Scaling Your Therapy Practice By Using Effective Delegation | STP 32

July 24, 2023

Welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice podcast. In this episode, James Marland and David Hall dive into the topic of delegation, sharing valuable insights and practical tips for entrepreneurs and practice owners. They discuss the importance of clear communication, defining outcomes, and managing expectations when delegating.

The Decision-Making Delegation Framework for Therapists

Marland discusses a delegation-making framework from Mike Michalowicz's program, "Run Like Clockwork." He highlights the importance of three key elements: permission, information, and outcome. To make effective decisions, one needs permission within their roles, the right information, and the confidence to do what's best. Marland emphasizes that if any of these elements are missing, it's essential to communicate with the person assigning the work and seek clarification or guidance.

Defining Clear Outcomes

David Hall expresses his concerns about defining clear outcomes when delegating tasks, especially for those who struggle with organization. He shares his frustration with disorganization and the need to measure the impact of delegating tasks effectively. Hall acknowledges that as therapists, many tend to be intuitive feelers rather than objective measures. However, he highlights the importance of setting measurable outcomes and engaging in a discipline of clear communication to avoid disappointment.

The Role of Clarity and Check-Ins

James Marland emphasizes the significance of clarity and early check-ins when delegating tasks. Providing clear instructions, and defining the finished product, timeframe, and required resources can help virtual assistants or team members understand the expectations. Marland also suggests scheduling early check-ins to provide feedback and ensure that the delegated tasks align with your desired outcome. These check-ins allow for course correction and prevent potential disappointments.

Delegate the Outcome

One key aspect of effective delegation is ensuring that your direct reports and virtual assistants understand the desired outcome, rather than just the assigned tasks. By clearly communicating the outcome you wish to achieve, you provide them with a sense of purpose and direction. When individuals understand the bigger picture and the ultimate goal, they can contribute more meaningfully and creatively to the process. This approach encourages them to think critically and take ownership of their work, going beyond simply completing tasks. It empowers them to make informed decisions and find innovative solutions that align with the desired outcome. Ultimately, helping your team members understand the outcome fosters a sense of shared purpose and motivates them to strive for excellence in their work.

The Forest, Not Just the Trees

When it comes to delegation, it's essential to keep the bigger picture in mind. David Hall uses the metaphor of the forest and the trees to explain this concept. He emphasizes that the outcome or the gestalt of the situation is more critical than individual tasks. David says, "It's not about a collection of trees; it's about the forest." By shifting our focus to the experiential outcome for clients, therapists can create a more meaningful and holistic therapeutic process.

Understanding the Gestalt David explains that therapists often have a natural inclination towards the bigger picture, as they are more intuitive and focused on the overall outcome. This allows them to think beyond the individual pieces and consider the client's experience as a whole. He advises fellow therapists to lean on their strengths and think about the experiential outcome they want their clients to have.

The goal is the Outcome James Marland adds to the discussion, emphasizing that the ultimate goal is the outcome, not the specific method or task. He states, "The goal is not the method; the goal is the outcome." James believes that different clients require different approaches, and therapists need to adapt their methods to each individual. This flexibility allows therapists to maintain a strong therapeutic alliance and facilitate positive change.

Effective Delegation and Trust

Delegating tasks is a crucial aspect of scaling your therapy practice, but it requires trust between the therapist and the individual to whom tasks are assigned. James explains the importance of trust and the need for regular check-ins to ensure that tasks are completed correctly.

Trust and Verify Delegated Tasks

James suggests adopting a "trust but verify" approach when delegating tasks. Once a therapist has established trust with their assistant, they can have less frequent check-ins. However, it's vital to maintain a certain level of verification to ensure tasks are being accomplished effectively. James recommends checking in regularly during the initial stages and gradually reducing the frequency as trust is established.

Ownership and Responsibility is Key to Delegation

Ownership plays a significant role in effective delegation. When someone takes ownership of a task, they become responsible for it, ensuring its completion. David highlights the importance of ownership and mentions that owning both success and failure is essential. It fosters a culture of accountability and trust within the team. By taking responsibility for their actions, assistants can build trust with therapists and demonstrate their commitment to the practice's success.

Clear Delegation and Role Definition

To delegate effectively, it's crucial to have clear role definitions within your practice. David and James discuss their experiences as co-business owners and emphasize the need for explicit role assignments. By clearly defining responsibilities, both partners can work in harmony and avoid confusion or overlapping tasks.

Avoid Delegating to the Room

David warns against delegating tasks to a group or leaving them ambiguous, as this can lead to miscommunication and hinder task completion. Instead, he advises delegating tasks to specific individuals, ensuring that they take ownership of the responsibility. By doing so, tasks are more likely to be completed efficiently and effectively.

Flexible Collaboration

While clear delegation is vital, it's also important to maintain flexibility and open communication within the team. David and his wife, who is also his business partner, demonstrate how they collaborate and support each other within their counseling business. They have distinct roles but are free to ask for assistance when needed. This balance ensures that responsibilities are clear, but the team can provide support to one another as required.

