<aside> đź’ˇ The purpose of this document is to outline the efforts to increase Levels team delegation + to organize documents and resources related to this project.
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Table of Contents
Top 10 Most Common Delegations (July 2022)
Spotlight on: Example Delegations (from Delegation of the Week)
Delegation of the Week Schedule
Delegation Project Retro [November, 2022]
Name / Delegation Coaching Meeting Template
At Levels, we value time & efficiency which is one of the reasons why we've hired a team of executive assistants with a company called Athena to help us with administrative tasks. Everyone at Levels is welcomed and encouraged to leverage this team. As outlined in the Culture Handbook ⤵️
If you find yourself repeating a task often, you should pause and find a way to make the process more efficient, or remove it from your workflow all together. ****It's easy to keep doing small easy tasks, but they add up over time and distract from the larger efforts you could be focusing on instead. Consider automating, streamlining, or outsourcing the task to protect your time.
If you find yourself working on a task that someone other than you could probably do just as well, consider outsourcing it. You were hired for a very specific skillset and ability to execute, so administrative or repetitive tasks should be outsourced and managed. This doesn't mean that you can abstract far enough away to not know how the work is actually done, though.
Our time is currently worth more than money. If spending a few thousand dollars for a vendor to provide something will allow us to cut n months off of a project, we should absolutely make that trade. If we can trade money for time, we almost always will. This is an edge we have as a venture-backed startup.
More: ‣
More: ‣, A Whole New Level: Mental models & heuristics
More: Best practice: managing time & calendars
<aside> 💡 Before we dive into the why, let’s align on some nomenclature. **What are Systems? What is Systems Thinking?
Systems:** The processes, mechanics, tactics that inform how Levels operates.
**”***A company is a collection of both its people and its systems. People can come and go over the years, but the systems they put in place and gradually refine over time become part of the company — and companies ultimately compete based on if those systems are strong or not.” (Focus on Your First 10 Systems, Not Just Your First 10 Hires)
Systems Thinking:** Being a systems thinker means different things to different people! For the Levels team, it means employing a process-oriented mindset to holistically think about the underlying structures that drive events, behaviors, tasks, problems etc. The outcome of systems thinking is the ability to expand the possible courses of action and choices available to us, creating both more leverage for individuals, and long-term sustainable processes and solutions. Put simply, thinking about how things relate and how things can sustain.
Delegation is one of the biggest tools in a systems thinker’s toolbox. As Sam said in his First Round article on How to Make Delegation Your Superpower, “Learning how to delegate effectively is perhaps the single most important skill that folks need to develop in order to transition into a leadership role, and yet, many are reluctant to embrace it.”
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Employing systems thinking and continuous delegation is like a muscle that must continue to be flexed. Muscles must continually be moved and worked both to get stronger and to avoid atrophy. Discussions around 10X-ing delegation appear during onboarding, and then sometimes during performance check-ins, but there is currently no set system for continuously investing in building the Levels team skill set on delegation. Continuously prioritizing building systems thinking and delegation skills at this stage of Levels growth is imperative to: