When I set out to accomplish something, I want that task to be done with excellence. Years ago when I went to do something, it had to be perfect. There is a great difference between excellence and perfection.
How could I know that the job others would do would be as good as mine? The effort that I perceived it would take to “fix” their mistakes seemed like more of a burden to me than simply doing it all myself.
Well, I suppose that sounds a little prideful, doesn’t it? But the fact is, some personalities just have that perfectionistic nature.
To accomplish certain things, I had to have a team of people and I had to trust that they would do an excellent job.
John Maxwell made some comments that were profound to me. To summarize, he had concluded that he was good at only four things, and if the task required something outside of those four things, he needed to find someone else to do it. He went on to add that they would do the task far better than he could have done it, and collectively they would accomplish things on a much larger scale with greater impact and a higher degree of excellence.
I still believe that we are equipped to do anything we set our minds to do so long as we can conceive and believe it. The realization I came to is that just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
We will learn more on another day about our gifts, talents, and areas of expertise.
Let’s focus on empowering others and trusting them to accomplish their parts of the task with excellence. This requires us to select the correct people for the job we are delegating, and that can be a learning process – but it’s one worth pursuing. When we learn to see and encourage and empower the talents and gifts of others, we discover a whole new way of achieving excellence together.
- Exercise:
What is a project that you are currently working on that could benefit from the use of effective delegation?
How can you implement this?
Integral Development Forum 