You’re finally at that point where you’re ready to take the next step and make that next hire. You feel comfortable with your company direction, the number of resources you have and know that you can’t continue on any longer with the breakneck pace and number of hours you’ve been putting in.
You sit down to create that job description and your first thought is I need another me, because I’m just too busy and can’t keep up anymore! And then you make the biggest mistake you could possible make… You start thinking of all the things you do on a daily, weekly and regular basis and start building out the job description to fit exactly that, because you need to duplicate yourself, right?
WRONG.
In working with dozens of business owners, leaders and managers around the country, this is one of the biggest mistakes I see commonly made when leaders are looking to make that next hire. They unfortunately try to create a position that will merely replicate themselves and check off the same responsibilities they are accountable for.
So you’re probably thinking What’s the problem with that? I thought I needed somebody to help alleviate all the work and pressure within my role? Don’t I want someone to help do what I’m doing?
The problem lies within the fact that you shouldn’t be trying to stay within your same role if hiring another to help you out. Your ultimate goal should be to get OUT of your current role and elevate more into what Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach® refers to as your Unique Ability®. This involves doing what you love and doing what you are best at. Your job is to soar even higher into more important responsibilities, to take on more of the vision and strategic pieces behind your role while doing less and less of the day-to-day work within it. And this is where the job description comes in.
Now, the first step of writing down everything you do in your role is a great start, but you need to take it the next step further by going through Delegate and Elevate 
. This extremely helpful EOS® tool will not only help you build out the perfect job description related to the responsibilities needed in that new role you’re hiring for, but also helps bring you an enormous amount of clarity around what you should be doing in a more elevated role based on where your passions and skills lie. Please keep in mind that this tool does not determine a hire’s potential values and culture fit – that’s a whole different blog!
To summarize Delegate and Elevate, you break down all your responsibilities within your role into four main categories:
LOVE/GREAT
These are the items in your day to day and overall role that you love doing and are great at doing. They’re your true passions, and you could probably spend all day in this wheelhouse executing these without any feeling of burnout or chaos. This is where the majority of your time should be spent in your new role, or any role for that matter. We want to elevate you into spending as much time as possible in this category. It will not only make you most productive and efficient, but also bring the most joy and fulfillment to your professional role.
LIKE/GOOD
This category is where the rest of your time should be spent. These are the tasks you like doing and are good at. They might not be your favorite, but you also don’t mind doing them on a limited basis or to a smaller extent. You can sure hang on to these items, but we definitely don’t want the majority of your own role to be focused around them.
DON’T LIKE/GOOD
These are defined as your Personal Hell. They’re the things you put off. You wait until the last second to do them. You wish someone else could take them, but you are still holding on to them because Nobody else knows how to do it or I don’t have the time to teach someone else. And the vicious cycle repeats, only to cause burnout and lack of happiness and satisfaction in your role.
These should be some of the first items off your plate and comprise much of the job description you’re creating for that new hire. Don’t think somebody wants to do the things you don’t want to do? Guess again, they’re someone else’s LOVE/GREAT!
DON’T LIKE/NOT GOOD
And these are the worst of the worst in your function. You wish you’d never have to do them again. Maybe it’s paperwork for you. Monotonous tasks and reports. Setting up meetings. You don’t enjoy doing them, and you probably waste time every day, week and month working on them. You don’t have the skill level needed or they suck valuable energy and time away from the things that really matter and would get you the furthest. Dump them as fast as you can by building them into the job description. Believe it or not, someone else would LOVE to do these things as part of his or her role.
Upon completion of the four-quadrant diagram that is the Delegate and Elevate tool, start by taking the bottom two quadrants and build out your job description using these responsibilities as the backbone of it all. This will now allow you to focus on the top two quadrants, where you really want to and should be spending your time.
Once you find that ideal hire to delegate to that loves to do the tasks you don’t enjoy and shouldn’t be doing, you’ll immediately be able to elevate. Elevate your happiness. Elevate your fulfillment. And ultimately, elevate your business to live a better life.
Click HERE to download the Delegate and Elevate tool within the FREE EOS Toolbox.
YOUR PRIVACY CHOICES