there yet. I mean, there's an earning process, what happens is when your plate gets to full and you've got 120% of your time consumed and 20% of the things on your plate are not getting done. Because there's not enough hours in the day, you'd better choose which 20% don't get done by you. And this is how you do it. But if there's plenty of time, then you do all four quadrants. Most of the teams I work with, they have a lot more on their plate than every single leadership team member has a lot more on their plate than they can do in any given day or week. And so I love that that right hand top, even though it's above, you can do it. But if you're good at it, and you like it, who better than to teach people to do it and to write a process to do it and evangelize that and enroll people so they can take that off your plate. So you can do more of that top top quadrant stuff.
Emily 14:27
Yeah so look for repeatable is up there when you're doing it more than once. It's a delegation candidate.
Mark 14:34
So what do we do with the stuff you hate doing? But everybody keeps bringing to you?
Emily 14:44
So find your who as Dan would say, No, I would,
Mark 14:48
the way I had shared it all around probably six months ago or so. And she talked exactly about that concept of who not how you're thinking. And that's a reference you made there. So this is about rather than how to do this because that takes your time. And it's an internal inside the system closest and approach. It's who is the best person for this and think outwardly and think how you can enroll other people. Because if there's nothing else a leader is doing, and everybody on the leadership team is at least part leader and part manager, it the leadership side of this is about enrolling other people in the vision and the work and allowing them to contribute. And so you have to develop this concept of how you are and how that is, constantly be inviting more people into the vision and letting them carry part of the weight and usually with their unique ability and their Yes,
Emily 15:40
yeah, and I drink my own kool aid on these points, trust me, constantly, you know, finding who's to do different things for me. But one of the suggestions that I would make on those lower two quadrants is to attribute time to how much time you're spending in those activities. Because once you get a handle on that, and again, always looking for the repeatable, great delegation candidates down there, you can start to figure out what kind of who makes the most sense to take those things for you.
16:14
For sure, so you said something in that you drink your own Kool Aid, where do you get stuck?
Emily 16:19
I get stuck. So in my ebook, one of the things I talked about are the five bottleneck behaviors of entrepreneurs and how we get in the way and mess up delegation, and why it happens and how to solve it. One of the bottlenecks that I constantly behave in is time optimist. So I'm always thinking,
Mark 16:42
I might resonate with that when 10 minutes 35 minutes is plenty to do five things. I mean, 15 things? Absolutely. Yeah.
Emily 16:52
We all vacillate in the five behaviors every day all day, right? It's just about awareness of crap. I'm doing that again. And like just what why I'm doing it and how I'm gonna stop. You know, an example I'll give is we're launching this E course this summer. And I got it. I got I've got a lot of people helping but I'm really getting stuck on like just a full marketing strategy. And I know that I'm not gonna have time to do it. So I found the who's gonna get me across the finish line so that I can launch my course in two weeks.
17:27
kind of thing.
17:30
So say more about the five common pitfalls, battle bottlenecks, five bottlenecks,
Emily 17:35
So when we were talking about the idea of there's a discipline to the three parts of delegating? Well, there's five bottleneck behaviors, the first one is the hero. So you can imagine the heroes like to come in and save the day, they always want to know, they always want to be part of solving everything. The interventionist is more of like the typical micromanager, you're always trying to get in the middle of everything, and you're not really stepping out and letting people do what they want to do. The isolationist is really about this cocooning behavior that we exhibit when we just kind of sit there and try and do it ourselves. Because we're either scared or we're not clear. So lots of different reasons, we do that. The fourth is the time optimist, which is what I shared about and then the fifth is the dreamer. And these last 211, kind of like takeaway, I'll give you on these the dreamers always living in ideation. And what happens is your team lives in execution. And so you're like, riffing on your greatest new ideas. And they're like, Okay, I've got to figure out how we're going to do this. And you're just like sharing. And they're just thinking about executing. And so it creates this tension between the dreamer and the team, because the team just wants to execute and using, like a Strategic Coach impact filter to just like that your ideas before you're like, vomiting them all over your team, just check yourself is a really great way to avoid that behavior.
