140: What Does Done Look Like? Assigning Tasks with Clarity

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This transcript has been automatically generated.

Bonnie Christine [00:00:00]:
Hi there. Welcome back to The Professional Creative Podcast. Happy Tuesday. I want to talk about a little bit of delegating today, but it doesn't require that you have anyone on your team. It doesn't require that you have, you know, an employee or a contractor that you're working with. I think it's gonna apply to so many different things in your life. It's a concept that we use all the time, and we got it from Brene Brown, so one of our favorite books. When I say our, I mean my team.

Bonnie Christine [00:00:37]:
We love Brene Brown's book called Dare to Lead. And one of the concepts out of that book that really stuck with us is this concept of what does done look like. And so I'll tell you what it looks like in the framework of a team, but then we'll also talk about what it looks like as a framework, just in your life as general. I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business, and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains running a multi 7 figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today, I'm not only licensing my art all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up.

Bonnie Christine [00:01:47]:
I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. So when you have someone that you're delegating to, oftentimes, we'll pass off a task. And if you're like me, sometimes we're kind of in this hurried, reactive, scrambled state, and we're just like, I need help with this, and we toss it out. Right? Someone catches it and works towards it. And then, as the creative entrepreneur that we are, sometimes we have opinions about how it was completed, or how it was delivered, or how the work was done. Let's just put it that way. And so one of the things that we really think about is, well, did I explain clearly and very well what Done looked like? So oftentimes, I didn't, and I got to call myself out on this one.

Bonnie Christine [00:03:00]:
Oftentimes, I pass a task, and I assume that maybe they know what done looks like, they can read my mind, or, that, you know, I'm sure I'll be happy with the results. And then maybe I wasn't really clear about that, and then maybe I'm a little bit frustrated that it wasn't completed in the exact way that I thought it would be. Or maybe it was turned in at a time that I didn't expect. So what does done look like means what is a job well done? What does it look like? Is there a template or an example of a perfect job or, you know, a great job well done before that you could show me? And when is this due? Do you want it by the end of the day? Do you want it by the end of the week? Is it urgent? Is it a get to it when you can get to it kind of thing? And so this concept really also couples well with a concept from Jocko Wollink, who wrote Extreme Ownership, another book that I love on leadership. And at the end of the day, the big takeaway here is that, well, everything's your fault, meaning you've got to take extreme ownership over everything that happens under your roof, if you will, like under your management and leadership. All the way down to, like, if you fire someone, it's your fault for hiring the wrong person in the first place. But also Bonnie that's kind of macro level. Well, micro level is when things are happening that aren't just right, you didn't really set them up for success.

Bonnie Christine [00:04:40]:
You didn't really give them a clear pathway to what done looks like successfully. So on the flip side, we give people on the team permission to always ask, well, what does done look like? Meaning, if a task gets kind of thrown out there, tossed into the air, I need help, and it doesn't come with a clear definition of what done looks like, the team knows to use this language. Okay, great. I'm catching that ball. Can you tell me what done looks like? And so that, is a call to action for the task giver. Right? Okay. Let me, let me pause and think if we have an example of this that we've done before that they could use as a guide. Is there a template? Is there a SOP, a standard operating procedure, that we either need to pull from or update as we do it this time? And then when is it due when is it delivered? And so I often think about how we can do this in our life as well, like, as a mom.

Bonnie Christine [00:05:45]:
Right? Well, I can give a task to one of my kids, but if I don't clearly say what done looks like like, pick up your room, and then they they pick things up but just kind of stuff it in a basket in their closet. They don't really put it away. Well, I don't know. I didn't really clearly define what done looks like. So put it away where it belongs, make it organized, and have that done by dinnertime.

Bonnie Christine [00:06:13]:
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Bonnie Christine [00:07:16]:
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Bonnie Christine [00:08:31]:
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Bonnie Christine [00:08:54]:
So I hope this helps you think about, can we get clarity, even ourselves, on what does a job well done really look like. Because when you can deliver that with a task assignment, it's such a gift to the recipient. It's such a gift. Otherwise, they're kind of grappling at what they think you want or how they think you want it done, and then they risk not doing it like you would maybe want it to be done. But they're so happy to do it exactly how you want it to be done. So it's really a gift to yourself as well. But clarity for the recipient of a task, you know, someone receiving a task or delegation, such a beautiful thing to just give them the the the map to success. This is how you measure your success is does it look like this when it's done? Maybe if we go back to that that, example with your children or my children, maybe we do a really jam up job on their room sometime, and I take pictures of it.

Bonnie Christine [00:10:04]:
And then we've got documentation of what done looks like. So here here is what we want it to look like. Let's get it back to this state by dinner time or or what have you. So part of this is when you have done a job well documenting that. This is the perfect way that I want a podcast outline, a podcast script. This is the way that I want, you know, lessons written. This is the way that I want a video to be edited. That way, people are not wasting their time trying to figure out what you want or doing it the wrong way and having to go back and correct it.

Bonnie Christine [00:10:41]:
And then all you have to do is think about it once and be done. Now side note, this should immediately go to an SOP. And so we've done a podcast on SOPs before. You can head back to episode number 49, SOPs for Christine, boosting productivity and consistency in your business, because we are a big, big, big, big believer in creating standard operating procedures. And this is really where you pull in, well, what does done look like? And you can use these in your business to get help, to hire people, to bring in, you know, part time help or even an intern. Your SOPs are the way to success. So I hope this just got your gears turning a little bit. What does done look like? The next time you assign a task, whether it's to someone helping you with your house or your lawn or your kids or your spouse or your team or inside your business? You know, if you're unhappy with the way someone is packaging and shipping your your products, did you give them a clear, you know, look at what does done look like? Maybe you want the label to be a specific way or the insides to be packaged a specific way? Well, let's show them what done looks like and then expect better results that are actually measurable.

Bonnie Christine [00:12:06]:
Okay. My friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world, and remember there's room for you.