Using Effective Delegation to Scale Your Therapy Practice

Scaling your therapy practice requires effective delegation practices. By focusing on the outcome, building trust, and maintaining clear communication, therapists can delegate tasks efficiently and ensure their practice's success. Remember to listen to your disappointment, address it as a discussion starter, and use visuals and check-in meetings to enhance clarity and accountability. Trust, open communication, and a well-defined delegation process are the keys to scaling your therapy practice.

Tips for Better Delegation:

Realize most people working for you want to do a good job and feel like a winner.
Shift your mindset from "how" is this going to get done to "who" is the best person to get this done when delegating tasks. Considering the power of specialization and empowering others.
The three elements of great delegation are permission, information, and outcomes.
Communicate clearly not just the tasks but the outcomes you want your direct report to achieve.
Provide enough clarity and information so the direct can achieve success.
Clearly defined responsibilities and who owns the task.
Use regular check-ins and clear reporting of task completion, especially during the early stages of delegation.
Your feelings of disappointment will point to what is missing in the delegation process. Feelings of disappointment may not mean “Bring the hammer down” it might point to a failure of communicating permission, information, or outcome.
Trust is everything. When you lose trust you lose the ability to get things done.
Always make the last step in an assignment is communicating that the task is done.

Links and Resources

The Pumpkin Plan on Amazon
Instagram Counseling Memes
Run Like Clockwork
Make a Copy of the SOP Spreadsheet for Virtual Assistants
PsychMaven - Online Training for Therapists
Beginner’s Guide for Creating Knowledge Income - Passive Income Course for Therapists
Join the discussion group on Facebook for Assistants, Automation, and AI for Mental Health Providers
Builder Type Assessment - grow without the grind
Email James to talk about questions or problems about scaling: [email protected]

Episode Transcript

STP 32 | Scaling Your Therapy Practice with Effective Delegation Practices
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James Marland: Uh, last week or the last episode, we talked about the, uh, decision making framework, how virtual assistants make this decisions. This week, we're gonna help, uh, entrepreneurs and practice owners with the, the, the delegation framework. First, we're gonna start out with our tool, tech or tip of the week. David, why don't you go first?

David Hall: Uh, my tip is particularly for those of you who are in, uh, group practice, whether you're the principal, you're just a part of one. Um, thinking about how, you know, how do you foster or create community within that group? And here's my simple tip, and this is what, uh, we, uh, we do in, in my practice, we call it the hallway, and it's just simply a text thread.

David Hall: And we, we have certain rules, like whenever anyone joins the practice, we have a text thread going. Now, certain people could do it differently if you, people may have something in WhatsApp or, um, Uh, slack channel or yeah. Or something like that. But I think something like that is important. You, there, there's figuring out parameters for it, and parameters are gonna be different for different cultures of, of your practice.

David Hall: For us, it's um, we use it for both business and pleasure. For, for business, uh, it is people looking for referrals for something because at this point we've got, uh, well over a dozen people in our group. We're here at different times. We see each other once weekly, but sometimes someone will have a intake request that isn't a good fit for them based on age or availability or other parameters.

David Hall: And so they'll send, put something in the group thread. Sometimes it's practical, like we get locked out sometimes, cuz our building automatically locks when you go in and out. And sometimes people will step out thinking that they had their keys and did not. And so it'll be the text thread. Will someone let me in?

David Hall: Uh, But the other times it's jokes and we'll have particularly, uh, one of our staff is the, the creator of the Instagram counseling memes. If you not found them, it's an hilarious account. Counseling underscore memes at both the Instagram and Facebook. And he will experiment on different ideas. He's thinking of posting, he'll, he'll send us gifs or.

David Hall: Different memes. He's created a therapist related humor, and that will often brighten up our days. And so I just find it's a great community thing. And whatever you're doing, whether it's that or just thinking through what are the practical touch points of community that you're doing for yourself, uh, in your work as a mental health practitioner, that's one of the things that, that we do at Haven Counseling Center in Knoxville.

James Marland: Cool. Yeah. That, that, uh, In the virtual world and even in a, in an office building where you can shut your door and you can't see anybody for weeks, it seems that those little things do make a big difference towards the, the connectivity. But thanks for that David. My tip of the week is, uh, I've been listening to the Pumpkin Plan.

James Marland: It's the Mike MCC book. Um, Uh, about growing bigger businesses and with the illustration of pumpkins and this, the, the last chapter I listened to, does a reframe when there's work to do, a lot of times when we get work to do, we ask How, how is this going to get done? Like, how, how am I gonna see this client?

James Marland: Or how am I gonna get, get the, these work, this work done? And the, the, the reframe is instead of. If you wanna grow your business, instead of thinking how is this work is going to get done? You, you flip the question and say, who is going to get the work done? Mm-hmm. It changes from how to who, and that way it takes you, it, it helps you think about delegation, it helps you think about prioritization, helps you think about specialization.