Mark 19:08
So that hit the nerve of the integrator cons conversation. So let's go there for a second. So everybody who's worked with me understands the importance of the integrator. If you're a visionary, and anybody else, if you're on the leadership team, and you have a visionary running your business, you desperately need that integrator in the organization to help manage the obstacles that you experience in execution. So one of the challenges that come smaller companies experience is working their way up to comfort level to hire and leverage an integrator. And so speak to the idea of smaller companies working their way up and maybe having tentative feelings about being able to afford or to even know what to do with an integrator. How does delegation as a discipline fit into that journey to the integrator?
Emily 19:58
Yeah, it's interesting. I did a talk recently with Ben and Jason and we talked about how do you know if you need an integrator or an assistant. And so I can speak to that sort of concept. You know, the integrator is going to hire, fire, manage people for you, and the assistant is going to be there to leverage you. So I think a first really great first step is to get an assistant before you try and tackle an integrator, because an integrator, an assistant is going to teach you really great delegation practices to be ready for that. But ask me again, your question about
Mark 20:38
integrating How does assistance and delegation is the path that's the problem I want to help people solve because I've worked with a company who's, you know, already at scale, and they're just kind of struggling to execute. And I, we just oftentimes are just deciding who the integrator is. And if that doesn't work, we change it out. And we get execution results right away. But companies who are below that, they're a little smaller, they got a smaller leadership team, and we look around the room and there's there's no integrator yet, they know they need something in that category. And they're trying to figure out how to get from where they are to an integrator and a full leadership team. And the jump directly to integrator just doesn't feel right for them either. Psychologically, maybe they're just not willing to commit the money, even though it might be exactly right for them. There's a hesitancy to do that. The skill of what we're trying to do is delegate, and we're doing it in a major way. That's creating too much fear. So you know, the concept of delegation, what's your advice to the visionary of an organization trying to work their way towards the integrator. But it's stuck I didn't use? Are you telling them get the integrator just move on? Or you let's just start with Yay, other types of assistance and work your way up to that? What's your advice to that person?
Emily 21:55
I'm advising unless you need someone who is hiring and firing people for you, that really the best step is to get someone really good at delegating, and have an assistant as a first step, have an EA?
Mark 22:10
And why is that what happens when somebody gets really good at delegating?
Emily 22:15
You start to think in that format, I think so this idea that I'm going to do it all myself, you know, that's a learned behavior that we've taken on over many years of running a business. And so when we start to get used to, Hmm, maybe I don't need to do this, or how somebody else did this differently than I did. And it was even better, I think we start to get used to this idea of maybe being ready for an Integrator.
Mark 22:42
And how long does it take to get somebody? Or what happens once they start delegating? Do they not need the integrator for quite some time? Or does it give them the clarity to make the jump? Or what do you see in that situation?
Emily 22:54
You know, I would think that it's all about what's in your top left quadrant on your delegate and elevate chart and like, what do you want to be spending your time on and what is left, maybe in the top right quadrant? If there's a lot of managing that needs to be coming off your plate, then I think that's probably a good indication that you're ready for an integrator. Okay, so that's good. So like, task heavy, you know, then maybe you're not ready. Yes.
Mark 23:21
Okay, so that helps me because I have a fear that when people who I see from the outside clearly need the integrator, but they're stuck. And so to advise them to bring an assistant in, I want to make sure I don't want to enable bad behavior that, you know, just kick the integrator conversation down the road a while, a year or two or three, it's like, No, you really didn't do really by yourself a quarter two. And so it sounds like you see that as well that if you get a leader who is now a little more in control of their time, a little more in control of their unique abilities, she usually has the clarity of self awareness of their impact, and they can make better decisions, and they feel a little freer and a little happier in their life. And the taste of delegation starts to feel good. And you start thinking, well, what's left on my plate? That's, that's really hard. Oh, all this damn management. And we need to do something about that. And that's, that's exactly right. And I think that's really, really good.
