In this CEO podcast episode, Scott De Long and Vince Moiso discuss the critical topic of delegation. They emphasize the importance of intentional delegation, sharing personal experiences and insights. Vince reflects on his past struggles with delegation due to control issues, while Scott stresses the need to empower and coach individuals when delegating. The conversation covers hiring practices, emphasizing the significance of willingness and curiosity in potential candidates. The speakers caution against dumping tasks onto others without genuine intent, highlighting the importance of creating a balance between personal and professional responsibilities.
Transcript | Season 1, Episode 8
Scott De Long
Welcome to the CEO podcast. I’m Scott De Long. I’m here with my friend Vince Moiso. And today, we’re going to talk about delegating. We talked a little bit about this on an earlier podcast. We got some feedback from one of the listeners who said, “That’s great,” but we need to know more. It wasn’t enough. He just teased us about it. We’ll talk about that a little bit. Well, first of all, let’s talk about the beer that we’re drinking. Because this is the first time I’ve been here. Last wins.
Vince Moiso
And by the way, it’s better that we start with the beer. I think in our first couple of episodes, we ended with the beer, and you know, people have to wait the whole time and not know what we’re drinking.
Scott De Long
We’ve already had a few tastes of this, just so you know. And it comes from last weekend when there was another local San Clemente brewery. Left Coast Brewery. It’s my first time there, actually; I’ve been here for 20-something years. It’s the first time I’ve gone in there. I talked to Chris; Chris was the beer tender at the time, and I hadn’t talked to me about his IPAs. And he said, Well, this one’s, my favorite. And when he went to the Zoom juice, it was a hazy IPA. Double IPA? 8.1% Alcohol. Probably like a Christmas favorite.
Vince Moiso
Doubles are good. And I can tell you, it’s very smooth. It goes down very easily. And I for all the Hazy’s that I’ve had before. It’s a tasty one. I would say proceed with caution on this one.
Scott De Long
Well, see how it gets in about 2025 minutes; we’ll see what we’re doing. I will say, though, that it went well with the pizza that we had. TJ’ Woodfired Pizza, woodfired pizza, another San Clemente organization. We like supporting the people that are close to us. Anyway, we’re going to talk about delegation today. I’m going to go deeper into that. You had mentioned this was on our podcasts on accountability, that delegation was the thing, and it got into my mind about empowerment and all of those. There are sometimes to sometimes not to or let’s hear your view on delegation; when do you delegate? Who do you delegate to? How do you delegate? What’s your thought process?
Vince Moiso
Well, you know what, before we even get into that, and by the way, I saw just mentioned that you already said that empowerment and delegation go hand in hand. And in order to delegate, it’s basically you’re extending this trust to somebody; you’re empowering them to do their job. And you’re saying, I trust you to do your job. I mean, we talked about trust already. It’s funny how things just come full circle; I think there’s just a symbiotic relationship between all of these topics that we talked about on the podcast, which is what I love about it. Delegation is a really, really important piece of that; what I want to do is rewind the tape a little bit because I want to talk about how bad I was at delegation. Before you know, and in my previous business, you know, I tended to follow the mantra of if you want something done, right, do it yourself. And I end up doing a lot of things myself. I found that I didn’t have time to really lead, I didn’t have time to work on the business, I didn’t have time to do a lot of the things that would have made me a good leader if I had just trusted, delegated, and empowered. Instead, I didn’t do a great job of delegating. Because, again, you know, I had shared in an earlier podcast that I just thought everybody read at my pace; I thought everybody understood what I understood. And I was just constantly disappointed. And it was no different. No wonder I created this, you know, a scenario where I’m working 60 plus hours, 80 hours, sometimes I’m just constantly working, and I thought it was okay. And it’s not okay. It’s absolutely detrimental to your health. And it’s not good for your business. And I think people think that it is, and it absolutely isn’t. And it’s so you learn the art of delegation, which was really difficult for me, and I want to tell you why before you respond. I have control issues. I have total control issues, and I want to control everything that’s going on. And oftentimes, in order to control everything that’s going on around me, then I have to do it myself, and I can’t. It’s hard for me to let go and just say I’m going to trust you. That you’re just going to do it right. And I had a really hard time getting over that over that hump of control. I think control was controlling me, if I could say that.
