I wanted to talk a little bit about delegating because even though I know better, I still have to catch myself almost every time that I do than when I'm delegating.

There are two things that I still do, and I wanted to share each one to you tonight.

The first one is, “WE does something. We does not accomplish anything”

You need to delegate that task to a specific person.  Team member A, will do this by this deadline. ‘We should do this' – that is a plan. That's never gonna happen because nobody takes ownership of it at that point.

You need to delegate who owns it. You need to start the conversation that way, like, “How do you feel about us doing XYZ? And then if it's agreed upon and we say, “Okay, player A, you're doing this. Here's your deadline and here are the expectations.” because ‘we' does not accomplish anything.

People, there's no WE. 

I know there's no ‘I' in team because it does take a team, but it takes a specific person on the team with tasks. 

And the next one is… if I'm delegating, I'll type something like, “Would you please blah blah blah…” And then finally I'll take out the part, ‘Would you', so it's just “Please do the thing.”

When I was growing into being a boss and being a leader, I would get people to do stuff because, when I was working in corporate America, I didn't actually have a team. I was a person that had to work between teams, so I didn't really have my own team, but I had to get people to do what I wanted.

And the way I would do that is I would ask really nicely but I need to be clear in my direction.

I'm not as authoritative, but just instead of saying, “Would you please write?”, just say, “Please write…”

I'm not trying to be mean, but those are two things that have really helped improve my delegation. So I wanted to share them with you. 

Again…

✔ We does not accomplish anything. Delegate it to somebody.

✔ Don't ask a question. If  you're delegating something, make it a statement.