Emily 24:33
I think it's a good first step right to getting there is to just get your feet wet with delegation and build up some muscle around that.
Mark 24:46
So what are some? Oh, I don't know success stories. When you see somebody come to you kind of a mess. And it ends up in a what? How does that unfold?
Emily 24:57
Oh my gosh, it's different for everyone. Because , you know, the priorities for everyone are so different. But I hear just so much about, you know, this really moved the needle for me. And because of it I, I want my whole team delegating. And to me, like the book that I'm working on is called a Culture Of Delegation, it's going to be all about how to cascade this sort of practice through your company. Because when the leaders are delegating, well, they're elevating into more important work. So why wouldn't the same be true across the organization. So like, those are my favorite kind of stories, because then you're increasing like, not just the overall impact of one person, but the overall impact of the entire company. So we have a lot of clients coming in, you know, recently that are just bringing us in, across the whole team, which is really kind of cool to see.
Mark 25:53
I love that, because one of the things that Shannon Waller and I spoke about at length was the most common people problem in any organization, but particularly pro services, professional services, or scientific or technical organizations where the senior talent is exceedingly expensive, right? Like you have to really budget well for it, you can easily outstrip your ability to pay it by hiring too early. And so the concept is that if you need this high, high expense, highly leverageable resource, the fastest way to get it, is to take it from the people you've already got by delegating those bottom two quadrants off of them. So looking at your highest paid people, your most expensive people delegate like crazy, run the delegate and elevate to and just get their time back as much as you possibly can until you get every last ounce out of them. And you've really, that's the fastest easiest way to get to put six in some cases, seven figure people onto your payroll for free, essentially, or at least low cost in terms of the delegation cost.
Emily 27:00
Yeah, and I mean that to follow that thread unique ability is all about what loves what you love doing
27:06
that, you
Emily 27:07
know, you're good at you're really great at. And so imagine your whole company is doing work, they love doing that they're really great at you got right people, right seats, like you're untouchable at that point. Because there's just so much energy building within the organization overall that it just makes, it's just puts you on a growth trajectory. I don't think it's possible with just maybe like one new hire, it's like, what if you're elevating the entire team systematically, every quarter, everybody is finding 25% of what they're doing. And you're delegating it to a lower cost resource. so powerful.
Mark 27:43
And yeah, and I don't think it's that easy to do. Until you build a habit of it.
27:49
Exactly.
Mark 27:49
So you have to start at the leadership team level has started oftentimes most often with the visionary, I think. Let's talk more about those five bottleneck behaviors. And we talked about dreamer for sure. I may resonate with that. And time optimist as well. Both of those, it's like you know, as long as more time goes on, figure that out the hard way. You definitely run out of time. Dreaming is a big part of I think the value in a lot of visionaries.
Emily 28:20
Real need dreamers need the dreaming. We need the dreamers there's a vacuum you don't have a visionary. There's there's a vacuum happening. So the dreamers are critical. It's just managing them.
Mark 28:30
So what's a stuck spot for a dreamer? Well, how do you how do you help a dreamer,
Emily 28:34
You help a dreamer by having somebody that is constantly helping them delegate, I think it's constantly about, well, one, it's the person that is working alongside them really understands and appreciates the contribution that they're making, that that person is aware of what their top left quadrant is, and the whole team is. And then you know, what I'm seeing in my company is my team is like pushing me up, you know, pushing me up and out of a lot of the day to day stuff. So that I'm doing writing the book and going out pack. And, you know, doing all the things that bring me a lot of energy. So I think a team that embraces that methodology, and is systematically trying to make sure that they're being elevated each day when it gets to the rest of them
Mark 29:22
each day when it goes to the rest of them. So like you mentioned could tell me more about the cocooning.