Scott De Long
Here’s my response to that is that I think it’s more than detrimental to your business because of your health and your time and what you’re focusing on working in your business that has on your business, which is the cliche that we talked about, there’s more than that, though. It is detrimental to your people. It is detrimental to them. Here’s how I learned how to delegate, which is one thought process. And this came actually with my time, and I am not an Al-Anon, which is here we are having a beer. What I learned there was that by doing things for others, they can do it better or for them, or all that I’m actually doing is keeping those people small. Not giving them an opportunity, not giving them the chance to be what I’ve been able to become. And it’s keeping people small. I don’t want to do that. Where I learned to delegate was kind of a moral issue. For me, it became a moral issue. I was keeping people small. And I don’t want to do that.
Vince Moiso
And, in fact, you distrust. You create distrust because, ultimately, when I don’t delegate and when I don’t empower somebody to do their job, I’m saying, I really don’t trust you to do your job, that I never thought that that’s what I was saying. I never understood that was the message. I didn’t know that. That was the message I was giving out. I just thought, you know what, I got to get things done. And I’m going to just do it. Nike slogan: just do it. You know, and I think that carries into business. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, and a lot of high performers, follow that, not realizing the message they send to others because they’re just not empowering them. They’re not trusting them. They’re not delegating in a way that says exactly like, what you’re saying is, hey, I trust you to do your job. In fact, not only do I trust you to do your job, but I also trust you to do your job well. And right, and the way that we want it to get done. And that’s a big deal. Let me step back, though, because I want to get your take on this. I believe that there are a lot of people, specifically business owners, entrepreneurs, high performers, and businesses at the C level, who have the same control issues that I dealt with; I believe that a lot of people have that issue. And they don’t even know it because it was a blind spot for me. I didn’t even know it; I didn’t realize it until it really got pointed out to me that someone was brave enough to really point that out. And then, I took steps to look in the mirror and do a lot of self-development that got me beyond that. And it’s this topic of letting go because I don’t think you can really delegate until you let go. And I want to give one example before you answer that. You know, I was at an entrepreneur’s organization event recently, and I was talking to a business owner that, you know, just came out of that accelerator group, you know, now he’s playing with the big boys. And he said, you know, what are the, you know, top five things that you did that radically shifted your business? Well, I got down to number two and number three, and I said delegating is one of the top five things that I did. And I explained to him that I had to let go of that control. And I saw the glaze in his eyes that I see from any entrepreneur that I’ve consulted with when I tell them that same thing because they don’t believe it. And I saw in him the same thing that was in me; he was a nonbeliever that you could actually do that.
Scott De Long
I think what with the clients that I’ve had, one of the reasons that they don’t delegate is because they’re supposed to be this omnipotent human that knows all and does all and can see all and do all, and therefore, I’ll just do it better than everyone else. But not true. It’s just not true. We’re good at what we’re good at. And we learned how to do a bunch of other things. And that gave us a breadth of knowledge, great. But that guy over there, or that gal over there that’s been doing that thing that has been studying it or working on it, she’s better than we are at it. Yet we have this illusion that we’re the boss. Therefore, we must be great at everything. And we’ll just show him how much is not necessarily true. I absolutely believe you’re good at what you’re good at. But there are other people who are, too. And we may never know that they’re good at what they’re good at if we don’t give them an opportunity, and that’s our fault. It’s not their fault. You know, I get called in a lot of times to organizations where the boss has asked me to help fix his people. It’s not his people’s fault. It’s your fault for not giving them the opportunity. But there’s time to not delegate as well. There are sometimes no delegates. I will talk to an entrepreneur and say, Well, delegate everything. No, do not delegate everything. There are some very specific times that I won’t delegate. When the responsibility is above there, I think responsibility and authority have to match each other. And if they don’t, people are going to be unhappy with whatever, too much responsibility or not enough authority, any of those kinds of things if they’re not at the medical level. If I’m giving somebody a task to do that is way above their pay grade or that I haven’t provided them the tools to know how to do or to learn how to do it, don’t delegate. If I don’t have the time to coach that person that I want to grow, not everyone has the tools today, but they need some coaching. I’m going to delegate things to get off my plate. That’s what a lot of entrepreneurs say. But that’s not why what I’m delegating for is to help these people become who they can become. Now, it’s incumbent upon me; my job is to coach them when they need help, not overcoats. I’m not telling them how to do things; I let them play, let them try, and let them come back and ask questions. And if I don’t have the time to coach them, I shouldn’t be delegating to them. It’s not fair.
