[00:00:00] delegation without accountability is just a to-do list with your name still on it. So instead of just handing off tasks, we also want to be transferring ownership. And here's how I do that with my team.
Welcome to Strategy Solutions and Sanity, the show for family run businesses and small teams who are done letting chaos run the show. I'm Sam, business and team strategist and your No Fluff Guide to Making Business Simple and Fun. This is a quick cast, a short, sharp dose of strategy and action. 'cause I know sometimes you just need that quick next step to get your sanity back.
So let's get into it.
Something I do often with my team is speak in terms of ownership, and that helps with how I delegate and with holding my team accountable. Let me give you an example of what I mean by this. Whenever I need to delegate something to my team or figure out split roles and responsibilities on the same project, I never say, [00:01:00] can you do this task? Can you do X, Y, Z?
I always say, can you own whatever it is? A lot of times I also try to make this to be an outcome or an objective rather than a specific task. For example, I'm planning a Bible study retreat with some girlfriends and. The other coordinator and I are figuring out some of like the logistic details around what we're gonna eat, what time certain things are at, who's getting what materials and all of that.
And so I say, can you own getting groceries for like this lunch and this dinner, I'll own getting groceries for like this dinner and this breakfast, i'm not like typing out the full grocery list of what those items are, but. You get the general gist you own getting all of the food that we're gonna need for these meals that we've already planned.
An example with my team, with my va, we have a whole podcast process and a list of content that we need to make per podcast episode. From the YouTube [00:02:00] thumbnails to then repurposing the video into a blog, all of that stuff.
So I'll tell her i've recorded this episode. Can you own getting this episode published and out?
And she knows that published and out doesn't just mean publishing the podcast onto Spotify or something. It means all of the little bits of content, all the graphics, the episode description, the titles, the blog, email, newsletter, that whole to-do list.
She's now owning that. When someone owns something they're responsible for it and they're held accountable to it.
I had this discussion with a team member of a client's team recently where we were looking at redoing their job description, and I said, these are now things that we're considering putting into your job description and removing these other things.
Can you own these things,
What I mean by owning this is when we have this type of project. If X, Y, Z doesn't get done, then we are coming to you to ask why this didn't get done. Or when we have this type of event, [00:03:00] you're responsible for making sure that these certain things don't fail or don't go wrong.
And if they do, then we're coming to you and asking why that happened and how we can prevent that happening in the future. So owning these tasks means that you are responsible for making sure that they get done and that these certain things don't fail. Is that something that you're comfortable with owning?
And so I prefer to speak in terms of ownership with my team when delegating tasks, because I want them to know that if things go wrong, I'm holding them accountable to it. I'm not just asking you to check something off of a to-do list. I'm asking you to hold yourself accountable and be responsible to achieving a certain outcome.
That's something you might try with your team. If you're struggling with ownership and you're struggling with accountability, start talking in terms of owning a task rather than doing a task.
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