Emily 29:28
Yeah, so the isolationist, they're the ones that are like, I'll just do it myself. You know, it's, it's hard up, it becomes hard for anyone to work with you because you don't have time to even have delegation conversations because you're doing it all yourself. And so it makes it impossible for your team to actually communicate with you and connect with you. And it's just spring this cycle of nobody's delegating. We're all just doing the work. And then the interventionist is typically lack of trust happening there. And they're always looking at the 80% instead of their 20% that they should be contributing. And these high standards really cause them to cocoon and just say, I'm just going to do it myself. And it's like, what I see is like scar tissue that builds up over time, because of delegations that have failed, they weren't done well. And systems that are set up, so that everything has to go through this person, which becomes a huge bottleneck.
Mark 30:31
So important significance, how often do you deal with an entrepreneur who finally got some time back? And is kind of weird about it, like, people, and I've actually talked, somebody recently said, they're not bouncing stuff off me like they used to. And he's gonna get this next bit like, I think that's good, but it makes me super uncomfortable.
Emily 30:51
Well, that's why I love EOS, right? Because you get your metrics, right. So you know, if things are on track or off track, the headlines within an hour 10 is gonna keep you informed, the VI weekly or whatever frequency you want the pulsing that's happening. And then one of my favorite cool tools that I would attribute a lot of our ability to do this well, especially in the last year, because of EOS is the cash drivers conversation. And what that allowed us to do was break down money coming in and money going out of the business, who owns each little part of that and assigned some metrics around that. So like, we know, okay, service is dropping the ball, because we've got X number of hours leaving, or sales is dropping the ball because we're not hitting our, you know, sales numbers for the, for the month, or whatever. So I think like, there's a lot of tools that can be really included to eliminate a lot of that fear.
Mark 31:53
Yes, two things. The eight cashflow drivers is an EOS tool where we sort of brainstorm and figure out on average about eight things levers that we can measure that track $1 from before we get it to where we either save it or spend it or invest it or whatever, it's the whole lifecycle of the dollar fee organization. And we can figure out some some truth points. And there's on average about eight things we want to try to control and measure the whole life cycle. And if we focus on that, we can usually make very big dramatic profits and retention or cash or whatever, whatever sort of money related metric we need to improve, we can make a big difference with that. So that's a piece of that awesome tool. But also, you know, I keep going back to this idea of when these people are exhibiting these behaviors. And I don't want to be repetitive on this. But I think you have to drive home that you're going to get stuck here. If you don't have a sense of purpose. If you don't know what your real unique abilities, if you don't really know what the opportunity cost is, you're gonna not feel significant, you're going to get time back and you're gonna be honestly metal. Yeah, you're gonna be metal, because you're bored. And to be honest, you are a little useless. And it's your job. It's to be really, I mean, it maybe it uses isn't the right word, you're certainly leaving money and contribution on the table. Like if you can do very good work with that time, you're not doing great work. And that's because you don't know what great work is. And so my advice, and I'm curious, if you have thoughts on this, if you delegate well, and you get some time back, and it makes you uncomfortable. Take that time and ask the CO instead of going back and doing more of the old work, that's not as valuable, what would be a higher value and use those clarity breaks and take some time off and you enjoy Strategic Coach or do something to get in this headspace that can get you plugged in to that top left quadrant. What are you truly great at? And what do you love to do? And keep raising the game on improving the world in some way? Week after week, quarter after quarter?
Emily 34:05
Yep. And like I have my BTO open on my desktop all the time. So like, I know, if I have a minute, spare time, what can I do to work on my rock? You know, like that sort of being really clear on like, because a lot of that time that happens, especially in like a really scheduled day like my days are really scheduled. I'd imagine yours are too. It's like you have a minute and you're like you're coming off, you know, six calls and you're like,
34:33
I don't know what I'm gonna do. I
Emily 34:33
have like 20 minutes. What should I do?