Vince Moiso
Well, my coach, I love what you’re saying there. And, you know, my coach told me early on the show in the glass business, I’m totally responsible for the top line, like, the top line is so critical to scaling this business and getting it where it needs to be right. And I’m completely responsible for the top line. Okay. With that said, my coach challenged me, and he said, you need to know, on a deep level, intimately, your top five to 10 clients. That’s not a responsibility, just as an example; that’s not a responsibility that I can just completely delegate to somebody else. I need to be directly involved. Do I have people that will help me and work with me? Absolutely. But that’s not something that I’m really going to delegate because it’s that critical to the business. My business partner is knee-deep in finance, and we share operations, admin, and some other things in terms of responsibility. You know, we have a lot of great people that we can delegate so many things to, but on the finance side, he’s so critical too, you know, because we’ve been in turnaround mode for the last four years, he’s so critical of that component. He knows it if you are sitting right here with us. I mean, he could spit off whatever question you had for him regarding finance because it’s that critical to the business.Let’ssay some of the day-to-day, some of the statements that need to be made or updated, the reports that you get great, he can delegate all of that. But there are some components that are critical to the business. You can’t delegate that, and nor should he be delegating that because of the mood that we’re in as a business. I agree with you that there are certain things that you’ve just got to get to know. What can you do, what can’t you do? Let me offer a nugget, if that’s okay. And this is one of the things that I did. I went to a whiteboard, and I wrote down all of the things that I do on a daily or weekly basis; then I identified the stuff I like to do and the stuff I don’t like to do, and then I identified those things that were critical for me to do. And we’re really not critical for me to do. Then, I created a list of what I needed to keep doing and stay focused on. And this is what I need to get rid of today. And once you go through that drill, and that is something, believe it or not, you can do it on your own, you don’t necessarily need a coach or somebody to walk you through that. You can do that on your own once you do that drill. I remember it hit me like a brick wall. When I saw the list of all the shit that I was doing. I literally went, oh my God, why am I doing all of that?
Scott De Long
I read an article just today, in fact, an article in the Harvard Business Review, and it talked about C-level people. Do I want to be essential? Or do I want to be important? And we want to be important. We do the things that, oh yeah, only I can do that kind of stuff, share the essential stuff. The things that were essential. Are the strategic planning. The leadership piece is driving culture, driving, and getting things done through and with people. We’re limited to just if I’m that control freak that you’re talking about. And I want to just take it all in. We are limited to what I can do. That’s it. I only have 24 hours, seven days a week. And I might need to sleep a little bit during that period of time, too, or spend some time with my family or do some of these other work-life balance concepts, but so I need to learn how to delegate better if I’m going to be a leader. And to delegate the things that I can delegate to folks who might be slightly above their abilities today. And that’s where my coaching comes in. Or finding them a coach or skill, I don’t have to be the coach; I could find them a coach to help them get through that thing. That they can take on more and become who they want to be for the company. And we can have more of us instead of just me.
Vince Moiso
You know what? I started asking the question, too: there’s a novel idea, right? And I never thought to ask it before, but I started asking the question, hey, you know, I’ve got some key people that are doing some amazing things as well. What do you want? Like, what’s your track here? You know, what’s the next step for you? How do you want to grow? And when I was amazed at some of the answers, I was surprised at some of them, not so much with others. And what’s great is when they said, okay, I want to be VP, or I want to do this, I want this track, I want this growth opportunity. Great. Let’s create that. Let’s identify what that looks like. Let’s define what that looks like and define the responsibilities. What are you doing today? Versus, what do you need to be doing to get to that level? Let’s get there. And then if you need some additional education, or development, whatever that might look like, then okay, we can create a plan to get that person there. And I think the critical component of all that is they have the desire to get there in the first place. If they have the desire to get there, then they’re going to do the work to get there.
Scott De Long
You touched on a really good point; we talked earlier about how delegation leads to empowerment. And I had a professor tell me one time, she said, you can’t empower people. No, but you can provide them with the tools for them to take it. They go back to that desired piece. Have you ever had somebody? Have you ever had somebody in your organization who said, well, I want you to do this task for me; I want you to do this thing?” You’re delegating? And they said,ohh, my God, I’m not sure I can do that. If I didn’t dump that on him, then that’s not fair. And it takes a little bit of coaching, even in that, to say, well, here’s what you can do. Here are the things that I’ve seen you do; you’ve done this. This is very similar to that. You did this thing; you did this thing. Are you sure you don’t want to give it a try? Well, I’ll try. But don’t hold me, hold me to this. No, no, no. It’s, we are going to do this. We are going to do this. I’m with you. That’s what the coaching piece comes in. And the empowerment is if I just graded someone’s empowerment, just wave my magic wand, you’re empowered. And then all the tools. They don’t have the desire. They don’t have the skill set; they don’t have all that. There’s no empowerment there.