James Marland: Uh, it's just a, it's just a really interesting reframe cuz as an entrepreneur, Or as somebody who, uh, does a lot of work, I think, like, how am I going to get, like, I, I automatically put in that I word, like, how am I going to get this done instead of who's the best person or who's going to get this done?

David Hall: So, and, and that's a good segue into the second part of our conversation on, you know, kind of a delegation framework. So, you know, this is, this is your wheelhouse, James, so, so, you know, take us there.

David Hall: Sure. Yeah.

James Marland: Uh, this is the second half of the, the decision making delegation framework. This, this comes from another Mike McCullough's program actually, uh, run like clockwork. Uh, I, I took some courses from that, and the, the, the, the de the decision making framework any was you need permission, information, and confidence.

James Marland: So if I'm going to make a decision, we talked about this last, last time. Mm-hmm. If I'm gonna make a decision, I need to have the permission to make decision. It has to be within my roles. I need the right information to make it. And then I also need to be sure that I'm doing the right thing. I need to have confidence.

James Marland: Uh, and if, if I ever don't make those decisions, I know I can go to my boss or manager or whoever assigns the work and say, I'm missing this part of the equation. I'm missing permission. I don't have the passwords, or It's not in my job role. Somebody's asking me to do something different or I don't have enough information.

James Marland: Do you want blue pens or black pens? We talked about that last time. Yeah. So that, uh, I can go back to the person who assigned the task and say, I can't make this decision. I think I'm going to do this. Can you confirm or can you gimme feedback? And so that's, that's a way to, to help train your assistant or the person that's delegating work for them to be able to make more and more and bigger decisions.

James Marland: So, As they learn and grow and grow their confidence. So what is the responsibility for a practice owner? Anybody, uh, delegating tasks. And it's, it's similar in the fact that you, you have to give them permission to do it. Like you have to do, define their role. You have to give them the right information.

James Marland: We talked about this last time. But the third thing, the, the d differentiator is the, the owner, the person assigning the work has to give clear outcomes or they have to define the outcome of what the task is.

David Hall: Um, no, that's, and it's, no, go ahead. As, as, as I'm at the beginning phase of, as we're talking about, of investing resources for myself in VA support.

David Hall: This is a tricky one for me, James, because it's one of the things that honestly, that creates the most hesitancy with me because I'm unsure even of what it's going, like my g my goal is for it to be better. Mm-hmm. Fill in the blank for it, uh, of what I'm trying to solve. That, you know, things are getting done in a more timely manner that, that things are less disorganized.

David Hall: It is one of the things that frustrates me the most in being me. Is that I am not a naturally organized person, and I can manage that most of the time until I can't and I get furious. I was trying to find something in my house this weekend, and when I'm trying to find something, I end up starting to clean because there are piles of things that it might be in.

David Hall: When I start cleaning, I get furious. Here's why. Because I will find things in those piles that should not have been in those piles. I found a tax form that should have been in a, in a much more secure place than the pile I founded in my home office. And I am just getting progressively more mad at me. I have no one else to blame but me.

David Hall: So when I think of the idea of support of like, okay, I'll have less of this in my life. Is one of the outcomes I'm thinking of. But the hard thing is, is it's, it's hard for me to even think about the measurables of, you know, what are the measurables? Cuz what I'm asking for in some ways is a feeling. And as a psychotherapist who worked with families and couples and things like that, that feeling as an end goal is completely unfair for me to contract with somebody, to employ somebody.

David Hall: I. That I'm wanting to accomplish some things for me in this, I like, I need measurable outcomes to know if it, because if I'm just going for a feeling that's not fair to me and it's not fair to them, but let's, it's hard for you to imagine what that outcome could be sometimes when it's, I'm so new to the task,

James Marland: so, uh, let's use that, that, that was like the end part of the conversation.

James Marland: But let's use that because, uh, the, the there is going whenever you. Delegate things, you're either gonna feel great about it, like, oh, it happened exactly as I said, or there's gonna be some missed expectations. The the difference between what you expect in reality, the gap is the disappointment, and so you use those.

James Marland: You, you look for those feelings. Mm-hmm. And you don't look for them to like blame people or to like get mad at them, but you use it as a starting point for the, the conversation. You use it as a part for like, I'm having this feeling, it's for a reason. What do we do for it? And you, uh, you just, you have to realize it's gonna happen.

James Marland: Like, I guess that's point number one. There, there will be there, there you will be, uh, disappointed with some things. Mm-hmm. Now think about the virtual, let's, let's say you gave, uh, you wouldn't give a virtual assistant the job of organizing the papers in your home office, but what, what if you gave him the job of organizing your files on your computer?

David Hall: Yeah, it could be it, it could be that I've, you know, That I've got my Google Drive that's in a

James Marland: complete Yeah. They want mess. Your Google drive a mess and you want them to organize it. Mm-hmm. Now, most of the time, I think this is another thing to, to realize most of the time, like 95 to 99% of the time, the person you assign the task to wants.