Mark 34:36
Yeah, I have that crisis. If I get 20 minutes back suddenly a reschedule or something like that. It's a crisis like, Oh my God, this time is so valuable. Don't waste it and I get stuck trying to choose with oftentimes a waste of time, because I'm stuck trying to choose.
Emily 34:52
Yeah, so like I I plan my weeks on Monday mornings, I look at what's coming up. And I think about what are the most get done things for the week, I make sure I have some time blocks to get those things done. But then I just keep a list of different tasks that I have to get to or I'll look at the veto. And I'll say, Okay, what can I do to move this rock forward right now? So it's all about being intentional with with that type of time.
Mark 35:20
I had a question and I lost it.
Emily 35:22
We had one more bottleneck, which was the hero, if you wanted to talk no ties to what you're talking about, like, so the hero's love to save the day, your team has been conditioned to run everything through you. And entrepreneurs are notorious for this baby, because we like to attribute our self-worth to being needed. And like you're talking about that can get really uncomfortable as you start to delegate. And you're getting energy out of solving problems. You're like, whoo, yeah, everyone, I know everything. And my team, you know, needs me to figure these things out. A lot of the times, it's because there's a lack of process autonomy, or accountability in your team, to actually kind of do a lot of those things. And that is largely due to you being able to give them permission to take those different things off your plate.
Mark 36:15
Yeah, a lot of a lot of heroes, I've seen a lot of heroes out there. And I think it's a it's a default state. And I was one of the worst things about it, is that it's easy to self-perpetuate it. All you need to do is a crisis create, if you create a crisis, you will feel needed. And so I worked with some people, in fact, very closely, a couple years, that's the reason I'm not working with them. They stated objective of the CEO, was to feel in crisis, at least a third of the time. And to put it intentionally like fires in the business by doing acquisitions and going to new markets and doing things and I was like, man, I saw these problems before, I don't want to do that. I don't want to spend all these extra hours and these evening meetings and all this kind of stuff in crisis that could have been avoided. So if you have a hero bottleneck, you can easily self-sabotage by biting off more and doing something and put yourself into a state of need. And so how do you find when people start working with you that they have the pain? And then they go back and bring the pain back?
Emily 37:28
Well, we do, we actually take the delegation strategy that we come up with, and we put it into a scorecard. And we track week over week on track, off track, and we force parking lot, capture. So if there's ideas that come up, and we've already, you know, pushed out for the month, all the different things we're trying to get done in the one to two hours a day that we're working with, you will push it onto the parking lot. But yeah, I think we probably do with it less, because we're fractional, than maybe some of the onsite team members do that. By peace talks
Mark 38:03
like this. Imagine like, Hey, I got some time back. And so what I did is idle hands. Right? You know, if the hero is like, I got some time back. And so I, you know, bought a bunch of new stuff.
Emily 38:12
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So if you don't have a plan, so we'll ask, you know, the R factor question, we'll talk about success criteria, what has to be true in in working with us, and we'll sort of score that every week. This is like, I feel like we're having a nine this week in terms of getting these things off my plate. So it's really, really important that you know, what you're going to do with the time that you're freeing up, which is why I advise you attribute time in those lower two quadrants. So you know, okay, I'm going to delegate 10 hours a week, off my plate. Okay, great. Now you have a vacuum, what are you going to do with those 10 hours. And being super clear on that?
Mark 38:52
You mentioned the veto and having the BTO which is the eight questions of vision for your business. A lot of times, I work with entrepreneurs at a deeper level than just the business plan, and I advise them and coach them through creating a personal plan based on the veto. It's a little different, similar concept. It's like it's, you know, what are your core values? What are your passions and what are your rocks for the quarter. But why that's important is that sometimes the work boundary or the work container other can seem a little finite in terms of purpose. And having both sometimes helps in terms of like, what, you know, I've got this time back in the business. What am I going to do with it? And sometimes the answer to that question is nothing with the business, nothing like this at all. It might be this is finally I can go to the gym, but I'm not gonna do that. I could actually take a Friday off and I'm gonna take the family somewhere. And so having an AI advisors for all the leadership teams, we have to pursue the greater good of the organization, and we have to pursue the greater good of the individual. We need both and we need to address those 100% on both. And sometimes that actually means that sometimes people leave the team for very good reasons because the alignments are not there, but we really can't subordinate one for the other, we have to, to really, really have the best outcome for the company and the individual. We've got to not compromise both of those. And so sometimes this delegation concept is highly personal, is not just about getting more money in time for the business. It is about living one's best life. Period. Yep.
Emily 40:30
Yeah, I mean, I delegate all aspects of my personal life. So anything from housekeeper or landscaper, I actually hired someone that makes sure my son turns his homework in on time, because I was finding out that, you know, was turning into a fight when I'm trying to have the same conversation. So, like, I am endlessly looking for delegation. But I also really contained my workweek. And I don't work nights and weekends, because I know I can't, I can't even like, be present in that part of my life. If I'm working those kind of hours.
Mark 41:04
I love that concept. Especially. I'm not a micromanager of things like homework and the idea that that can be outsourced or delegate. That's incredible.
Emily 41:15
That's only because of Google Classroom.
Mark 41:18
Yeah. I love that. What else you delegate? To be honest, I had a big epiphany around delegation with lawncare. That was when I realized it was a job, I was looking out the window, and looking at the person doing the lawn, and I realized that I had a job. And that was to observe whether they were doing a good job or not. And it wasn't that it was off my plate, forget about it, pay them automatically. Every month, it was like, I was not doing my job. If I just let that have it. My job was to assess. Were they the right people? Were they doing that without anymore instruction for me. And so that was a good example. And I really tried to pull the delegation concept into every aspect of my life. I started, I started, I was really frustrated with meal planning for the week. And I thought, you know, I was just eating the same stuff over and over again, and I thought we're gonna do something better here. And I'm gonna spend some time I'm a former chef, so I know how to cook. Right? So I do this. So I'm like, I'm gonna pull some recipes, we're gonna have some favorites. And we're just going to show you some apps. And every week, it was like, this is a disaster. I don't have time. I don't want to do this. And so I was like, how can I delegate? How can I get someone else to do the meal planning? Well, that's what HelloFresh does. So instantly, so like before I had that revelation, I was like, this is way too much money for food. It is not a good deal on a per ounce a chicken is not at all, it is a great deal on doing a meal planning time effort, in terms of just I plan the meals six weeks in advance, as far as let me plan them. I just pick them all out. And I'm good. And they show up every Wednesday. And I got all that time back. And I have interesting meals every week. That was that was a major delegation thing for me.
Emily 43:00
Yeah, and it's your energy right now. Your energy can be put to other stuff. And you're really energized because you got a cool box of stuff that you didn't have to figure out.
Mark 43:08
Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that's amazing. Well, we're almost out of time. So we can go a little bit more if we didn't cover everything. Is there anything you want to add to the conversation? And then we talked about that, we need to get in the conversation.
Emily 43:25
Yes, I would just share some advice, when it comes to delegation, that I want you to think about delegation as the system and the process that you're putting together to do it well, and not on a person. So you're who can be interchangeable, right? But it's all about as you're delegating, you're capturing you're making it a process, you're creating a system to stay count, that person is staying accountable, and you know where they're at, so that you're feeling comfortable. But I would really caution you to not just go out and hire somebody and think that that's a silver bullet, because it's not one.
Mark 44:07
So that reminds me, that's the subject we talked about twice now. And I keep forgetting. And that is the idea that turnover is real. You know, and especially, especially with anything in the lot of bottom two quadrants, because if you think about it, this is stuff that's likely to either beat not fun, or not fun, forever fun for somebody for a while, or the kind of work that somebody does in their career path to somewhere else. So delegation, sort of by nature, has a turnover promotion, you know, not forever element to it. So say more about that. How do you safeguard against the cost of turnover?