Vince Moiso
Well, in fact, how common is that in businesses, and I’ve worked with businesses that have done exactly that, you know, it’s the old story that you hear time and time again, that they take the top sales rep and turn them into a manager. Well, the problem isn’t the person and their ability; it’s that you just turned him into a manager, you gave him no development. Becoming a manager and being a producer are two different things. And you didn’t give him the developer; you just gave him a title. That makes no sense. That’s not delegating, by the way; that’s not empowerment in any way. You know, it’s the same thing I watched, you know, I worked with an organization that, you know, they were afraid of. How often does this happen? You get some turnover from some key people. And you don’t want to lose somebody. You just make them a VP, you just go, I’m just going to make you a vice president. But I didn’t do anything to tell you what it even means to be a vice president; I did redefine your role and responsibility and then provide you with the development that’s going to help you become a vice president. I just gave you the title and said go. That’s not empowerment. And that’s not delegation. Anyway, those are common. And I wanted to point those out.
Scott De Long
That’s good. In fact, I created a whole course. It was called leadership for the frontline manager for an organization that was promoting individual contributors who were doing a great job. They deserve a promotion without having any idea whether or not they can manage anybody. And without giving them any of the skills and tools, any of the training. Here you go. Here’s your problem. You are now in charge of all these people. Oh, by the way, you used to be friends with all these people. Now you’re their boss. And no, I’m not giving you the tools on how to even deal with that little complaint. How hard is that? We used to just have the same job. Now you’re my boss. Do you know what the military does? They transfer people. If you go from a corporal to a Sergeant, you get shipped out and go somewhere else. That you’re not trying to work with your peers, with your friends
Vince Moiso
And that’s the mistake that people can make as they move into a management role. And they’re still working with their friends in a, you know, isn’t it the same thing as the parent that tries to be the friend to the child instead of actually being a parent?
Scott De Long
And even if you’re not what everyone else thinks you are, you’re making them special.
Vince Moiso
Just bringing in a delegation to that becomes challenging, you know, I think that is a pitfall to your point that is a pitfall is the fact that you know, you’re still not accomplishing delegation, you’re still not accomplishing empowerment.
Scott De Long
I like your whiteboard idea, putting all the different things that you’re doing. You can do this on individual tasks as well. It doesn’t have to be all your responsibility; it can be solely individual tasks. And you ask yourself a few questions. Can someone else do this? Should someone else do this? Who should be the person who can do this? If you can answer those questions affirmatively, then delegate yourself up for something. The fourth one is, is this an opportunity for them to learn and grow? And it’s going to take me more time to work with them than it would be to do it myself. And knowing that right up front, if I can help somebody learn and grow, and I have the time, that fourth question may be the most important than the other three. Can someone else,do it? Should someone else, do it? And who should do it? Those are good questions. But that fourth piece is, can this help somebody learn and grow? And do I have the time to do it with them?
Vince Moiso
The reality is exactly what you said: once you’ve created that list and you’ve identified what you don’t want to do or what you shouldn’t be doing, then you have to take that list. And you have to say, who am I going to delegate this to, and by when do you have to do that? And if you do by when, it’s very important because if you’re not putting a date, a stop date on that. And you’re just going to keep spinning your wheels on it.
Scott De Long
Here’s what we need from who, like, went back to an earlier conversation that we had. And how am I going to follow up? What am I going to do to follow up with?
Vince Moiso
And keep yourself accountable for getting that done. I want to go back to something you said earlier; I’m not sure that I agree with your professor in regard to just being able to empower somebody. And I want to talk about it in the context of hiring. And I think when you hire talent, and you bring on talent, and you bring on certain talent for the right reasons, and when you’re already in the mode in your business, where you’re delegating and empowering your people. As I’ve mentioned to you, you know, empowering people is a value of our business; it’s super important that we’re constantly allowing people to do their jobs, and they feel the freedom and flexibility to be able to do their jobs and perform at a high level. When we hire, the hiring process becomes really critical and important because now you can write out the criteria of the person that you want. When they step into that role, you’re immediately empowered. Are there coaching moments? There’s always going to be coaching moments. But I would tell you that, you know, some of the more recent hires in the past year or two, or just that they were hires that could move into that role, immediately have an impact, and immediately be empowered to do exactly what they were hired to do.
