If you're delegating tasks and then pulling your hair out over it, then you're probably not doing it right.

Anything that's insanely great requires a team to achieve.  At the simplest level, while one person might need an hour to achieve a task;  with 3 people, the task can be done in 20 minutes.  As well, different team members can focus on different tasks and bring a focus to that task that cannot be achieved if only one person is working on all tasks - having one person focus on marketing and another on sponsorship is going to achieve a lot better results than having one person focus on both!

Last year, I tried to run Robogals Global in a team of three.  There was the secretary, whose job was to keep the books in order, the marketing manager, whose job was to create our website and monthly newsletter, "The Amplifier", and then there was me, who was in charge of everything else.  Everything else included monthly phone calls with all the Robogals chapter presidents (10 calls a month to people all over Australia and the United Kingdom), networking, sponsorships and partnerships, PR and monthly internal newsletters.  This included me flying to London for a week during semester (when I was meant to be studying), attending a conference for 3 days during semester, and dealing with emails and queries that came my way from all directions!  I don't think I thought nearly enough about everything I was signing up to do before I chose not to recruit anyone else into the team!

So where did that leave me?  Stressed, tired, exhausted all the time and feeling like there was no support for anything I did.  I could never relax because there was always a huge burden of all the stuff that I hadn't done weighing down on me.  It got to a point where I was holidaying in Shanghai (I had to take a holiday to de-stress!) and I still had this massive to-do list to do of about 60 things!

Anyway, since then, thanks to a huge boost of realism and enough people in the leadership chain in the organisation, I now have an incredible team who I work with to achieve Robogals' aims.  I always thought that I did decently in my role last year as the everything-girl for Robogals last year.  But now that I have team members who only work on aspects of what I did (like sponsorships and partnerships, PR and chapter president mentoring), I realise just how much I was not coping doing everything last year!

So, how should you delegate?

1. Role description:  The first thing is that everyone in your team should know exactly what is expected of them.  They should have a very clear role description and know exactly what areas their role covers.  In Robogals, everyone in the executive committee at a chapter level has a role training manual that was written by someone who has done the role before.  In the Global team, most people are the first person to take their job on, so they're writing their role manual themselves as they do the job.  This ensures that everyone knows exactly what their areas of responsibilities are and what they are accountable for.

2. Expectations:  It should be very clear to both of you what the expectations are for your team member.  That way, you won't have any false expectations about the work they will do, and they will know exactly what they are required to deliver.  If both of us understand each other's expectations about the role, then we don't get disappointed.  The most important task my secretary undertakes is doing our BAS statement every quarter and doing a financial report every year.  My secretary is uber organised, and while it bores me thinking about doing the BAS statement every quarter and formally doing the books, I know it's uber important.  So as long as my secretary keeps all our books in order and ensures we file our BAS statements every quarter so we don't get fined by the government, then I'm happy.

3. Creating goals and a timeline:  So that people feel empowered about achieving their goals, everyone has a say in their goals and the timeline by which they'll work to.  I always work with the people in my team to set their goals so that we are both absolutely clear about exactly what they need to do, and so I know exactly what to expect from them.  As well as that, I always work with my team to create their goals so that if I think they aren't challenging themselves to grow enough through their goals, I help them see they can raise the bar higher.  It's always better to set the bar high and fail to reach that, than to set it too low and not challenge yourself.  I don't want my team members to just do what they already know how to do, I want my team members to learn and grow and be better people out of working with me.  :)

4. Checking up:  After the goals and timelines have been set, aligned with their role, then I think my job is to hold my team members to their word and support them in carrying out their plans.  A good way to do this is to set up a structure whereby you and your team member meet regularly so you can check up on how they're doing and brainstorm new ideas together.  I meet either once a week, once a fortnight or once a month with my direct reports, depending on the urgency of the projects.  Having a systematic way of communicating is also good for peace of mind as you won't stress about people not getting back to you.

5. Partnership:  It's very important to trust that your team members will do a good job.  You've worked out the goals and the timeline together, you know what the expectations are, and you meet up regularly to come up with better ideas - you're in it together; so trust that they will do their job and trust that they will do a good job.  By giving them that respect, they will rise to the challenge and do a great job!  If your team members need help, they will come to you.

So, how I am going now with delegating?  A lot better than I was last year!  I think the results show for themselves.  This year, I am more on top of my studies at university than I was last year, Robogals is achieving a lot more, I feel better about Robogals, I feel better about myself, and I have a great group of friends in my Robogals team that was formed through all of us working towards a common goal.

