Athena CEO Gina Cotner recently had a fantastic conversation with Erin Keam on her podcast, “Erin Keam’s Conversations about Closets with my Closest 1000 friends”.
The two talk delegation, breaking free to get back to the things you are truly passionate about, and so much more!
Check the podcast episode here.
You need partners to be able to grow, and I’ve been incredibly fortunate in this world. Meet my great friend, Dorian. Here we are five years after I founded this firm, Athena Executive Services. She no longer works for me, but we are still very close. She’s now married, has had her first baby, and is the Chief of Staff for a great company that was previously our client. She was a key player in the building of this firm for the first four years.
I would brainstorm with Dorian. I thought things through with her. She was my sounding board and my cheerleader. She was also the first person that I turned over some of the operations of the company to. After a couple of years, I turned over to her our vetting, screening, and development process that all team members go through before joining our team. She continued to serve our clients, but soon she was managing this important part of the business that was critical to our success.
She honed and improved our vetting process along the way. We have yet to post a job opening anywhere. The right people find their way to us and apply, and the right people make it through the screening process. In my great fortune to get to work with Dorian I learned how to delegate not just tasks and projects, but a whole system that is a key part of our business and has been a critical to our success.
This month I got to see her in person at a coffee shop briefly. It was the first time in 18 months getting to see her in person. I was two states away from home. She drove 90 minutes from one side of LA to the other, just to see me. It was such a treat to see her, and I’m forever grateful for all of the obstacles she went through with me in the building of the company.
Approximately half of all businesses close in the first five years. Proud to have made it past that threshold! Partnership was the Key!
I’ve been expanding my knowledge and abilities around delegating in this last year. I consider myself an expert delegator in many ways, but there is always more to master and new things to discover. I’ve been moving myself from simply delegating well-defined tasks and projects to a world of Delegating Thinking.
I got off a call today that I had to force myself to cut short. I said to this person, “I need you to do the critical thinking on this and then send me what you’ve got.” We were working on an agenda for a meeting. I gave him some areas and ideas to think from and I noticed he kept asking me questions. I was pulled to want to stay on the line and keep answering his questions. He would have happily and expertly executed my thoughts and put them on paper in a way that I wanted. But what I really wanted was his thinking mixed with mine. I realized in the moment that the more questions I answered for him, the less of his thinking I would get.
There is more to be found about this in this article, plus other valuable ideas for how to get more out of delegating.
Harvard Business Review article, “You’re Delegating. It’s Not Working. Here’s Why.”
Why do some people seem to get so much more done with their time than others? What is the secret to managing your time effectively? There are many answers that are unique to everyone on this topic, but we did find a handy guide about this all-important productivity skill.
Check out this Ultimate Guide on Time Management, via AsianEfficiency.com. There are some great tips!
Do you have a particular method of getting things done efficiently that is working well for you? Please share!
Athena Executive Services Contractor, Christina Miser, was recently interviewed by her executive, Gabe Nelson, on his podcast “Solopreneur Money” .
Christina and Gabe discuss the tasks that a ‘band manager’ (aka executive assistant) can do, and creating a true partnership with your EA.
My trip to Hawaii is looming. Looming? I mean, “Yea! I’m traveling again!” but it’s all coming back to me now, the work it takes to have a real vacation. It’s really worth it and it takes work. It’s now June 9. I leave June 29. I’ll be gone for 10 days. If I want a real vacation, I have many things to turn over in the different areas of my life. All the projects, responsibilities, management, etc. that I tend to each week.
What do I mean by a real vacation? I mean one where you are not required in the areas of your usual, day-to-day life. Vacation comes from the word Vacate. By a real vacation, I mean one where you have done the work to set up your life to be able to vacate it. Vacate it?
A real vacation is going to happen when I have set up my company, my passion projects, and the groups I’m a part of. When I’ve set them up to be “deprived of an incumbent”. That incumbent is me! I will not be “occupying” my roles for 10 days.
Now, you could just dump and run. You could just set the auto-responder and call a few people and say, “I’m going on vacation. I’ll be back July 10.” And you could then return to a mess.
Part of going on a real vacation is that when I’m there, I don’t have to be worried about returning to a mess. I don’t have to be snorkeling while pondering “I sure hope it doesn’t all fall apart while I’m gone.” I don’t have to be in the outdoor massage cabana with the ocean in the background while hoping the invoicing goes well and wondering if there’s money in the right account for payroll. This freedom is the payoff of the work I’ll do over the next 20 days.
I’m starting my list of what needs to be turned over and to whom. Who will cover the different bases? What do I need them to do while I’m away? How do I need them to do it? If they have questions, or get into the weeds with it, who is a resource they could turn to (that is not me!)? What do I need from them when I return, so that I’m set up for a smooth re-entry?
So, my trip to Hawaii is looming. There is snorkeling, sundresses, lazing in the sun, and homemade banana bread with lilikoi cream cheese from a small farmer’s market in my future.
When is your next vacation? What’s the work you need to do to have that be a Real Vacation?
