Here’s a list of executive roles from a large company based in the UK (I’ve missed some out and I’ve slightly changed the name of a couple of them)
- Chief Executive
- Chief Financial Officer
- Safety and Risk Officer
- Strategy Officer
- Regional Officer
- Human Resources Director
If you’re working on your own you are almost certainly doing at least two, probably most of, and possibly all of these roles (and more)
Assign these roles to tasks. If you are switching between roles take time to think about what it means in terms of how you are going to behave to yourself and to your colleagues, clients, customers and suppliers in the new role
Delegation
Accept offers of help
If I am unable to pay someone who offers to help, I still accept the offer and then I keep a record of the value of what people do for me (including work that I do for myself!). At a later date I will hopefully be able to recompense them for the value they provided
Delegation to people
Delegation is not simply a case of handing something over to someone else. It takes:
- Assessment
- Planning
- Discussion
- Training
- Review
- Handover
- Monitoring
Some of your time will be taken up before you see any results so make sure you can afford that time, but if having additional time (because you’ve delegated) allows you to make additional money that will cover the cost (or any non-monetary value that has the required benefits for you) then it will be worthwhile.
Delegating to technology
- Delegating to technology is very similar to delegating to people
- You can afford something if the initial cost is within your budget and if you will save more money than the ongoing cost of the technology (software and / or hardware) in the long run
- Deciding whether you can afford something is the equivalent to the assessment, planning and discussion stages, you’ll still need to train yourself (and / or someone else) to use the technology so that should be added to the initial cost
- Once you are using the software or hardware you will need to review and monitor whether it is achieving what you hoped it would and whether it is paying for itself
- If everything is working then you will hopefully be able to hand a manual process or procedure over to the technological solution that you have adopted
Boring jobs and ‘menial’ jobs
- Don’t be afraid to ask other people to do what you might consider to be boring or menial tasks
- They may not consider the same tasks to be boring or menial
- Whether they do or they don’t, they may be happy to do those jobs
- If you have the skills to do something, and someone else does not, then your time is wasted doing anything that the other person has the time and ability to do
- In the future you may want to train others to be able to do what you can do, but for now it is appropriate for people to do the jobs that they have the skills to do and for you to concentrate on the jobs that only you have the skills to do