Kayla: Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast and I'm your host Kayla Das.
Have you been putting off hiring that much needed administrative assistant, or delegating tasks to an assistant that you may already have?
As practice owners, we often feel like we have to do it all ourselves. And up until now, maybe you have been. However, there comes a time in every business where enlisting help and delegating is required in order to scale.
In this episode, Andrea Liebross, coach, author, and fellow podcaster will discuss how to make delegation easy so that you can finally reach the next stages in your business journey.
Hi, Andrea. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here today.
Andrea: I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Kayla: Andrea, before we dive into today's episode, please introduce yourself, where you're from, and tell us a little bit about you and your business journey.
Andrea: Sure. So, I am coming to you today from right outside Indianapolis. I am originally from Boston, however. So, I say I'm a New Englander at heart. Go Red Sox. How I got here was we've moved around a bit, but I've been here since 2000.
But what I'm doing on a daily basis right now is working with business owners, primarily women, all across the world, really zoom has become my friend. So I help, I call them founders, CEOs, business owners, really create this business that feels good to them, that flows, that aligns with their vision and help them kind of make some hard decisions. A lot of what I do is help people make decisions. A lot of what I do is I help them see what's possible. And a bunch of my clients are our practice owners. So that's how you and I connected.
Kayla: That's amazing. And it's funny because we're talking about delegating today, and even though I had some virtual assistants throughout my business, it's not until last August that I was like, okay, I really need to enlist help. I got to stop doing it all myself.
So, for the listener, it really is hard to let things go sometimes because you just know the process the systems, and you're just like, it's going to be too much work to tell someone else what to do. But, I'm not going to give too much away, but I definitely know from experience now, being a year later, it was the best decision I ever made. And I hope that people gain some snippets today that help empower them in being able to delegate their work as well.
Andrea: Yeah, I would love to help you do that. And you know what? I want to kind of help demystify delegating, because it is a skill that many people struggle to master. But there is a way to get, I call it like, how to get the result you want every time.
Alright, first, I would agree with you that it is harder than it looks, right? It seems like, oh, it should be just so easy, I should just tell them what to do, and then you do it a few times and you don't get what you want, and then you have the thought, like you did, oh, maybe I should just do it myself. Just do it myself, right? But if you look at your business and you want it to grow or you want to create more capacity just for yourself to do the parts that you want to do, at some point you're going to have to start to get good at delegating. We don't necessarily grow up learning how to delegate and it's not a skill that's taught in school or even trained professionally when we start a business. But when working with my clients, I hear all the time them say, I just can't do it all myself, but I don't know. I mean, should I really hire that person? Like that just seems like a lot of work too. Maybe I'll just get my kid to do something. Maybe I'll hire the neighbor down the street. Somehow that seems like a little more not so scary.
But I really am here to tell you that once you get started, it's something that you are going to want to do more and more and more of. And the cool thing is, it's a skill, just like everything else. You can learn to do it well, and if you do it, it's going to enable you to, again, like, scale or just gain capacity.
Kayla: I couldn't agree with you more. So, when it comes to delegating, what are some of those benefits?
Andrea: So, I would say the first benefit is that if you give a clear description of the project, this is an if. And set expectations and give directions around the scope, you're going to get what you want. It really, though, depends on the way you're communicating. So, sometimes we're delegating through a text message, or we're in a meeting and we just say, hey, can you take care of this? I think the main thing we want to do, regardless of the format in which we're sending it, is to be really, really clear with a short sentence or two when we describe what's happening.
And, you know, sometimes all that requires is just taking a short pause and saying, hey, can you make sure that you get this done in the next two weeks? And when you're done, let me know. I don't need to know. How it's happening or when it's happening, but we've got to get clear. So, I teach my clients to use what I call the 5 Levels of Delegation.
And if they can use those five levels of delegation and get the person that they're delegating to understand these levels. So, it's almost like you're getting yourselves on the same page, and you can use this sort of lingo of levels of delegation. It's going to get actually really easy. It's going to get easy.
But clarity is kind of the key, in a sense to understanding what level or how to describe what you want. So, I can share those levels too if your listeners might be interested.
Kayla: Amazing. Before we do that though, I'm just curious when should a therapist consider hiring support in their practice for the purpose of delegating tasks?
Andrea: Okay, this is an excellent question and this comes up all the time. Before I actually answer that specifically, I am going to say the money thing comes up a lot. So regardless of whether I think like you need it or not or whatever. Spending money on it, wondering if I can afford it, or is this a good use of my resources is another way to think about that. I always say usually, if you're even asking that question. The answer is, how can you not afford it? How can you not do this? Because if you think about, if you had this person, would it grow your capacity to do other money generating activities?
Like, could you see more patients if you weren't doing all of your own social media? Could you offer different things that you're not offering now if you weren't doing all of the scheduling, like, whatever that is. So, really, if you're even asking the question, it's probably time to hire.
Now, what that's going to do is expand your capacity, right? So, are all the things that you are doing in a day, I'll call them like revenue generating activities, or are they the things that only you can do? Like you as a therapist, can only deliver the therapy, okay?
