The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Update - Timothy Ferriss [52]
Delegation Dangers: Before Getting Started
The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
—BILL GATES
Have you ever been given illogical assignments, handed unimportant work, or commanded to do something in the most inefficient fashion possible? Not fun and not productive.
Now it’s your turn to show that you know better. Delegation is to be used as a further step in reduction, not as an excuse to create more movement and add the unimportant. Remember—unless something is well-defined and important, no one should do it.
Eliminate before you delegate.
Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined. Otherwise, you waste someone else’s time instead of your own, which now wastes your hard-earned cash. How’s that for incentive to be effective and efficient? Now you’re playing with your own dough. It’s something I want you to get comfortable with, and this baby step is small stakes.
Did I mention to eliminate before you delegate?
For example, it is popular among executives to have assistants read e-mail. In some cases this is valuable. In my case, I use spam filters, autoresponders with FAQs, and automatic forwarding to outsourcers to limit my e-mail obligation to 10–20 e-mail responses per week. It takes me 30 minutes per week because I used systems—elimination and automation—to make it so.
Nor do I use an assistant to set meetings and conference calls because I have eliminated meetings. If I need to set the odd 20-minute call for a given month, I’ll send one two-sentence e-mail and be done with it.
Principle number one is to refine rules and processes before adding people. Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production; using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.
The Menu: A World of Possibilities
I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.
—BISHOP DESMOND TUTU, South African cleric and activist
The next question then becomes, “What should you delegate?” It’s a good question, but I don’t want to answer it. I want to watch Family Guy.
The truth be told, it is a hell of a lot of work writing about not working. Ritika of Brickwork and Venky of YMII are more than capable of writing this section, so I’ll just mention two guidelines and leave the mental hernia of detail work to them.
Golden Rule #1: Each delegated task must be both time-consuming and well-defined. If you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off and assign your VA to do that for you, it doesn’t improve the order of the universe.
Golden Rule #2: On a lighter note, have some fun with it. Have someone in Bangalore or Shanghai send e-mails to friends as your personal concierge to set lunch dates or similar basics. Harass your boss with odd phone calls in strong accents from unknown numbers. Being effective doesn’t mean being serious all the time. It’s fun being in control for a change. Get a bit of repression off your chest so it doesn’t turn into a complex later.
Getting Personal and Going Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes, the ultrarich filmmaker and eccentric from The Aviator, was notorious for assigning odd tasks to his assistants. Here are a few from Donald Bartlett’s Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness you might want to consider.
1. After his first plane crash, Hughes confided in a friend that he believed his recovery was due to his consumption of orange juice and its healing properties. He believed that exposure to the air diluted the juice’s potency, so he demanded that fresh oranges be sliced and juiced in front of him.
2. When Hughes was partaking of the nightlife in Las Vegas, his aides were charged with approaching any girls he took a liking to. If a girl was invited