Jun 15
3
How to Make Delegation Liberating and Rewarding
The last leg is always run by the fastest runner. Let them run.
Getting somebody who is better equipped (anyway) – to do the job
Note: This is actually a treatise on engaging the other-than-conscious parts of the mind with which to put your life on automatic pilot in the presence and POWER …not only of the other-than-conscious parts of your own mind, but also the collective consciousness of every living being on this planet and how to access the POWER of Universal Consciousness, by whatever other title or name.
I have shared on numerous occasions a discovery I made, while enjoying a position of some power, as an officer and director of a nationwide company – all the while, by the way, feeling unworthy of being in those positions.
Here are your memo's Brad.
The discovery was simple, but had a profound and lasting effect on my life. I had been continually overwhelmed by feeling the need to scramble in response to and develop action plans based on a constant flow of memos sent me each day by the CEO/Chairman of the organization.
Fortunately a solution came to me. I told my secretary not to put the CEO’s memos in my inbox on my desk, but to keep them hidden away in a file cabinet drawer. She looked shocked at such a directive, so I told her it was an experiment and the reason for it:
I had accidentally discovered, during a phone call with the CEO, and that from his answers to a list I had made of several questions prompted by all his memos.
The discovery: His thoughts expressed in his memos weren’t really all that important to him. It was simply his way of processing.
This particular call, however, was prompted by one of his memos to which I had unintentionally not responded. The simplicity of the discovery was that if something was important to him he’d call me …and that would be my call to take action. Otherwise, let him process to his heart’s content without it being a drain on my time, energy and emotions.
Actually I'm in charge, Brad just plays golf.
Once going down that path I decided to have all my mail, except that which had a handwritten “personal and confidential” on the envelope, opened by my secretary with my instructions that if it was something she could not handle personally to put it in my inbox with a note clipped to it that outlined why she couldn’t deal with it; otherwise I trusted her to either handle it (which could be to discard if she so chose), directly or ask me what to do with it.
That instruction expanded to doing the same thing with all other memos from everyone in the company. I had to help her with that part: I told her: “You know me well enough to know what I would do in response to 80% of the issues raised in internal company memos.
“If you’re certain of my response just handle it. If it is unimportant, pitch it. If you don’t understand the memo I won’t either; if you suspect it might be important, call the sender and say that I will fire you if you put this in my inbox without getting the meaning clarified; then ask the sender: ‘Can you help me understand what it is you want?’ Once you understand, YOU handle it!’”
Sorry, I can't help you with that. My secretary might fire me.
The system worked perfectly. The secretary grew in stature with others in the company as well as customers – as she realized her importance and began taking greater responsibility and received the title of “Executive Secretary” and her paycheck increased correspondingly.
Hours of my time, chasing after details that someone else was better equipped both mentally and emotionally to deal with were transformed into the time I needed to do what I had been hired to do …creatively increase sales nationwide (period).
She learned well, and grew beyond my expectations; she took it upon herself to handle incoming calls in the same manner. I overheard one day saying: “May I tell him what it’s about, otherwise he’d probably fire me.”
I stopped in my tracks to listen and was amazed at how she had broadened the instructions I had given her for handling mail and memos to handle phone calls. It engaged the caller without seeming rude – what she said next, I realized, was even more important.
Please call my secretary, I'm busy right now.
“Actually he’s delegated the responsibility for making decisions about that to me …and to help me decide, why don’t you put something in the mail to me with a note reminding me of your call, then call me back and let’s talk, okay?”
“Holy mackerel,” I almost stammered after she disconnected, “that was perfect. Where’d you come up with all that?”
“Well I learned it from you,” she answered, modestly, “and one day I realized that a lot of salespeople have good ideas and are selling great products that will help you do your job …so if I listen and think the information they send is valuable, I clip my little note to it and put it in your inbox. Isn’t that the way you told me you wanted it, boss?”
I gave her another raise. I actually later married her – with another monumental discovery …I should have stopped with the raise and bigger title.
Use the part of you that works the best.
What a way to handle a sales call …with the realization that the person calling may have a great idea or product that helps me accomplish the purpose for which I was hired. I accidentally also learned that when I delegate appropriately, it not only saves me time and energy, but the job gets done far more effectively because the person is better at it than I am.
We’ve learned from science and experience that the other-than-conscious parts of our minds are far better equipped to handle many things rather than thinking about them consciously.
What I’ve learned in the past year during and after doing research for my latest book, Integration of the Mind is my “internal supervisor” of all the other-than-conscious parts of this body I occupy and whom I refer to as MEGA-me is far better equipped to handle and show me how to deal with any number of life’s issues.
I suppose I could have just said that without the long story above, but I like to bring up that memory every now and then …it reminds me of just how much trouble I cause when I think about things – like about how my secretary might fill a void in my life if I asked her to marry me.
Looking back, MEGA-me reminds me that I was given every clue imaginable that that my secretary and I made a good team in business, but we simply were not the best choice for one another as life partners.
One of the things people learn in our YOU WITHOUT LIMITS free “Workshops” easily is some of the things we learned the hard way. How to “listen” and learn from the other-than-conscious parts of the minds of these body-bags we occupy – in other words, you could say, “What you see is not what you get.” This body is not “me” …I AM and so are you, if you’re ready to proclaim it. -bc
New podcast: 146 – How to Delegate