To spend more time making important decisions on your business, you must replace yourself. This means hiring and training other people to do the things taking up a lot of your time day-to-day. First, as you do tasks you wish to delegate later, make one-sheets for each task, where you explain the entire task from beginning to end on one piece of paper. Diagrams, decision trees, images, etc. are allowed, and maybe QR codes to short videos as well. Regardless, the entire task should fit on one page. I think I got this from Sam Carpenter’s book Work the System. You can also find similar ideas in the writings of Rory Vaden or Michael Gerber.
Offload the high-time investment, low-trust tasks first
Once you’ve done this for enough tasks, it is time to offload some of these tasks to the employees. I recommend starting with the tasks that are time consuming but don’t require high trust in the beginning. My business professor in college, Donald Bradshaw at University of Alaska, told me to never have the employee who writes checks and the person who signs the checks be the same person. In that spirit, anything that might impact your brand reputation, customer relationships, or authorize someone to make purchasing decisions should be offloaded last.
The method of training recommended by John C. Maxwell is one of the best methods I’ve seen for training employees (or contractors). Here is a slightly altered version of it for more hands-on work:
Replace Yourself One Task at a Time
Step 1: You do it. They watch. You know how to do it, but the other person doesn’t. You show them, allowing them to ask questions and articulate their understanding of the task along the way. Repeat step one until they feel they could do step two with help.
Step 2: You do it. They help. They might be able to do it now, if their lives depended on it, but could make costly mistakes along the way. This is like step one, but now you ask them to guide you through the steps, with them telling you where to go next and what should be done at each step. Pretend you are the student and they are the teacher, then at the end of the process, correct them where necessary. Again, allow them to ask questions and cement their understanding of the situation. When they can satisfactorily do step two, move on to step three.
Step 3: They do it. You help. It’s their turn at the workstation. If hiring an experienced candidate, this might be step one. Still, don’t be afraid to start with step one or two, knowing that their experience might not be calibrated to the habits you want in your own company. This time, they do the task, and when they need help, you are there to answer questions. When they need guidance, show them the next step. You can repeat this step until they can do step four. This is a great opportunity for Deep Practice, repeatedly practicing a short part of a task until they can do it effectively.
Step 4: They do it. You watch. The ‘You’ in this process could be a hiring manager, a more experienced employee who made the one-sheet for you, or yourself. Now they do it. You can still answer questions if they need help, but they are now relying on the one-sheet you gave them. It still may take them much longer than you to do the same task. Track improvement as this step is repeated to your satisfaction.
In regards to the one-sheet, it is better if you make it. You can do this with the help of a consultant who has knowledge of best practices, or a trainee who will quickly find the weaknesses in your one-sheet.
Step 5: They do it alone. You audit. This can be done in batches – either every hour, or every half day. This is the time for conversations about how to improve, to answer questions, and to learn whatever you did not cover in your training. If it hasn’t started in step 4, now is the time to update your one-sheet for that task to reflect how well it has helped your trainee to do his or her job.
The Process Diagram is Your Teacher’s Aide
If the employee’s work is a series of tasks, all connected, then they need a decision-tree or process diagram showing where each task sits in their workflow. This diagram should be reviewed before going over any connected task and its accompanying one-sheet and training.
Your insight and self-starting character might be irreplaceable, but when it comes to day-to-day operations, you want to be replaceable. A monkey should be able to do your job. Even though your people aren’t monkeys, it should be fairly simple for your people to give you what you need. That way they have the emotional and mental energy to do the rest of their lives. Give them that, and pay them well, and you may be the best boss they’ve ever had.
To offload your bookkeeping, contact me for a free strategy call. After an initial setup, you could start saving 8-10 hours per month. That’s time enough to build those one-sheets and train your people using this process.
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