James Marland: To make you happy. Right. Would you agree

David Hall: with that? I would hope so, yeah. I would hope that, that that would be the Yeah, absolutely.

James Marland: There it is not their goal to disappoint you. Like it's not their goal to screw up, it's not their goal to like be so bad that you get mad and you want to fire them. They wanna win.

James Marland: Like, I think we have to recognize when, when we have disappointments, they're also disappointed too. Like, they're like, oh, I, I messed up and something went wrong. Uh, and the reality for the, the mess up is often in, um, the, the, we didn't ex uh, we didn't clearly give the outcome. That's, that's the, the part where we had something in our head that we wanted.

James Marland: Let's say you wanted things organized just alphabetically, and they did it by date. But you just said, organize my folders. Mm-hmm. And they, they gave you something that was organized, but it wasn't the clear, like, it didn't have the definition or the clarity of what you had in your head. And that's often, that's, uh, as I was reading the book and as I, you know, delegate a lot of things myself, I, I know it's in my head, but I often can't.

James Marland: I don't often communicate it with enough definition for the, the person on the other side to give me exactly what I want, and I have to recognize that's me, right? I mean, I'm, I'm a big part of the failure. If I want, if I want the job done and the person wants to make me happy, and then they give me something that is below my expectations, is it because, you know, they're a lazy, no good worker.

David Hall: Not likely. No. It, it is the So what's the solution? Well,

James Marland: uh, there's, there's a couple things you can do and it's not difficult, but like the, the, the, the, um, fir, the first part is be clear, like clarity is defining the task that you want the assistant to do. And this means giving them some of the details like, What, what does the finished product look like?

James Marland: Like, uh, what is the timeframe? What are the resources required? Uh, you, you make sure that you define it very well for them. Uh, you also said something in the beginning, like, you need metrics, right? I think metrics are important for, for virtual assistants or anybody that you delegate the task to. Uh, I, you might not, you might not have a money goal, but might, you might have a time goal, like, I need this done in, you know, a successful person to do this will have this task completed in this amount of time.

David Hall: Um, well, and, and to, to go on a, a detour in this, that feels right, feels fine about metrics as a general rule. I find a lot of therapists aren't good at that. We're generally feelers. Yeah. Uh, and, and that, I don't wanna speak in absolutes because of course there's, you know, there's a whole variety of individuals.

David Hall: But as, as a, uh, a strong predic predilection for a lot of people in the industry, we're feeling type, we're very intuitive. We're, if we're good at our jobs, we're often very intuitive. But what that practically means is we don't incline towards the measurable. Objective standards and it's a discipline we have to engage in.

David Hall: Because to your point, like is it, you talk about the gap between disappointment and delight. Delight happens with either like what I exactly imagined was accomplished, or sometimes it's even like this person surpassed my expectations. I was expecting something, and that's even better. And then there's, it's not quite what I expected.

David Hall: And it may be when I experienced that disappointment, sometimes it could be, I realize there could be the realization that, as you said, like I wanted, I said organize these files. I, in my mind was thinking alphabetically. They did it chronologically. I did not specify that. And there's this realization there was a gap in the information that I gave.

David Hall: Mm-hmm. And that goes to some previous principles that you said. What's even harder is sometimes I have the sense. It can happen if just, I just don't like this. But I can't even put words to why I'm disappointed because it's just I'm, I didn't define it beforehand for myself or anybody else. And I would say as, as a touchy feely sort of therapist person, if you're listening to this and or watching this and that's you, that is on you.

David Hall: That is not. The other, the, the VA's issue to fix that is your issue to fix. Yeah. And time to, you know, to, to step up to that. Now is it, is it gonna be easy? And, and if I was in that situation, I would just try to prime the conversation with whoever I'm working with to say like, Hey, this is new for me and I don't even know everything I'm asking for.

David Hall: And that's a different sort of permission giving is giving them permission to guide me. So. Of like what would be helpful information that I haven't given you? What you know, if I've laid out a task, what are the gaps in my instructions? To be proactive in, in, in asking for that, because I think that would be one way, as I'm imagining doing this in this conversation, is I wanna be proactive in giving them permission to say, versus I give them a task.

David Hall: And they're, they may have a sense early on, like, well, does, does he want me to do this alphabetically or chronologically, or, well,

James Marland: one, one way to, to prevent somebody working, you know, 10 hours on something in the wrong direction is to have an early check-in. That's a big tip. Mm. Like, give them an hour or do one, you know, organize one folder and send, you know, send me the results and then we'll give you some feedback.

James Marland: So an early check-in with feedback is a, is a tool or a technique to confirm that they, they have the, the outcome that you want. The, uh, the example in the book, uh, I think it's the clockwork book, is you assign somebody to cook some food. Bring you something to cook food, and they bring you sticks and you wanted an oven, you know?

