On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll explore ways you can organize your own thoughts and tasks. Alex gives clear examples from his time in the construction industry, and guides you through ways to effectively determine the importance and urgency of tasks at hand, and how to communicate those to others.
Ever wish you could be in 2 places at once? What about 3? Or 10? While you can’t duplicate yourself, leaders can use delegation to effectively mobilize colleagues, as if you are there in the room yourself!
On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll explore ways you can organize your own thoughts and tasks. Alex gives clear examples from his time in the construction industry, and guides you through ways to effectively determine the importance and urgency of tasks at hand, and how to communicate those to others.
In our first segment, The Takeoff, Alex defines delegation, and goes into why every leader has to delegate in the workplace. Time is money, and understanding your limitations allow you to create smart goals for yourself and others.
Tune into our next segment, The Level, where Alex dives into the best ways to plan before you delegate work for the day. You’ll learn more than just how to write a to-do list by asking questions like: What are the most urgent tasks at hand? What are the most important?
Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts as well as the YouTube channel to watch full video episodes and be notified as soon as the next episode is live.
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[00:00:00] Alex: Hey, what's up guys? Alex Willis here, c e o of Leadership Surge. And I wanna personally welcome you to No Bullshit with Alex Willis, the go-to source for leadership development and the construction industry. And my friends, we have a phenomenal show today for you. You wanna stick around, you wanna check every segment of this one out.
[00:00:27] Alex: Now I know I'm usually excited, but this right here is going to definitely change your life. I guarantee it. Because here's the deal. If you are in construction, trust me, you are busy as shit. You have a gazillion things to do all the time. You're under high stress, high pressure, and oftentimes you are doing all the work yourself.
[00:00:47] Alex: So, This episode, my friends, we are talking about how the master delegation, how do you do it? How do you do it in the construction industry? How do you do it in such a way that shit still gets done at your level, the things that you want to get done the way you were done so that it looks like you, but not you doing the work.
[00:01:06] Alex: It's your team doing it. So, hey, Stick around. Check it out. You don't wanna miss this one because it's going to be phenomenal, my friends. See you soon. Welcome to the takeoff. We are super, super excited to have you here. As I say, we, as it's me in the studio, I'm super excited to have you here because today we're talking about delegation, something that I struggle with for years, something that I still struggle and battle with at times.
[00:01:30] Alex: This is the number one thing that as I talk with construction leaders around the country, They talk about having challenges in this area, Alex, how the hell do I do it with all the stuff that I have going on? How do you delegate right now? Now understand this is something that's very, very difficult, very, very challenging as we talk about this thing called delegation, simply because oftentimes in the trades we are very particular in how things get done, right?
[00:01:56] Alex: Let's be honest. We have what I like to call most people, the golden standard. You think that no one can do it as good as you, so therefore why give it to someone else when they are going to jack it up and you have to come back, uh oh, excuse me. And do rework, right? Have to do rework. And no one likes to do rework, let's be honest.
[00:02:14] Alex: So how do you do it? How do you do it? Well, the first thing my friends, is we have to really, really begin to understand this thing called delegation. What is it? What is it? Well, Delegation. If we really read the definition, here's what it is. Delegation is managing by distributing responsibilities, managing by distributing responsibilities, and clearly communicating.
[00:02:37] Alex: So you're, you're giving out responsibilities to other people, but, but you're clearly communicating it to the person. Now, here's where we struggle oftentimes. We do a horrible job of number one, talking about the responsibility of the task, as well as communicating clearly to the person, what we need from them, and how we need it done right.
[00:03:00] Alex: Now. Here's the thing, we think we communicate well, uh, but my friends, we tend to struggle. I tell people oftentimes my friends, You don't want Michael Jordan, who's considerably one of the greatest players to play the game of all times to teach your five year old how to shoot damn free throws. Why no you don't.
[00:03:19] Alex: Everyone tells me. Yeah, you want him to do it. No, you don't. Mike's been so far removed from the game, he's gonna forget a lot of the small details because in his mind it just naturally happens. In construction, my friends, we do the exact same thing because you're so good at your job. Because you work your way up from apprentice to journey person to foreperson, the superintendent, project manager, wherever you are in your level of skill right now, you've done it so many times that oftentimes those small details as you're delegating, as you're passing that experience on to someone else, you forget those small things and so therefore you have this extremely high expectation in your mind that you struggle with.
