Higher level work

It’s a great question, and it’s the nub of the delegation issue.

When my clients complain about not having enough time, what they worry about most is their chronic neglect of strategic thinking.

What do we want our team or organisation to be doing in one, three, five years’ time? What sort of customers should we have? How will we stand out? What will people be saying about us? These are basic questions that many leaders can’t answer.

The problem is, it requires down time to answer those questions. You have to spend time thinking, researching, talking to people, listening, playing with ideas, daydreaming.

It will look a lot like idleness.

It isn’t, though. It’s actually higher-level work because it’s at this level that you can make the biggest difference.