James Marland: Mm-hmm. Like they, but if you checked with them, you know, in the first 15 minutes and they're picking up sticks, you can be like, whoa, no, no, uh, go to Walmart. Here's the credit card, and buy me an oven. So, uh, that's just one of those things to prevent some of those, those big time disappointments, like the gut check, like, ugh.

James Marland: I really should have checked in with somebody. I mean, an example I had, I had a virtual assistant that was working on, um, insurance claims for somebody, for some, one of the clients. And you're a cash pay business, aren't you?

David Hall: Are you Credit card? But if you mean like, versus Yeah, if you, if you mean versus, uh, uh, insurance based.

David Hall: I, insurance based, yes. I, I, I do. Yes. We're a cash based practice. Okay.

James Marland: So. Uh, they had claims errors and I, you've probably heard stories though, but you can be on the phone if you're calling 'em up. You can be on the phone on hold for 15, 20 minutes mm-hmm. Waiting for, or longer depending on the, the company.

James Marland: Mm-hmm. And so this person was virtual assistant and she worked very hard at calling the, the company when she had time. But she also, she also didn't have an hour to wait on the phone cuz she was jumping in between tasks. So she would call, wait for 15 minutes, didn't get a response, mark down her time and move on, and by the end of the month she worked 20 hours on calls and solved like two problems.

James Marland: Mm-hmm. She didn't understand the outcome. She was doing her job and that's, that was the big gut check for us, is she didn't understand the outcome. Like the outcome wasn't making calls. In fact, the outcome, when a call comes in, if you have a receptionist, most of the time the outcome isn't answering the phone.

James Marland: The, the, the outcome is like scheduling, getting people at getting the right people at the right time to the right therapist for the right reasons. Like that's the reason for, um, hiring a per somebody in person to do, to do those things. You want a filled schedule. If they fill a schedule. And they're nice and polite and, and everybody has a good experience.

James Marland: That's a, that's a bonus too. Like you want people to have a good, that's, that, that might not even be a non-negotiable. You want people to feel good about your services, so you have two outcomes. You want people to feel good about calling your services and you want the schedules filled. So how do you do that?

James Marland: Like, it's, it's, uh, Answer you, you don't make answering the phone on the second ring the main thing because then they'll drop other tasks to do this one thing that might, that might not be the outcome that you actually really, really, really, really want.

David Hall: Mm-hmm. So that's,

James Marland: we were talking about disappointments

David Hall: and, well, I, what you're describing makes me think of there's the.

David Hall: Proverb, um, missing the forest for the trees. Mm-hmm. And that we can be thinking about the individual pieces versus the, the hole, what it is in psychology. There's the term and this of the gestalt, which is a great German word, like, like, there are lots of things in the history of, of modern psychology, but it's this idea of it's not that individual pieces is how it comes off as a whole and the gestalt of the thing.

David Hall: Is more going to be representative of the outcome versus the individual pieces. I don't want a collection of trees, I want a forest. Mm-hmm. And and when you ask what's the difference, it's some of what you're describing and like if you make it, if you make it a tree, is answer the phone on the second ring.

David Hall: Yeah. Versus I'm trying to create an experience for the client or the potential client. That's the forest. And I think that's a good pivot in the other side, cuz my challenge to my fellow therapist is we're often not very good at metrics. However, what we're describing I do think will feel more naturally understandable and intuitively taken in because we are typically much more about kind of the bigger picture.

David Hall: A lot of us are much more. In Myers-Brigg terms, you know, we, we skew more towards the intuitive, the end versus the sensing, ask not all. And you know, I, I think, you know, again, I don't want to, I don't wanna put people in boxes and exclude them and be like, well, if you're, if you're a, uh, a good, if you're a therapist that's good at metrics and more of a sensing person, the Myers-Briggs than you're an outlying therapist.

David Hall: I'm just, I'm anecdotally speaking of my experiences and definitely describing myself. People I find that I work directly with. But lean on your strengths, which is thinking about what is the, what is the experiential outcome that I want them to have? And I talk about this if you supervise or you, you teach other therapists.

David Hall: I think this is a big thing of oftentimes inexperienced therapists will want like, well, what do I do exactly in this situation? And what's the classic therapist answer? Do you know what it is? James? Um, If you ask a therapist a question, particularly if it's a yes or no question, what's the classic therapist answer?

David Hall: Well, it depends. Yes, it is. It depends because there's almost never an absolute binary in this situation. So I was talking with a supervisee just yesterday about how confrontational she should be in a particular situation, and we were talking about this particular situation and then she, she asked, Further as a clarifying question, it's like, so this is what I should do in these situations.

David Hall: I'm like, oh, it depends. We were assessing this particular client and this relationship and this client's personality style of how confronting them in this way would be taken. Versus comparing that, and I use that opportunity to compare it to another one of her active cases and like this wouldn't work out in the same way.