Finally, I think the other hard thing about delegating is that, you may think that you can do whatever you're delegating by yourself.  I once read that the lawyer can probably do all of the secretary's tasks better than the secretary can do them, but if the lawyer did all of the secretary's tasks, then she wouldn't have time to do anything else!  So I think a good quote to remember is, "I can do anything, just not everything".

For those of you who know me from a few years back, I started up a blog in January 2009 (I think?), blogged everyday for like 2 months straight, then weekly, then nothing by about July 2009...

Why did I start blogging?
I was inspired by Seth Godin.

Why did I stop?
Inspiration isn't enough to do something.

I think after the honeymoon phase, I just got over it. It was too arduous to write a blog post everyday. My blog was in a similar vein to Seth's, where I used everyday examples and allegories to illustrate my point, however, I didn't have the business and corporate experience that Seth Godin had, so all my examples weren't as personal.

Then I got a nasty comment and that kind of ruined my spirits for a while...

Anyway, that was 3 years ago, and since then, I've had some truly amazing experiences that have taught me heaps about start-ups, entrepreneurship, getting things done, and being unstoppable (not to say that I'm still not stopped, but it takes more to stop me than it did before).

So, given that I avidly devour blogs that my friends link me to on Facebook, or visit regular favourite blogs on lazy mornings, I thought it would be fun to again contribute to the blogging space.

This time however, I want to do it right.

I value authenticity, so I'm going to aim for that with this blog. Authenticity inspires me. So, it's my hope that my authentic blog posts will inspire people from around the world to get in touch, and that through this blog post, I create new friendships and connections throughout the world. :)

By the way, if you want to find my old blog, give up. That entire blog has been deleted because the server it was on died late last year. Lesson 101: Back-up everything, people!

Edit on 5 January 2012:  My friend Joe discovered some of my old blog posts on a website that archives other websites!  So two days ago, I posted up all the old blog posts I could find.  Enjoy!  :)

When I was 17, I came 3rd in an international Japanese speaking contest. However, I don’t do anything about my Japanese studies now. The year prior, I got the highest marks in the state in my grade 7 piano exams. Now, I don’t play piano. During high school, I did 30-40 hours of maths during my school holidays. I finished the KUMON mathematics programme and got the highest mark possible for maths upon graduation (VHA 10. In my two maths subjects, I dropped just half a mark the entire year). I now hardly do any maths.

So, I had it that I was a failure. I had it that I was a quitter. I had it that I was a free-spirit who couldn’t stick through with anything. I had it that I only did stuff so that I could achieve in that area, and that once I had reached a certain level, I would get bored and quit.

If I’d stuck with my Japanese, maybe I could have been a young international diplomat for the government by now? If I’d stuck through with my piano, maybe I could have been a concert pianist by now. In maths? I could have been one of those crazily-young maths geniuses at universities who become tenured by the time they are 25 and spend their life devoted to the art, becoming a historical figure in that field, like Einstein or Newton.

However, while muling over my complete lack of commitment to sticking through with my hobbies, and while thinking about spending my life as Stephen Hawking has, I came to a realisation.

I never wanted to be a young international diplomat for the government. There was so much more I wanted to offer the world than just my language skills. Being a concert pianist didn’t excite me. I wasn’t passionate enough about music to practice for 15 hours a day. And I don’t want to become a professor and spend the rest of my life at university. I want to explore the world. I want to learn as much as I can and give the world as much of me as I can. I want to live life to the fullest.

This conversation came up for me because of programming.

I’m in my third year of a mechatronics engineering/ computer science degree, and passing countless exams and assignments later, I still don’t think I’m very good at programming.

So, over Summer, I plan to do lots and lots and lots and lots and lots (you get the picture) of programming. When I do something, I like to go all the way. I want to be masterful. If I put my mind to something, I can and do achieve it. So, I know that after Summer, I’m going to be awesome at programming.

However, I was scared. I was scared that if I did programming, then I would stop after I thought I had achieved enough to justify that I was good at it. And, as I want to be the CEO of a robotics company, it wouldn’t bode well with me to stop programming when I’d achieved ‘enough’ to prove to others that I was good at something.

But then I realised the difference between programming and all my other activities. Whereas my mum wanted me to be good at Japanese, piano and maths; I really, really, really, really want to learn and be masterful at programming because it fits with my life goals of being a tech entrepreneur. And while I think my mother is amazing for working so hard to provide me with the opportunities to explore and excel in those areas, I know it will make a lot more of a difference if I am empowered to learn for me.

