There is a lot of great dialogue around delegating to people and empowering those around you, but often we fail to do realize how do do that in a way that brings out the best of those on our teams. Matt DeFord highlighted some great examples of what that looks like in our conversation on the most recent podcast episode that I really wanted to highlight.
It starts with communicating what our vision is and then letting the people around us enact that vision with their own process because the way we do things is not the only process that works. When we dictate the process we stifle creativity and limit the abilities of those we seek to empower. When we surround ourselves with great people, we should trust them to do the jobs we give them the way they think they can best be accomplished. When we let them use their process, they will often surprise us and teach us new ways of achieving great results while still fulfilling the vision we communicated. Usually this vision will be more beautiful than we could’ve imagined.
Matt used the three words Delegate, Appreciate, Congratulate to guide himself through the process of assisting those he delegates tasks. Once we give others a task, we show them our appreciation through trusting them and showing our sincere gratitude. We also congratulate them along the way as they achieve milestones and at the final completion. Sometimes people will need redirection, but allow people the room to operate before you step in and take over, because stepping in too soon will destroy trust and belittle your appreciation of them.
These steps will help those around you become better versions of themselves and they will become more capable of even greater achievements in the future. For more great insights from Matt listen on the Spotify play below.