But other people out there that are non-therapists can post on social media. They can book a client into a calendar. They can actually help someone go through an intake form, a very basic one, obviously not getting into the details, right?
So, is this something that only you can do and no one else? Or is this something that someone else probably could do? So, I created a matrix, or a rubric, however we want to call it, that I call the Zone of Extraordinary Achievement. So, you should be operating in your Zone of Extraordinary Achievement. And that means it should be something that only you can do, something that lights you up, and something that kind of moves the needle forward. So, I know we're going to share at the end. You can go to andreas.com and go to the toolkit and you're going to find this zone of extraordinary achievement. But the questions that I ask in there, kind of like what I just reviewed, are really the questions you need to ask yourself as to whether or not this is a good time to hire.
Kayla: I love that. And it also makes me think of with therapists, I often get the question of, you know, when should I hire another therapist?
Andrea: Yes. Yes.
Kayla: And the truth is, is yes, you as a therapist can do therapy. However, you can also hire another therapist to do therapy so that you can focus on the bigger vision and the bigger mandate of your practice so that you can expand and start making more profit, helping more clients. And then the beauty of it is you're helping provide more jobs for other therapists who either might be just starting out or don't really want to have their own private practice, or just want to get some experience before they do.
Andrea: Totally true. So, the three questions to ask yourself are, do they get it, or do I get it? Get it, want it, or have the capacity to do it. So, we were just talking about capacity, but if you're talking about hiring other therapists, you might hire them because you're at full capacity. But also, another way to think about this is, do you get the modality of therapy that they're really skilled at? So, you're expanding and bringing someone else on who gets a different thing than you do. So, get it, want it, have the capacity to do it are really the questions that you need to ask when you think about who's working within your team or your practice. Everybody should get it, want it, and have the capacity to do whatever is in their particular role.
Kayla: I absolutely love this. Now, I'm really curious on those levels of delegation. So, can you please share those and how they work?
Andrea: Sure. And this could even go for other therapists too in your practice. This doesn't even have to go for assistants. You can even use this on your family. You can use this anywhere. It doesn't even have to be in a business setting. So, okay, so five levels of delegation.
So, I think the first one is level one is what I call carry out instructions. Okay, so this means do exactly what I've asked you to do. Do not deviate from my instructions. You've already researched the ways to do it and you've determined that this is how you want it done. And usually, level one is you're delegating to someone who lacks experience or someone who doesn't have the capacity or know how or want to make a decision. And I kind of feel is like the toddler version. So, this is when you tell your three-year-old to sit on the floor, please, right in front of the bench and put your shoes on. So, you're being super-dy duper specific. You're telling them where to sit and what to do. You might even say, put your shoes on in the next minute, right? You're getting really specific. So that's level one. Okay.
It goes all the way up to level five, and I'll talk about all in the middle, but just so you know where this is going. Level five is act independently. So, this means, hey, I just want us to be posting on social media. We don't have any presence on social media. So, you go figure this out. You make whatever decision around it that you think is best. You decide on the platforms. You decide how often. You decide the content. And you know what? There's no need to report back. I trust you completely. I know you'll follow through. You have my full support in whatever you decide. I have complete confidence in you, and I'll just plan to see it as I'm scrolling through my feed at 10 p. m., okay? So, that's act independently. And I think the fear in delegating is really in those two different levels. So, the fear is, you’re going to have to act like a level one, you're telling someone to put their shoes on within the next minute, sitting in front of the bench, and that feels exhausting. No wonder little kids are exhausting. Or, you think that you're just going to have to give away all of your power in decision making, and this person is going to be out there by themselves, right? And that feels scary.
Now, the good news here, the good news is that there's three levels in between, okay? So, a level up from the tie your shoes is, I call it research and report. So, this means, all right, social media, I want you to go out there and use AI, whatever, research this topic, gather some info, report on what you discover, we'll discuss it, and then I will make the decision and tell you what I want you to do. Okay, so you've got some confidence in the delegate, we'll call it. But you're reserving your right to make the decision. You're making the decision yourself on how this is all going to go down.
Level three is a little up from that. So, let's say you want to delegate out revising your intake form. So, level three is research and recommend. Hey, I want you to go research. Let's even say five other practices. Research how they do their intake. Outline some options for me, and bring your best recommendation to the table. How do you think we should revise this? Tell me the pros and cons of each option or format we could use and tell me what you think we should do, and if I agree, I'll just say go for it, I'll authorize you to move forward, or we can talk about it and maybe we'll tweak it a little. So, this is research and recommend. That's level three.
And then the fourth one is, I need to figure out in QuickBooks how to print out monthly reports. I have no clue how to do that. I want you to go figure out the five ways we could do it, decide which way you're going to use, do it, but tell me after you've done it. Like, keep me in the loop. I don't need to know all the nitty gritty details. I just want it done, but tell me when you've done it. Because I have confidence. You have a high level of confidence in you, and I don't need to give you all the 52 steps. I trust that you're going to figure it out, but I do want to know it's done.
So, level four is that decide and inform, and if your delegate is on the same page as you and understands these five levels, then you can just hand off tasks and say, this is a level three. This is kind of what I'm looking for, because you have to tell them, like, get clear on what you're looking for, but go for it. Level 3 research, come back to me with some recommendations. And that's it, it's end of story, right?