David Hall: The goal is not the method. The goal is the outcome. The outcome was we wanted to facilitate positive therapeutic change while maintaining or even increasing therapeutic rapport and alliance. We want the clients to move in the direction that they're asking for therapy to be about, and in that process for them to feel good and to trust you and the relationship more, that's the outcome.

David Hall: How we do that. Is as different as people are different. There's certain clients that I'm very confrontational with because that's how they trust me. They trust me that I'm not going to sugarcoat things for them. Mm-hmm. And that I'm gonna be really direct for other clients that could be kind of bruising and hurtful and I've gotta be softer with them because they're a different per, I might still want the same outcome.

David Hall: I want them to trust me and to experience positive change. The method is not completely unimportant, but it's very subordinate to the outcome. Mm-hmm. That's my therapist paradigm and language for what I'm hearing. You kind of talk about James,

James Marland: and that's, that's also a way to, when you're delegating things to a virtual assistant, that sort of philosophy keeps you from micromanaging, you know, if, if you're like, I really care about this outcome.

James Marland: I, and after your a little bit of testing you, you know, you've proven you can make great decisions. I'm just gonna be checking in at these times. Like you trust, but verify. I guess that's one of the tips from Jim Collins. Um, good to great, like trust when you're delegating things and you trust that there people wanna win, that they wanna do it, but it's also you.

James Marland: It's also up to you to verify that things are getting done in the right way. Mm-hmm. In the beginning you have more frequent check-ins as they pr, you know, are proven. You have less frequent check-ins, but you can't give away, you can't give up the check-ins either. Like, you still have to verify that things are getting done.

James Marland: Yeah. Um, the la the. Two other kind of like delegating tips is delegate to one person. I don't know if you've ever delegated to the room, Hey, can somebody help me with this? Or can

David Hall: somebody Yeah. It's the worst because, because no one owns it. No one owns it. And it becomes like, well, I thought you had this, I thought you had this.

David Hall: Like,

James Marland: by just saying those things, cuz I've, I've done, I've delegated to the room before and then I get mad like, yeah, why isn't anybody helping? Doesn't anybody care? Because I was a bad delegator.

David Hall: It is. Well it becomes, You're opening yourself up to resentment to, and also just the thing not getting accomplished.

David Hall: And so getting very specific and that, and I could say this too, in the context of a co-business owner now I am, my business partner is also my life partner. And so that, that's a whole different, uh, I don't know if that's episodes Dennis James, but what, yeah, what is it to work with your spouse and kind of all and, and kind of boundary sort of things.

David Hall: Cause I've got plenty of things I've learned over the years in that. And, and I will say, not to brag a lot of this, I'll give my wife credit for this cuz she's pretty awesome. But we generally do fairly well in our roles. But part of what does that is she and I from the very beginning of, of running a business together we're very overt in who was responsible for what.

David Hall: Now, responsible for something doesn't mean that that person is the sole laborer in that thing, but is so. In our counseling business. Here's probably the best way to describe the, the gestalt, like the general feel of it is I am in the business. I am much worthy kind of external relations sort of person.

David Hall: I'm the, the, the Secretary of state. Uh, I'm, I have the lead in a lot more marketing, but also recruitment. Like when we're looking for new therapists, I'm the person that will do the initial interview with somebody before we bring them in, and my wife and I will interview a candidate together. I'll do the initial more informal conversation with somebody to see if they even get to that.

David Hall: So I'm, I'm, I'm the one doing marketing events. I, when we've run ads, I'll do that. I'm kind of the external person in, uh, and I, and I'm probably more of the big picture person of like, this is where I'm thinking we're going as a practice. My wife is much more of the internal management sort of person.

David Hall: She's our onboarding person. When we hire a therapist, once a therapist is hired, I have a lot more work with the therapist before they're hired. But once they're hired, it shifts a lot more into her. She's the onboarding person. She's the one that trains them in the hr. She's the one that, um, uh, Takes their picture for the website.

David Hall: But I manage the website. I'm the one that manages the website and makes updates and corrections and things like that. So all that said, we have to clear roles, but we are free to ask. She'll ask me to do things that are more in her domain, just cuz she needs help and she's free to do that. But there's a difference between her.

David Hall: Seeking out aid versus the responsibility hasn't come on me. Ultimately, the fact that like that the, this new therapist is up on our e H r, it's her thing. She may ask me to say, Hey, could you show them this because I'm busy. So she'll delegate the things that she's delegated to and which is fine and vice versa.

David Hall: For me, I, you know, there's, my wife knows how to, to update the website. And there are times where I've just been less available. I'm like, Hey, there's this typo. Yeah. You know, will you fix that? So anyway, but you need to have the clear delegation because if it was just, Hey, will somebody do this? It's either, no one will do it, which is more common, or multiple people will try to do it, and they'll get in each other's way, depending on what it is.

James Marland: You, you ha, you had the key word there, ownership. Like ownership is when somebody's responsible and they own it. It gets done and it gets done better than if a group of people own it or nobody owns it. Like even if you delegate to a group, somebody's gotta be responsible in that group for being the person who makes sure it gets done.