Emily 44:50
Yeah, I think you have a really solid system that you can rely on because, I mean, imagine you wake up and this happened there was a company called Zirtual. They had a lot of clients. And literally one day those clients woke up and they had no assistant because the company shut down. Can you imagine waking up and like your assistant is gone? Dude, well, this can happen, this is a real thing. And so you really need to have not built around an individual and just have them documenting everything that they're doing, I would suggest creating like a playbook or guidebook around what they're doing. Every Monday, I'm doing this every Friday, every third Friday, we're doing this, you know, like, just have that captured while you're working with whoever you're working with so that it's evergreen.
Mark 45:40
How does somebody who is notoriously process blind and describing myself, like, please read a process, I can read it once, if I try to read it the second time my eyes go blurry, and I want to read it. So I have frequently delegated process creation, and rarely been able to be in command of those processes in terms of tweaking them. So I've really got to get them ultra simplified before I can actually read them. What's your advice recommendation for people who are coming to you saying like, Yes, I got you. But it is hard.
Emily 46:14
So it's more about you know, that it's happening, you know, where it lives, okay, um, than anything else. So that if you wake up and somebody's gone, one, you have a plan. And two, if you have to go in and do it, like I would recommend Asana, for example. So if if you have repeatable things happening, have your team member capturing what that repeatable thing is, maybe have them do a video screen capture of how they do it, save that within the Asana task, have them set the Asana task to repeat so that if they leave and you're scrambling, you can see okay, there was 27 tasks that they have to get done this month. So I need to figure out how I'm going to do that over the next month while I find somebody else. So I you know, Asana is a great place, have them create it in a Google folder that you own, where they write the process out in some cases, but I don't think you need to know how to do it. You just need to know that they're doing it. And that is part of their process and working with you to get that thing done.
Mark 47:18
Awesome. perfect sense to me. Yeah, we're about out of time. I always had with this one question. And that is, what is your passionate plea to entrepreneurs right now. And whatever right now means to you. It could be this minute, it could be post pandemic, it could be whatever right now is for you.
Emily 47:41
value your time, like your time is what you're here for. This is why you started a business. This is your contribution, and be fiercely protective over it and committed to doing as little as you can, other than the things that you love doing. And I think with that mindset, keep staying in that mindset, you're going to continue to elevate yourself to do that.
Mark 48:06
You know, I've asked that question so many times and I'm always afraid that I'm putting people on the spot. And people continue to just amaze me with great answer that was really great. I mean, I value your time that is there's so much to that speaks for itself. I'm grateful you said that. If somebody wants to keep up with you, and continue the conversation know how to find you. What's the simplest easy way to track it down?
Emily 48:32
delegate solutions calm is our website. You can reach me right on there. My emails on there.
48:37
Can you guys do that? I'm just kidding.
Emily 48:42
We still can Dana. Got
Mark 48:48
I was gonna say that's an answer one ad.
Emily 48:51
Um, we have a great ebook out that has 30 and 90 day delegation templates. It's actually a workbook to help you work on a lot of the mindsets and behaviors that come with delegation. Deep Dive. And then if you want to do small group learning, we're doing elevation quarters, starting in q3,
Mark 49:12
Awesome stuff. sounds super, super great. And make sure we've got the links to that. So we'll get them in the show notes for anybody wants to check those out and download those and get that in there. Get the E book and all that. That is our time for this week. I'm grateful for all of you what you shared Emily, I gave her the all the wisdom. And it's been helpful to me and hopefully, hopefully helpful to the listeners. And if you got value and you think somebody else would get value, please get in the hands of them, share it with them posted whatever makes sense to in terms of getting this in the hands of the people who can benefit from it. And we would love all the feedback you can give us the good and the bad. Everything helps us be better and we're grateful for every last ounce of feedback we can get. It's so precious. We will see you next time on you're doing it wrong with me. Mark Henderson.
VO 49:55
This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson. Leary for more episodes and to subscribe, go to lyric.cc