[00:04:01] Alex: Communicating because we didn't communicate it clearly and we missed some steps in there, and so therefore you get a horrible product back, right? So, so you, you asked for a Picasso masterpiece and you get damn crayon drawings, right? Why? Because we didn't communicate it clearly. Now, as we dive into this, there's a few things we have to understand, so, so number one is to really, really understand the power of delegation, you have to understand the power of managing time.
[00:04:30] Alex: Right. Why? Because here's the deal. Why do we delegate? Well, we delegate to save time, right? So the more I can begin to delegate, the better I can manage my time and do my tasks. Some of those things that I need to do that only I can do. Now, in order to understand time, we have to talk about a few things that are really important to effective time management.
[00:04:51] Alex: You have to be a master. A master. I'm gonna say that again. A master. Of three areas in your life. Number one, managing yourself. You have to be phenomenal at managing yourself. Number two, you have to be able to manage your work environment, right? The things, the moving parts around you, the schedule, all of those order material, those things that go on, the interruptions, all of those things.
[00:05:13] Alex: And then last but not least, managing relationships, right? So those three, you got the number one, manage yourself. Number two, manage your environment. And number three, manage relationships. So I wanna take a pause, timeout. Timeout right now, and I wanna know if you're being honest with yourself as you listen or watch wherever you are, where do you struggle?
[00:05:34] Alex: Where do you struggle with those three? Where do you struggle? Is it with managing yourself? Is it the environment or is it the relationships? Because understand, you have to be able to master all three of those to be a phenomenal delegator and a phenomenal master of this thing called time, right? So, so when you can do that really well, You can begin to bring things in play and do phenomenal with it.
[00:05:54] Alex: Now, in order to get this concept of time management down so that you could delegate better in order, understand how delegation fits into your day and your schedule, you have to understand this thing called time. You either use it or you lose it, right? So let me give you an example. Let's just say I felt real generous today and I said, you know what?
[00:06:12] Alex: For all of our listeners today, for everyone who's listening right now today, we are going to cut you a check. For $86,400. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? Oh, I know it. We got more listeners perked up tuning in right now. Now. But here's the stipulation. You have to spend it by the end of the day. It can't carry over to the next day.
[00:06:33] Alex: And if you don't spend it, you gotta give it back to no bullshit with Alex Willis. Right? So what would you do? Would you know exactly what to do with it? Where would you spend it? How would you spend it? Hear me out. For most people, most people would know exactly where, how, what they're gonna do with it.
[00:06:50] Alex: Hey, I've had people in construction say, oh dude, new truck. Hey man, debt. Hey, pay a down payment on a how, Hey, put it in investments. All kinds of things. The the whole key point is this. People knew exactly what they would do with it because they didn't wanna lose that money. Right. Now, here's where this comes into play.
[00:07:09] Alex: Each and every one of us, Alex included you listening right now. All of us have 86,400 seconds a day that we bullshit and waste. Hear me out, my friends. None of us are as efficient as we think we are. We're busy, but we're not efficient right now. So, so understand. Let's think all the time it, it's an investment and you have to really begin to understand that you must invest time.
[00:07:39] Alex: In order to save time in the future. So I have to invest time in order to be able to save time in the future. My grandfather, before he passed, he would tell me this. He said, Alex, if you want to be a master of these two things, you gotta get in front of these two things. What are those two things? My friend?
[00:07:54] Alex: It's money and time. If those two things ever catch up with you, your ass is screwed, right? Because if you don't know where your money's going before you get it, trust me, you're going to spend it very fast like that. And if you don't plan your schedule, know what you're doing, know what tasks you're going to delegate, where they're going, how you're gonna do em, your time is gone.
[00:08:14] Alex: Right? So, so in order to do this really, really well, we have to understand the power of investing time. Interest in study, interest in study. For those who are looking for a fun fact, there was a leadership study that said, Hey, listen, for every one minute that you take time to plan on the front end. How much time do you think you saved on the back end?
[00:08:38] Alex: For every one minute that you spend planning on the front end, research said it will save you seven minutes on the back end. For every one minute I've spend planning. Seven minutes on the backend. Right. So if my math serves me correctly, if I spend 10 minutes planning, I can save 70 minutes on the backend.
[00:08:58] Alex: Holy shit. Wow. Wow. But check this out. For every minute that you don't plan on the front end, it can cost you 30 minutes on the backend. Wow. So a lot of us in construction, because sometimes we fly by the seat of our pants, we're struggling. With this thing of time management as well as delegation because we haven't done a great job of planning.
[00:09:21] Alex: So it comes down to this one big thing, and we've talked about it on, on a show before, but it's called Pareto's Principle, and it's the 80 20 rule. The 80 20 rule. I gotta come back to it because it's very, very important as it pertains to this thing called delegation. And so what do I mean? Here's the deal.
