(inspirational music)
Eight Rules of Effective Delegation.
Rule number one, you want to clarify the task
in your own mind.
It sounds so simple, isn't it?
You wanna clarify the task in your own mind.
What exactly what you want done?
Exactly what do you want done?
And I know this like a little bit,
sounds a little bit left-brained,
I get it, but these are the very effective steps
that I've used over the years.
Made me millions, very simple.
Clarify the task in your mind, rule number one.
So, ask yourself these questions:
What is it to be done?
What does there need to be done?
Who is to do it?
When is it to be done by?
What will constitute,
here's the important one,
and verify successful completion?
And what are the desired outcome?
How many of you think that would be helpful
when you ask yourself these questions
before you pose any task, yes?
Hello?
Yes. Yeah.
What is to be done?
What does there need to be done?
Who is to do it?
When is it to be done by?
Deadline.
Rule number two, you want to delegate to the right person.
Oh come on, Dan, that sounds so simple.
You want to delegate to the right person.
Who is the right person?
Who's the right person?
How do you know the right person?
It'd be easy for them. They're brilliant.
They are what?
They are?
Brilliant. Brilliant at that task.
Rule number three, always have a deadline.
Always have a what?
- [Audience] Deadline.
Because nothing gets done without a?
- [Audience] Deadline.
Yes, a deadline should be challenging, but also realistic.
Let me give you a big hint.
When I give someone a deadline,
sometimes I will give them a little test.
So, let's say I'm working with someone brand new,
and let's say I have this task.
It needs to be done in two weeks.
In how long?
Two weeks. Two weeks.
If it's a new person I'm working with,
I'll purposely tell them, although I need it in two weeks,
I will tell them I need it in a week.
Do you know why?
- [Man] To see if they can get the job done.
See if they can get the job done, to challenge them,
and to test them out.
See if they can live up to the challenge,
because there are times in your business
you actually need something done urgently.
Yes?
- [Audience] Yes.
Better to find out early.
Communicate orally and in writing your plan for action.
What do you want to do?
What's the plan of action?
Now, I'm at a place
where sometimes with my partners and mentees, I don't,
you can talk to them,
I don't even give them that.
Sometimes I don't even give them a plan of action.
I kinda give them the core structure, the big picture,
but I'll let them figure it out on their own
because I want them to grow.
I don't want them to always be depending on me
to figure things out.
So, I'll purposely sometimes
let them kinda make their own mistakes.
They know it.
Gary knows it.
I know it's a wrong thing to do,
and he told me he's gonna do it,
I would say, "Oh, go do it."
Yes, 'cause then learned his lesson.
Communications is message sent, message received,
and message acted upon.
Message what?
Acted upon. Acted upon.
Message sent, message received, message acted upon.
And then ask people to provide progress reports.
Progress reports.
Steven, where's you?
Steven, how often the progress report?
- [Steven] Once a week.
Once a week.
What day?
Monday. Monday.
How often is progress report?
- [Gary] Daily.
Daily.
What the fuck?
How come Steven is weekly, and Gary is daily?
- [Man] Different jobs.
Different people, different skill, different needs.
- [Man] Can you go back one?
This one?
- [Man] Yeah.
You got it?
- [Man] Yeah.
Okay, people don't do what you expect.
They don't you,
they do what you inspect with respect.
People do,
how many have ever expected something,
and expected someone to do something,
and then they don't live up to the expectation?
Yes, they don't do what you expect.
They do what you inspect with respect.
What does that mean?
It means you have to what?
- [Man] Follow up.
Follow up, make sure it gets done.
It's not your job to do it,
but it's your job to make sure it gets done.
People don't do what you expect,
they do what you inspect with respect.
Rule number six, be sure to delegate the authority
along with responsibility.
I see this as the biggest problem.
Entrepreneurs, they delegate the responsibility,
but they don't want to delegate the authority.
Why?
- [Audience] Control.
Control.
- [Audience] Insecure.
Insecure.
So, how can you expect them to do their job when you say,
"I'll let you do that, but don't make any decisions.
"Run everything by me."
Every little step, make sure you micromanage,
then you're not delegating.
You're just controlling them.
You pretend you're delegating, but you're not.
You gotta give them authority.
That also means giving them the authority to make mistakes.
And are they gonna make mistakes?
Yes or no?
Yes. Yeah.
Is it okay?
- [Audience] Yes.
What if it costs you money?