So now, I’m not scared that I’ll get bored of programming once I get good. I’m not scared that I’ll give it up when I’ve achieved ‘enough’. I’m just really looking forward to it, and I cannot wait until my exams end so that I can start programming the things that I want to program.

I’m not a failure or any of those things. I just hadn’t found my passion yet.

So don’t get disheartened if you keep giving up on things. Just keep searching until you find something that truly ignites you, and that you think is worthy of you committing your time to.

I was in a hairdressers in Melbourne. I was 18. it was the first time I’d ever been to a hairdressers to get my hair cut in my life! It was at a very posh salon, so I was very excited! I chatted with the staff and told them where I was from, told them what I was studying, told them it was my first time in a salon for a haircut, and looked on admiringly at everything they were doing. Ten months later, I went back to the same hairdressers for my second hair cut in my life. I’d completely forgotten who they were, but they remembered me!

My bank card bounced due to suspected fraud. I knew it wasn’t fraud though, as I’d spent the day before trying to make 20 transactions over the internet that never went through due to my forgetting of my passwords. Instead of getting angry at the person on the other end of the phone though, that I wouldn’t have a bank card to use for the next two weeks while a new one was sent to me. I thanked him. I thanked him for doing his job and ensuring that my card was protected against fraud, and that I really appreciated his concern for customers like me and his company’s policy against fraud. I got a new card two days later.

I’m not always good though.

I was in a bank once to get a bank statement printed. I thought that it would be done on nice paper, like the quarterly statements that are mailed to me. Instead, what I got was a printout of the website. I was fuming! I had to pay $2.50 for that! I could have printed it for free on my friend’s printer! I couldn’t believe they ripped me off for that! I stated my views pointedly and left. It didn’t make me feel great afterwards, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t leave the teller in the best of moods either. Two weeks later, I was in the bank again. Same teller. So I apologised to him. I told him, “you might not remember, but I was in here about two weeks ago. I was really rude to you. I get that you were just doing your job, and that you really have no control over what your bank policy is and how you charge people. I’m sorry I was so rude the other day.” He couldn’t remember me, but he appreciated it nevertheless.

As an customer, you are a big part of the transaction too. There is no need for you to be rude or ungracious. Just by being great, acknowledging there is a procedure to be followed, and following that procedure, you are making a difference.

If you’ve ever been in retail and had customers being great with you, you’ll know what I mean. While customers who are rude can take you aback, those who are lovely really can make your day.

But it’s not just a retail world I’m talking about here. It’s more importantly, your family and friends. You are a customer to the love and friendship they provide for you.

People just want to feel like others know what they’re going through - they just want to be gotten, to feel connected to other human beings, and to feel less alone in the universe. The universe feels so big when no one gets you, but so small after you’ve just invested a whole afternoon with your friends and family, connecting with people and sharing experiences.

Take your time to acknowledge people. Acknowledge them for the time they’ve spent with you, acknowledge them for their contribution to you, acknowledge the person behind the counter who doesn’t smile at you, acknowledge the public service men who are there to transport you from one place to another, acknowledge your family for being there for you when they have been and acknowledge your teachers who spend so much time preparing lessons.

People just don’t get their impact sometimes. The impact you can make on the world, and especially one person, is phenomenal. You seriously don’t know how your being gracious could make a person’s day, or even change a person’s steadfast opinion about people.

Be a great customer to your family, friends and companies. Be gracious and acknowledge. They’re doing their best, and so can you.

Who are the guys that you are going to have pizza with when you successfully raise capital?

Who are the guys that are going to inspire you?

Who are the guys you’ll be willing to hang out with until 4am finishing off your business proposal?

Who are the guys that are going to push you to achieve at your best?

Who are the guys who are going to have you keep running when you feel like giving up?

One of the most important things you’ll have to do is choose your team. Successful founding teams usually have joint working experience before the company is started, and have complementary skills that are suitable to the needs of the business.

If you’re an engineer, it’s important to have a marketer; if you’re starting a technical company, make sure you have someone technical on board; if you know nothing about finances, it’s essential you have a good money-man. Whatever your industry and whatever your area of expertise, it’s important to mix with and be able to work with different types of people.

As well as having people on board who complement your skill set, make sure you have people on board who are doing what they love. Passionate people who see personal growth, who want to make a difference in the area and who are inspired beyond wanting to nicen up their resume and schmooze their way up the ladder are the best to have around.

The nature of the technology and your market determine to a large extent the path your business will take and the people you will work with a long the way. However, make the path as fun as possible by having people on board who are doing what they love, who share your company’s goals and who you’re willing to work with until 4am, because it’s no fun taking the ride alone!