[00:09:37] Alex: If we're being honest, the 80 20 rule or Pareto's principle, if you're being honest with yourself, Truth be told, only 20% of the things that you spend your time on produce 80% of the result of your job. So think about that. Only 20% of the things you spend your time on produce 80% of the results on your job.
[00:09:56] Alex: We've given this example before. Think about your closet. You have gazillions of clothes in your closet, but if we're being totally honest, real and raw, you only wear 20% of those clothes 80% of the time. So if you're gonna be phenomenal delegating, you must know you're 20%. Because understand, these are the things, the tasks, the activities that you cannot give up.
[00:10:18] Alex: These are things that only you can do that no one else can do. All the other things, ah, ah, ah, like a no look, magic J pass, man. You are giving those things away and you begin to understand because you become a master of these 20 because it is so huge and you getting your day-to-day stuff done. But if you don't know you're 20, you can't do a phenomenal job of delegating because you don't know what the hell to give away, right?
[00:10:44] Alex: So I need you to understand, focusing your energy on this. Will definitely help you do a phenomenal job of delegating, giving things away, right? So spend time, understand your 20, know where your 20 are, and it will make you a rockstar. Now for this last piece of this segment, right in the takeoff. Not only do you need to understand Pareto's principle and know you are 20% so that you know what's only yours and what you potentially can give away, but you have to understand the concept of creating smart goals, S M A R T, SMART goals, and oftentimes we don't think about that.
[00:11:19] Alex: SMART goals and construction. So what does smart mean? Well, smart number one, the essence forces specific. Specific. You have to be very specific as to what it is you need that person to do. The M stands for measure. We need to be able to measure it, and I'm not talking about bullshit, about, Hey, when I come see it, I can tell if it looks good or not.
[00:11:40] Alex: That's bullshit. No, you have to be able to measure it as well as the person on their own have to be able to measure it to know if they're doing a good job. Right? The A stands for achievable. Is it achievable by this person? Because oftentimes we're delegating tasks to people that they don't have the skillset set to do the entire task.
[00:12:01] Alex: Maybe, maybe, maybe you only need to give them part of the task. Now, is that helping you as a leader? Hell yeah, because they're gonna do a third of it and you only have to do now two third. That's better than doing it all right? But knowing what's achievable, help. Now the next one is, it needs to be result focused, right?
[00:12:20] Alex: Do they have the time? Do they have the energy? Do they have the skillset? Do they have the resources, the manpower, the skill, labor to get it done right? And then last but not least, it needs to be time bound. We have to tie a specific time to what we're talking about doing so that they know how to be super, super successful so that they can win.
[00:12:39] Alex: When you can begin to do that, you can do a hell of a job. Starting the process of giving things away. So I have some questions right here that I wanna go through that you need to think about when creating smart goals. Number one, ask yourself, is it specific? Have you done a great job of really making it clear so that the expectation is very clear and they can really see what you're looking for?
[00:12:58] Alex: Number two, will they know if they've accomplished it? They need to know that without you being there. So have you set measurable guidelines so that they know clearly for themselves? Yep, yep, yep. I know that I've accomplished it because I see it based on what my leader has said needs to be done right. If this goal related to actions, right?
[00:13:17] Alex: So with their daily job and what they're doing, is it related to those actions? How realistic is this goal? And then last but not least, have you put a time on it And if you can begin to do that, you can start this process of rolling your team. Building them to a place where they're phenomenal. They begin to run through brick walls for you as you begin to delegate.
[00:13:37] Alex: So here in the takeoff, we've started the process of understanding what delegation is. It's clear communication of giving away responsibilities, but it's in a way that I understand how it can maximize my time as well as I understand how I need to communicate very, very clearly. With very clear goals, and it starts with me understanding what 20% of my job functionality I cannot give away because these are things that only I can do.
[00:14:03] Alex: Now as we jump into the next segment, my prayer, we're gonna really begin to dive in to better step on planning. How do we plan really well? What are some key tools, tips and tricks on how we plan what that looks like? And we're gonna begin to level it out in this next segment, the level helping you really begin to level the playing field because you do a hell of a job planning.
[00:14:25] Alex: So tune into our next segment. I look forward to seeing you on the level where we talk about how to build a great man. Hey, I want to thank you for tuning in to No Bullshit with Alex Willis, the number one go-to source for leadership development in the construction industry. Hey, Make sure you subscribe wherever you watch or listen to your podcast.
[00:14:45] Alex: And hey, make sure to hit play on that next segment.