It's okay. No.
It's okay.
It's part of it.
If you want to get off the hamster wheel,
you have to let your people make mistakes.
Right now, at any given time, my people are making mistakes,
right now as I'm speaking to you.
I know that.
It's okay.
When you have so many things going on,
somebody is making a mistake somewhere, right now.
I don't care.
As long as it doesn't kill the company, it's okay.
(audience laughs)
Seriously.
Yes?
- [Man] Mistakes are okay, incompetence is not.
Mistakes are okay, what is it?
- [Man] Incompetence is not.
Incompetence is not, yes.
As long as they learn from the mistake, it's okay.
It is okay.
Actually, let me share a quick story with you.
My mentor used to have this oil company
called Great Western Resources.
He had this
COO I believe.
So, they got division of the company, one point mini-mistake
that cost my mentor 10 million dollars.
10 million fucking dollars, okay?
That guy went to my mentor's office,
expecting my mentor would just like take his head off.
Getting fired, "Oh my God, my career is over."
Sit down with the mentor, my mentor said,
"What have you learned?"
"Well, I learned this and that."
"How come you made a mistake?
"It cost the company 10 million dollars."
Yeah okay, and they went through that
and the guy was expecting to get fired,
and then my mentor said, "Why would I fire you?
"I just invested 10 million dollars
in your fucking education."
(audience laughs)
Hello?
Like why would I fire you?
And the guy was shocked,
because everybody else would just fire the guy.
And this guy was,
if you were him, how would you feel?
If you were the guy who made a 10 million dollar mistake
and you didn't get fired,
and the guy said, "No, you keep your job.
"In fact, I just invested in your education."
- [Woman] You'd make sure you never screwed up again.
You'd make sure never screw up again, yes.
- [Man] You're gonna earn that 10 million.
You're gonna earn that 10 million dollar back, yes.
- [Man] I'm gonna be extremely loyal to the guy.
Extremely loyal to that.
Guess what, this guy went out of there,
over the years in eight years,
made my mentor 100 million dollars.
Good investment, been with him for many, many years.
That's what I'm talking about.
Rule number seven, give praise and feedback
at the end of the project, and additional responsibilities.
So, now they've complete the task.
Now, you wanna provide feedback,
and that's when you want to be a little bit of a coach.
You want to be a little bit of a mentor,
and give them feedback.
Not yelling at them, and just,
"Hey, you know what?
"It's done, next time I would like to see this."
Ask any one of them.
Always provide feedback and feedback and feedback constantly
'cause that's how they learn.
Give praise and feedback at the end of the project,
and additional responsibilities.
Last one, here's a big one.
Don't be a--
- [Audience] Perfectionist.
Perfectionist.
How many perfectionists we have in the room?
Be honest, okay.
What's the problem with being a perfectionist?
- [Man] You never get anything finished.
Never get anything finished.
- [Man] You never start.
You never start, yes, good one.
- [Man] It never ends.
Never ends.
- [Man] Details.
Details, yes.
- [Woman] Go crazy.
Go crazy.
Write this down.
It's about progress, not about perfection.
It's about progress.
It's about what?
- [Audience] Progress.
Not about perfection.
Because when you go to the bank,
the teller is not gonna ask you the question,
"Did you make this money completing a perfect task?
"Everything done perfectly?"
No.
Here's the check.
Just deposit that check, bitch, right?
(audience laughing)
You know what I mean,
like, why the fuck you asking me that?
No, but seriously, joking aside.
It's about progress, not perfection.
Not perfection.
Because you think about in the big scheme of things,
I actually have a picture,
a picture in my office which is the universe.
You see the planet, you see the Sun, you see every in my,
every time, if I face a business problem,
I feel like it's so challenging.
I can't solve.
It's such a big problem, gives me a lot of stress.
I look at that photo,
the universe.
All my stress disappears, because look at that,
I'm not even a sand.
What fucking difference does it make?
Doesn't matter.
Like, I'm not even,
I'm like a molecule, it doesn't matter.
So what's the big deal?
What's the big deal it's not perfect.
What if this is mixed in,
what if it's this type,
it doesn't matter.
You look at this, nothing matters.
In fact, when I'm gone,
I'm only on this planet for like, whatever, 80 years.
It's nothing.
You're not that important.
I'm not that important.
So don't be like, "Oh, I'm so perfect."
Nobody cares.
In fact, a few hundred years, no one remembers who we are,
for most people.