So, it doesn't have to be a 1, and it doesn't have to be a 5, it can be somewhere in between, which takes the scariness out of it, I think.
Kayla: I love that, and I have never really thought of it that way, but that makes it feel less scary in how to move forward and I agree with you 100%. We always think it's either I have to give up complete control, or I have to be a micromanager. And that actually goes into my next question is really therapists and counselors are some of the most gentlest, caring, and thoughtful people out there. And as a result, they often worry about delegation because they're worried that they're going to come off as either a micromanager, or a workplace dictator, like we talked at number one.
Andrea: Yep.
Kayla: So, you've talked about it within a step format, which makes it feel so much easier. But are there any steps or tips or even signs that therapists can watch out for or use to feel confident that they're not being that dictator, that they're not being that micromanager?
Andrea: Okay, so therapists and counselors also are in the business of helping people grow. Personally, become more in tune with themselves and also understand what they're capable of. So, I also want you to think about, you might be doing this person a disservice if you weren't delegating. Because you're not providing them with opportunities to increase their knowledge or capacity or confidence in themselves. So, I think that is a real interesting piece of the puzzle that what if you're doing them a favor in this sense? Like they're doing you a favor because they might be taking something off your plate, but what if you're doing them a favor? It kind of also aligns with if you're hiring a new therapist, like you're giving them a job. Right? Someone's thrilled to have that job. So, that's one thing. And I like to keep that in the back of my memory because it makes me feel good, too. Right?
The other thing is to think about, I call it the 1-3-1 method. So, if you don't know if you should delegate something or if you should keep it to yourself or what the story is. Think about this 1-3-1. 1-3-1 is, okay, let's identify the one problem or the one thing that needs to get accomplished or taken care of. Let's think about three ways that we could do this and then let's come up with the one way we're going to go for it.
So, I don't care what the task is or what we're even talking about, the three ways would be, I can do it myself, I can have someone help me do it, or I can just completely give up all power and outsource it totally. So, you can kind of gauge which one of those feels the best to you. Okay.
So, and this actually even goes for, like, delegating, or if you've got an assistant, you want them to be able to identify the problem and give you three ways they could solve it, but most of the time, recommend which one you want to go move forward with. That's that level three delegation right in the middle. So you kind of have to do that to yourself a little bit too. You know, what feels best for me?
Kayla: I love that so much. And I think about, because I used to run non-for-profit organizations before I went into private practice. And one of the things you said really reminded me of my time there.
One of the things I often hear people say is I don't like being micromanaged because I can't grow. I find it difficult to be able to create whatever it is, a project or a report or whatever it is in my authentic way. And chances are, if you're worried about being a micromanager, you're not going to be. That's one thing.
The second thing is that, like you mentioned, People want that opportunity to be able to explore, to learn, to build upon your knowledge as well as build upon knowledge beyond that. So, like in these levels of delegation you mentioned, there's like the research, come back and tell me, research and come back and tell me. And those types of things help people learn, helps people grow, and it also helps move people away from the micromanaging, because that always comes up. It's, I haven't had an opportunity to learn it myself and do it the way I want to with some autonomy, even though at the end of the day, we all have bosses. And people know that the final approval goes to the boss. But they still want that ability to make some decisions themselves and to learn and grow from that opportunity.
Andrea: It's really to gain confidence too, right? It's a confidence builder in the sense of you've worked through all of the steps. Sometimes I like to say that confidence is really just the willingness to feel every feeling.
So, if you're working through a problem or trying to figure out something to do, you're going to experience maybe a little confusion, overwhelm, frustration, feeling victorious at the end, right? So, you're building confidence through that process.
Kayla: I absolutely agree with you. Andrea, I know you have a bunch of free virtual goodies for listeners. Can you share a little bit about these resources and how they can help them?
Andrea: Sure. So, if you go to Andrea's with an S, links with an S, andreaslinks.com, you're going to find lots of things. And I'll give you a little tour. There's a quiz there that really helps you figure out whether or not you're ready to scale your business. Like, where are you with that? And then depending on your answer, you're going to get some personalized help to help you move into that next stage of scaling. So, there's that.
There's also, I mentioned before, that Zone of Extraordinary Achievement, document, which is going to help you, matrix rubric, which is going to help you figure out what you should be working on and what you shouldn't be working on. You can access that there through the toolkit. And you're also going to find a link to my podcast and my book, both of which are called She Thinks Big.
Social media links. Link to the website. In these five levels of delegation that I talked about, there is a podcast episode. Maybe we can specifically link that actually in the show notes that are about the five levels of delegation and a download that just has like an infographic on them, which is what I give my clients. And I say, print two of these out, one for you and one for your delegate.
Kayla: Amazing. So, to check out Andrea's virtual goodie bag of resources, head to andreaslinks.com or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.
Andrea, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to make delegation easy.
Andrea: Happy to be here.
Kayla: Thank you everyone for tuning into today's episode. And I hope you join me again soon on the designer practice podcast.
Until next time, bye for now.