David Hall: And one more thing on that, on ownership. Ownership also means kind of besting up. When you haven't stepped up like you should, and it doesn't need to be a shame-based thing. And I think that's something a lot of people need to get over or need to push in, in their selves. But for an example, I had this last week, I'm on a volunteer board.

David Hall: We meet about once a month, but we we're, we're a working board where we're, we have tasks that we're trying to complete for this nonprofit organization and there was something that I was supposed to do that I didn't do. It wasn't just, I forgot about it, it was just like time got away from me. I missed a meeting with somebody and I was giving my a report to the board, and I start off with that.

David Hall: I'm like, Hey, this was my task, but the last board meeting, this was my task. I did not do it. I will priorit. You know, I, I, I gave reasons not excuses. It is something I always kinda say, I don't wanna make excuses, but like I did give context like, This wasn't, I didn't forget, or this wasn't like, you know, here were these other things that happened.

David Hall: I acknowledge that this is, could be hardship for people. I, I will, I'm affirming that I will prioritize it for the next cycle, and I plan to, and this, it wasn't, no one was particularly mad, but, but part of ownership is the fact of even owning when it doesn't get done. Yeah. And. I may have come up with a different solution.

David Hall: Uh, I may have approached the task and realized that my capacity or skillset meant that I couldn't complete the task. And then ownership in that means I go back. In the VA example, let's say I'm a VA and I get assigned to do something, I have responsibility to going back to, to my employer or contractor to say, Hey, I can't do this.

David Hall: I thought I could, or I, you know, I don't wanna disappoint you, but that's a different form of ownership is even kind of ownership, owning your own lack of capacity, but that's all information. If I hire a VA and they say they can do goo Google ads, or they're willing to learn Google ads, and they try it and they suck at it, what I want them to tell me is that very thing like, Hey, I thought I could handle this and I can't.

David Hall: You probably need to find somebody else. If, if I hire somebody or contract with somebody that does that, I'll be honest. I don't think I'll be that mad. I'll be impressed that they owned it. So ownership isn't even just ownership and success. Sometimes it's ownership and failure, but both.

James Marland: Yeah. And when And when they, when they tell you those things.

James Marland: What? When I was working with VAs, it's often like, okay, what can you do? Well, I can do like, yeah. 75% of it, it says 25%. I don't know. Oh, great. Well now we fix it. But when they hide the problem, that's mm-hmm. Like, they lose trust. And when you lose trust, you lose everything. Like if you hire a virtual assistant and you don't trust them, that's, that's the final tip.

James Marland: Hire slow, fire fast, like mm-hmm. When you lose trust with them because, not because they're trying and they, they made a mistake, you don't fire her, or you're disappointed. But there's like hidden things and they, they're not like revealing things to you. That's, that's, that's something to think. Like, if I don't trust them, that means I'm gonna pull back on delegating to them and the growth is gonna be slower and it's gonna take longer.

James Marland: And I'm not even, I'm gonna be like looking over their shoulder. And guess what they don't like? People don't like being looked over their shoulder. Hmm. But then you, you feel like you have to because of the, the lack of trust. Once, once we found, once trust was lost. Hmm. The, the relationship was, was eroded.

James Marland: And you either put a lot, a lot, a lot of work into rebuilding the trust or you switch assistance or they, they, they would choose to leave the company. Mm-hmm. Just you, you, once you lose trust, it's over. You just can't. Mm-hmm. You, it's hard to recover. Mm-hmm. Um, Couple other tips on clarity with, uh, well, one, the one more thing on delegation.

James Marland: The last step in delegation is reporting. Always. Mm-hmm. Always. The, the last thing, whenever you have, like, these are, this is the process of doing the task. The last step is tell, or record or report that it is done because the person who assigned it to you, Is gonna worry, is it done until you tell them it is done?

James Marland: Mm-hmm. And so the, the task for them doesn't stop when you finish it. It stops when they know it's done. Mm. And that, that's just closing the loop, uh, because the, the owner is gonna wake up in the middle of the night going, did this get done? And do I have to do damage control? Where the VA is, like they did it three days ago, but they forgot to record on their sheet.

James Marland: I don't know how many times. One of the simple tasks we had was a call log. You know, people called in, they recorded the calls, uh, and then they did the, if, if somebody sent an email or the, they, they like reported on what was done with the client, the communication follow-up and then closed it out. But, If the virtual assistant didn't close it out, or they forgot to record on the call log, then the, the owner was like, oh, nothing got done for three days.

James Marland: And they like, like, get really anxious, like nobody's handling these calls and these people are waiting. Even though the work was done, it's just the virtual assistant didn't record. They didn't follow the policy of the last step of telling them. It's done, like it's taken care of. You can like get it outta your brain.

James Marland: It's, it's done for you. So, um, anyways, like I, I always, I always try to, when I work with a virtual assistant, have a way for them to tell you it's done. Like, it could be a Trello board, you know, check, check the box. I, I, I do a lot of podcast publishing. I publish a couple podcasts. I always tell 'em it's done.