I'm not saying, don't leave a legacy,
I'm saying, don't place such an importance on yourself
that you don't get shit done.
Everybody understand?
- [Audience] Yes.
Not that important.
(audience chatting to each other)
Okay, stop.
Give someone a high five and say,
"I'm damn good at delegating."
- [Audience] I'm damn good at delegating.
(hands clapping)
Damn good at delegating.
(audience murmuring to each other)
Okay, I just want to give you,
how many of you learned something new tonight, yes?
- [Audience] Yes.
Yes, thank you, very good.
Some I'm gonna give you a couple of tools
and about five minutes, and then we'll wrap this up.
So, some tools I use when I manage my virtual team.
Here's a tool that I use called yammer.com,
and it's basically,
think of it as an internal social media network
for your employees.
You have micro-blogging, private messaging,
you can have across different divisions,
different departments, so yammer.com.
Lot of company use it,
a lot of big company use it, ebay.com.
I like it.
It's very, very simple to use, yammer.com.
And then basecamp.com,
how many of you have ever used basecamp.com?
- [Man] I use it all the time.
Yeah, all the time for project management.
Do you like it?
- [Man] It's excellent.
Excellent, so basecamp.com, I love it.
When you have so many projects going on,
who is doing what, how do you keep track,
what's supposed to, who's supposed to do what.
Basecamp.com, it's a must.
It's a must.
Basecamp.com, I love it.
Dropbox.com, you want to share documents, iCloud, storage.
You can drag and drop a document,
you can share with anyone in the world.
They can access it.
Files, videos, documents, everything.
So Dropbox.
How many of you actually have used dropbox.com?
Yeah, most of you.
So good, awesome.
This is what I use all the time, a text,
it's called jing.com.
Well no, techsmith.com/jing.html.
Basically allows me to make this quick,
these five minute quick screenshot videos
that I can just upload very quickly,
and I can share the link.
So example, let's say someone.
- [Man] You used this with me, and I really--
Yeah, like Azana.
He sent me a copy of a manuscript of his book.
Instead of me typing an email, I would say,
"Hey, send dah dah dah."
Make a little recording, show him the video,
give him the feedback.
Especially for graphic stuff, I know this.
When you type it they don't quite get it,
but when I use something like this,
"Oh, I like this website, I like it this way.
"I want to move that, correct that."
It saves me a whole lot of time.
So I use that all the time, Jing.
Right?
- [Man] Is it free?
And it's free.
It's fucking free!
(audience laughs)
Say I like,
everybody say, "I love free."
- [Audience] I love free.
I love free, too.
That's awesome.
And if you want something to use more complicated,
you can download the Camtasia,
which you can make longer videos,
but I find that five minute video, it's 90%.
It's good enough.
You don't need a long video.
Hubstaff.com, this is interesting
if you have a virtual team,
this would keep track of their time.
They can basically kinda clock in,
and they would say they're working,
and this software will actually from time-to-time
take screenshot of their computer.
So, if they're surfing, they're watching porn, you'll know.
(audience laughing)
In their spare time.
No, but you'll know what they're working on,
they're working on their stuff, and keep track of payroll.
Hubstaff.com, pretty awesome stuff.
You can check that out, and it's got a 14-day trial.
I like that.
How many like that?
Yep, cool.
Skype.com, how many of you use skype.com?
I mean that's Yes.
A no-brainer of course.
That's what I use all the time.
I also like Google, of course.
Googleapps.com, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Drive,
Google Docs, and Google Slides.
I don't think I can run my business without it.
I run everything through Google.
It's very, very simple.
Again, it doesn't cost anything.
So, googleapps.com.
How many of you are actually using a lot of these,
like Google Drive, Google Docs, and yeah.
Awesome.
A lot of smart people, that's awesome.
Very good.
So, let me give you three tips before we go
on how to keep good people.
And this will sound incredibly simple.
Incredibly simple.
Number one is I respect them.
I respect them, because whoever I'm working with
it's not like, "Oh, I'm Dan Lok.
"I'm this big shot and I'm here and you're here."
Ask anyone that works with me.
How?
What's the feeling that you get?
Working together is what?
- [Man] We're like family.
Yeah, it's a team. Friends.
It's a team.
Now, am I tough sometimes?
- [Man] Oh yeah.
(laughs)
Yes, I have high standard, high expectation,
but at the same time,
I respect for their expertise, and don't get in the way.
I know they're good at what they do.
In those certain areas they're better at that than I do.
So, I respect their expertise.
So, it's the same thing for you.
Number one, I pay them well.
Here's the thing.
Even for a virtual team, it's like the question is,
"Well, you know, if..."
Like, what Rosalind was asking, that,
"Oh well, how can you get cheap and good?"
You can barter, you can do a lot of things,
but from my experience, why not pay them well,
and have good people?
Because money talks and bullshit walks.
Good people cost money.
So what that means is, tells me two things.
If you can't afford to find good people,
maybe the business model needs to be changed.
Or whatever you're selling, the margin is so low
you can't afford to hire good people.
You want to pay your people well.
Let me give you an example.
Couple years ago, I had a fantastic year,
and I had a lot of independent contractors,
and people that I outsourced to.
And in Christmastime, I PayPal,
mass PayPal everybody a bonus on Christmas.
- [Woman] Nice.
Everybody.
Now, these are not my employees, keep that in mind.
These are my independent contractors.
Let me ask you a question.
When was the last time they get a bonus like this?
- [Man] Probably never.
When was the last time?
- [Audience] Never.
Never.
And guess what kind of email I got from that?
Holy shit!
(audience laughing)
My goodness!
Nobody's every done it,
and I just paid them that out of the blue.
I paid them well, because I had such a great year,
everybody's a bonus.
Now, the independent contractors,
are they just working with me?
Yes or no?
- [Audience] No.
No, they're working with other people.
But when I pay them a bonus, suddenly,
where do I move up on the client list?
- [Man] To number one.
I'm to number one.
Anyone that I'm outsourcing to,
I want to be their number one client.
I want to be the one that's paying them the most.
I want to be,
I want to represent 40% of their business,
because when I need some stuff done, it gets done.
Versus, "Oh I try to..."
It's like, people, entrepreneurs.
Oh, they get an invoice and they try to delay.
Might as well keep the money in the bank,
and I will just, you know, make some interest.
That's a loser mentality.
Ask anyone work with me.
Send me an invoice.
(finger snapping)
How fast do I pay you?
- [Man] I got it within hours.
I don't drag on.
Everybody that I work with, I'm the fastest guy to pay,
because everybody trying to drag on.
I want to be the fastest, 'cause then it makes me,
I'm easy to work with.
Dan always, not pays on time, he pays early.
So, next time I get some stuff for them,
I get it done faster.
I get it done better.
I give them bonuses.
It sounds so simple, but you pay them well.
Guess what, nobody does it.
Everybody tries to save money.
Everybody try to delay the payment.
Don't do that shit.
You stand up.
You want them to good work and make you more money,
and if you cannot justify the cost,
you're using the wrong people.
Whatever you pay them,
they should be making you multiple returns.
Does that make sense?
Yes?
- [Audience] Yes.
Yeah, pay them well.
So everybody say, put up your hand.
I will pay them well.
- [Audience] I will pay them well.
Are you gonna pay them well?
- [Audience] Yes.
Yes, pay them well.
Secret number three, I praise them.
Again, so simple.
They do something good, let them know.
You've done a good job.
But I don't like, not like,
"Hey you know what, Winston?
"You did a great job."
I don't like that so much because it's very vague.
I much prefer example, let's say for David.
"Oh David, you did a great job."
Sometimes I say that,
but you want to be very specific to what you praise.
"Hey you know what, David?
"When I was in China, I know we had the incident,
"and you took care of it.
"I really like the way you handled the whole situation.
"So, I appreciate your help."
You see the difference?
- [Audience] Yeah.
I'm praising a very specific action.
Okay?
"I like the way you did that," and that's great.
It makes him feel good, and you praised him.
Does that make sense?
- [Audience] Yes.
That's it.
I mean so,
knowing now, going back to your business,
to wrap this up, how many are gonna start delegating?
How many gonna start delegating?
How many of you like, after this three hours,
you're still like, "No, I'm a control freak.
"I'm gonna choke my business to fucking death."
How many are gonna do that?
Better know how I'm getting gone, I'm gonna smack you, man.
(audience laughing)
No, okay.
You're gonna start delegating.
So now, when you go back, apply some of these strategies.
Test them out.
I just want to say one thing, just fucking do it.
Just fucking do it.
So thank you very much.
Thank you for coming.
Any questions, come to me.
Thank you, thank you.
(audience clapping)
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(dramatic music)