It’s natural that humans are limited in what they can achieve.
We are limited by time, knowledge, energy, and resources.
For individuals who want to go after big enough goals, you will never be able to do everything yourself.
“You’re not going to get rich renting out your time.”
-Naval
How do you break free from these natural limitations?
The answer is to scale yourself.
How then, do you scale yourself?
The answer is delegation.
When you practice the power of delegation, you are free from these constraints.
Goals are now defined not by whether or not they are difficult, but who you can work with to achieve them.
By having unlimited potential to achieve any goal you set, free from the constraints of time & space, you are practically superhuman.
This leads to the question.
How do you delegate?
First, you need understanding.
- Understand your goals.
- Understand your processes.
Why is understanding important?
If your goals and processes are not clear to yourself, how can you impart them to someone who is joining your team?
Even worse, are the goals and processes that you have understood from your business accurate?
The misunderstanding of the true goal of the company can lead to years of fruitless attempts later on.
The misunderstanding of your processes can lead to wastage of time and energy that accumulate.
Only when you truly understand the goal and processes of your company, then you are ready to impart them.
The next step is to document.
Understanding is nothing more than thoughts in your head. You need to make them a part of the external world by documentation.
Once they are made ‘real’. You then have the ability to share.
Once you have the ability to share, you have the ability to inspire.
The next step is to hire.
When you are hiring, there are two types of people you can hire for.
- People you can partner with.
- People you can train.
“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”
— David Ogilvy
It is much preferable to ‘hire’ people you can partner with.
People you can train, unless they are self-learning, their biggest constraint will be the knowledge that you teach them, no more than that.
If you spend time teaching them, is that time spent better utilized elsewhere?
Delegate your goals, not your processes.
Summary
- Scaling is breaking through constraints.
- Delegation is one way to scale. You can delegate humans, you can delegate computers through code.
- By first having a deep understanding about what you want to achieve and how you achieve it, you can then impart this understanding to others.
- Then you are free.