James Marland: It's ready, you know, it's in the can, it's scheduled to be posted because then they can start worrying about, you know, the next thing. Mm-hmm. Um, the social media posts are done. These are done. Like I, I do tasks for people and I just tell 'em it's done so they can stop worrying about it. Mm-hmm.

David Hall: Mm-hmm. Uh,

James Marland: great.

James Marland: And just, just to wrap up things to help you with clarity, use visuals like if you have pictures or screenshots. I love standard operating procedures that are done in video. So a lot of times with a virtual assistant, uh, you can, you can, if you're doing all the scheduling for yourself right now, start recording some loom videos.

James Marland: Put, put them in a folder. And then when you delegate them to a virtual assistant, have them look at your loom video and write out your, their, their own standard operating procedure. And now they own the process. So use those visual aids, use those videos. And then, um, one of the big things we did for, um, for our clients was check-in meetings.

James Marland: Mm-hmm. Just like, uh, uh, uh, we called 'em, um, uh, success meetings. I actually, I, now, now that I have to come up with the name, we, we call them, uh, they, they just checked in with their client on a weekly basis. They also gave emails at the end of the week. This is what I did, this is where I'm at with my projects.

James Marland: That, that way the owner knew what was going on. They knew what the priorities were, they knew they were working, and they could give feedback. Oh, you can, you can stop working off the project. Uh, you can. I know we had these insurance claims, but I want you to call these scheduling pe like they could rearrange the time that they had to use because we, we over-communicated, we found that when we over-communicated we had less problems.

David Hall: Makes sense. Makes sense.

James Marland: All right. Um, that's, that's pretty much all I have. I do think using the, uh, well, the, uh, what's one thing you want people to remember from this episode? David?

David Hall: Uh. Outcomes. It's about the outcomes. Don't get lost about talking about the trees. And so think about, and you've got, so, and I guess, um, I don't know, we, we haven't articulated this in this way, but think of the end and work backwards.

David Hall: Mm-hmm. And it's similar to what I, I, you know, I, as a solution oriented leaning therapist, I don't wanna talk about the problem that my clients are coming in with NEC or I don't want that to be the focus I want it to be, what is the solution? What is the positive possible outcome for it? How do we work backwards from that?

David Hall: Because to say I want somebody to answer my emails is a tree. The forest is, I want my communication to be prompt and um, and I want the people that are reaching out to me to feel attended to and cared for, and that their questions are answered.

James Marland: Yeah. You like the past doesn't matter. You want the outcome.

James Marland: Yeah. Like you, you want them to go forward. That's, uh, manager tools has a feedback model where they, they, they say, it's just a, it's just a simple phrase, um, uh, where it, it tells them, Hey, when you do this, this happens. Can you do something different? And that's all it is. It's just. Quick phrase, but it focuses not on the mistake, it focuses on the future behavior.

James Marland: And you just said that really well. My one thing is just use, use the disappointment and those feelings as a discussion starter. Like it's not, it's not the end of the world. It's actually to be expected. Until you get into a rhythm, until you get the, uh, the, the, the standards established and how things go, there's gonna be some disappointment.

James Marland: So, Don't ignore it. That's another thing that owners would do. They'd be like, oh, it's gonna get better. Or, oh, you're laughing. Oh, this is gonna get better. I hope they're gonna pick up on my non, my nonverbal cues or my like,

uh,

David Hall: yeah, they'll know that I'm passive, aggressively angry and make, and make the corrections I want.

David Hall: Oh,

James Marland: well, I don't know how. And then, and then what happened in those situations is the problem would go on for like two months. And then the trust is broken, not because the assistant was doing anything wrong, they didn't know they were doing anything wrong. They either missed a step and they just kept doing the wrong step because nobody checked in.

James Marland: It all kind of works together, so, so when you feel the disappointment, that's, that's good because that clues you in on what is missing. That helps you understand. I need to have a conversation about this cuz it's bothering me. As you said, David, you, you're like, I'm not even sure why this bothers me. It's just not right.

James Marland: I gotta talk about it. And then you focus on the outcome. Like what do we do to make this not, not the mistakes and how bad people are, but like, oh I want, I want this, let's talk about it. And you will never get there if you don't listen to your disappointment. Mm-hmm. You have to listen to it to start those conversations.

David Hall: Mm-hmm. So there you go. Absolutely.

James Marland: So, uh oh. You wanna wrap up? I'll wrap up. Go for it, James. Uh, so, uh, thanks everyone for listening to the Scaling Therapy Practice. I hope you learned a little bit about delegation and, um, setting up outcomes and listening to your, uh, your internal dialogue. I really enjoyed the conversations we had, and I hope you like and share the episode with your friends.

James Marland: This is James Marland with Dr. David Hall for the scaling therapy practice. We'll see you next time later. All right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause.