Delegation Is Key To A Successful Greenhouse Operation

In a packed room at Cultivate’15, speaker Bernie Erven presented key steps growers need to take to improve their delegation skills, the benefits of delegating and the dangers of not learning how to delegate. This is a skill, he says, that everyone needs to learn.

“For all of you who are part of a family business, you are choosing not to do things the easy way,” Erven laughed, as he presented a list of ways to know whether or not you’re an effective delegator.

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The owner of Erven HR Services, LLC, Erven has been working with and observing family businesses for many years. In his presentation, he said, he didn’t share anything that he hasn’t seen first-hand.

You might not be a good delegator if you:

  • Tend to be a perfectionist
  • Work more hours than anyone else
  • Lack time to explain clearly and concisely
  • Are often interrupted
  • Enjoy what you used to do more than what you do now
  • Review the work of people you supervise
  • Get upset when people don’t do tasks correctly
  • Feel the need to keep your finger in every pie
  • Need to control

“If you identify with at least three of these statements,” Erven said, “you might have a delegating problem.”

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The challenge is looking in the mirror, and the biggest step toward better delegation is owning your problem, Erven said.

“This is where you begin – ask yourself, ‘Am I willing to make personal changes to make it possible for me to delegate?'”

Benefits Of Delegating

  • Frees up time to do important things only you can do
  • Increased responsibility helps middle managers develop
  • Helps build trust and rapport with middle managers
  • Helps with management succession
  • Builds confidence and trust in the next generation of the business

“I am continously amazed that 75-year-old parents can raise their children to be followers, and then one day, flip the switch and say, ‘You’re in charge – don’t screw it up,'” Erven said.

How People Who Are Delegated To, Benefit From Delegation

  • Provides opportunity
  • Enhances self-esteem through trust and acceptance
  • Builds job skills, expands knowledge, adds variety to the job
  • Requires development of decision-making and problem-solving
  • Makes employees more valuable to the business

“One of the best delegators I’ve ever talked to, announced to everyone at his business that he was dead,” Erven said. “He was never dead less than or more than three days and no decisions were to be delayed until he returned.”

Benefits Of Delegation For Your Business

  • Discover better ways of doing things
  • Spreads sense of ownership among middle managers

Downsides To Delegation

  • A job might not get done
  • The person you delegate to may fail, and the problem may not be solved
  • More time spent training
  • Harder to coordinate work, responsibilities, schedules

What You Should Delegate

  • Tasks you did before you were promoted
  • Work best done closer to the situation
  • Tasks that others can do better and faster
  • Routine clerical work
  • Generic decisions and questions

What Not To Delegate

  • Family issues/conflicts
  • Personnel issues that are yours to handle – don’t expect others to do it for you
  • Morale problems – though symptoms can be delegated
  • Tasks that senior managers or owners have assigned to you
  • Strategic and operational issues

How To Delegate

  • Delegate as near to the task as is feasible
  • Describe what is being delegated
  • Select the right person
  • Determine the ability and training needs
  • Explain the assignment, importance, additional training, deadlines and choice of person

“I once visited a farm, and the owner of the farm took me around to the different areas of the operation, and introduced other people in those specific areas, and asked them to talk about what they do and why it’s important,” Erven said. “The owner didn’t say a word; he tasked each of the managers in those areas with explaining how their areas of expertise functioned.”

  • Extend the decision-making scope (authority) to equal responsibility
  • Assure feedback by seeking questions, suggestions and concerns
  • Incorporate on-job training into early efforts to handle new tasks
  • Stay in contact without hovering
  • Provide recognition and reward upon completion

“How many people are sick of other people telling you thank you, for doing your job?” Erven asked. “Is anyone sick of hearing, ‘Good job, I think you did a better job of handling that than I did’?”

Why Family Businesses Struggle With Delegation

“Dad may brag to Grandma about the great job that you did, but have you ever heard it?” Erven asked.

  • Tradition and emotion
  • Power within the family takes priority over skills of non-family employees
  • Muddled communication interferes with clear delegation
  • Resistance to training, feedback and merit awards
  • Family culture and organization structure may not fit delegation

“In a family business with five kids, the youngest daughter is the best liked and most respected, but the four older brothers may get in the way of the best person for the job leading the business, because they are older,” Erven provided as an example.

Likely Snags With Delegation

  • Conflict among owner, senior manager, worker and parent roles
  • Inadequate training, instruction and communication
  • Delegating to a person who does not respond as expected or who is not up to potential
  • Middle managers feel like they are being dumped on
  • Top manager grabbing the glory
  • Senior manager impatient with the speed at which things get done
  • Senior manager abandoning the person now responsible for the task
  • Micromanagement by the senior manager
  • Expecting results as good as senior manager, rather than reality

Take-Home Basics On Delegation

  • Treat delegation as a necessity rather than a choice
  • Don’t wait until you’re forced to delegate. Look hard for opportunities and take advantage of those opportunities
  • Look tradition in the face
  • Treat delegation as a skill that can be learned, practiced, evaluated and improved
  • Create a delegation-friendly culture

For more information, contact Erven at 614-888-9953; eMail [email protected].

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