Don’t you love systems where you get other people to do the work for you? Whatever the setting, that makes for effective delegation. I’m always impressed when I see well executed examples. Let me share one with you.

I’m just back from a lovely weekend retreat with 19 other women. At the conclusion of your stay, you are asked to do two things:

• make your bed with the linen you will find in the bottom drawer of the dresser in your room
• deposit your used linen in bins under the staircase

You can see the bins in the photo. Very clear labels instruct you where to deposit your pillow case, fitted sheet, flat sheet and towels. Imagine the time saved in housekeeping by having the linen from 17 rooms stripped, in one place, and pre-sorted. No wasting time sorting it again when it leaves the dryer, either, since all the fitted sheets, for example, will be in the same load. And let’s assume 5 minutes to make a bed – having each retreat participant make their own bed saves the housekeeper an easy hour and a half.

This is especially important because only four (religious) brothers run the retreat house. They have a very small staff that includes a cook, a dishwasher, and housekeeper. They need to run a lean operation, both to keep costs reasonable, and also to allow them time to focus on their priority: their religious life. See how this is starting to relate to your small business?

Effective delegation demands you have a clear and easy-to-follow system in place. Let’s analyze what was done right in this example, so you can apply to your own small business systems development:

• Tell people what you expect in advance: We were given a short orientation talk the first night of our stay, which included a reminder to make the beds before we left, and the location of the dirty linen receptacles.
• Use pictures: A picture is worth 1000 words – 1000 words you don’t need to write. In your business, don’t forget the power of videos to capture each step you use to do something on the computer. You can use apps like Jing to easily create a screen capture video.
• Use the power of many to reduce the work of a few: It did not take much time for each individual to strip and make their bed – but may have saved paying for an extra staff member.