Scott De Long
But it takes two things. And this is where she was not wrong. There’s part of it that I argued and debated with her, but yes, I can empower it. I have to be willing to give it up to empower. And they have to be willing to take it. Oh, it’s not going to work. And that’s really the point. When it gets down to it, that’s probably more the point that she was trying to make, which is that it doesn’t matter what I do. If they’re not willing to, then it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean being capable today, but being ready and willing to be ready is not necessarily being capable of it. It means being willing to learn something new. I am willing to take that risk and learn something new, and that’s okay, too. In fact, that’s great. That’s what I want for people. There are two words that I like to use when I’m thinking about hiring because you brought that up: willingness and curiosity. Those things Trump almost everything else for me I can teach you how to I don’t know whatever do the thing. Bill Glass or whatever the tasks we can teach those skills, but willingness and curiosity. And I think that’s somebody’s parents that did that. That’s what I think.
Vince Moiso
Coachable. And we talked about somebody who’s coachable and is always going to be willing and ready to learn. Scott, it reminded me of to just, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what is absolutely not delegated. And, you know, I talked about the list, and I talked specifically about what you like to do versus what you don’t like to do. Now, delegation is not dumping your trash on somebody, either. It’s not like, oh, I don’t like to do all these little things. I’m just going to dump that on somebody else. And, you know, they’re not going to like it any more than you do, either. You know, that’s not delegating. If you heard all the conversations between my wife and me on whether or not I like to do dishes, and how I like to take the dishes out of the dishwasher, and all that other stuff, I just, I don’t like doing that. I’m thankful that she does it, and she’s willing to do it because it’s one of those things I just don’t want to do that be set. My point is that that’s a partnership. Okay, you know, it’s probably not the greatest analogy. But you know, when you’re in a business, and you’re working in a business, you can’t dump your trash on somebody that’s not delegating. Delegating has to be intentional; it has to be for the right reasons, good reasons, things like that, where you are really empowering somebody ultimately to do their job. I just want to make that clear. It’s not that you can’t delegate some of the things that you don’t like to do; you absolutely can; I just want to make it clear that, oh, wait, no, I like all these things, well, you don’t really like them, you just want to hold on to them, you know, and then here’s all this shit. And you’re just going to dump that off on somebody that really doesn’t work. When I talk about putting those lists together, you have to be very intentional about it; you have to be very genuine and authentic about it, such that it creates time for you because this is what we’re talking about. It’s creating time. And whether that time is for you to get back in touch with your personal life, with your family with everything else, or whether it’s for you to work on the business and really focus on those things, whatever the reasons are, that’s what we’re talking about, it’s to create time for you. And at the same token, empower someone else in your business, that’s a rising star, whoever that is, that can take on that role and be excited that they’re going to be empowered and trusted to do so.
Scott De Long
You use the word intentionally a couple of times in there, and I just like the root of that intent. What is my intent? If my intent is to dump my trash? Check yourself, alright, if my intent is to free up time so that I can do things that only I can do in this organization. If my intention is to delegate to help other people learn and grow, that’s a good one as well. Check your intent. That’s another good question to ask yourself.
Vince Moiso
Check yourself before you wreck yourself. That was just a little hit for my daughter, Isabella. Just shout out to her.
Scott De Long
All right, we’re at a time now. Tell me what you think about beer.
Vince Moiso
I liked the beer. I mean, I didn’t realize actually, you know, we were drinking it earlier until, you know, till we started the podcast that you mentioned that it was a double. I didn’t realize it was a double, and that explains a lot and is super smooth. It goes down very easily to tasty. It’s actually one of the better Easy’s that, Admittedly, it’s one of the better Hazy’s that, that I’ve had a very, very smooth, I like it, and I would drink it again.
Scott De Long
This is my first time winning last, and it’s not going to be my last time. I enjoyed it. And a shout-out to Chris for suggesting this. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. This was really good. Thanks for another good episode. Cheers. Next time.
