Delegating means elevating

RCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says the key more than anything is developing a culture within your association.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with RCS Influencer Randy Chaffee. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Alex Tolle: Hello, I'm Alex Tolle with rooferscoffeeshop.com and  I am here for the May Influencer Question with Randy Chaffee. How are you, Randy Chaffee? 

Randy Chaffee: Well, how are you? 

Alex Tolle: Good. 

Randy Chaffee: Good, good. 

Alex Tolle: So our question is a really good one. So how can leaders in the roofing industry effectively manage their time and delegate responsibilities to maximize productivity and focus on business growth? 

Randy Chaffee: That's a long one. 

Alex Tolle: Yeah. 

Randy Chaffee: I think my answer will be way shorter. No, I think it's a good question. And that's the age-old problem, right, leaders, they get so involved. And I think probably the biggest key and I've learned that personally with my marketing group, my rep agency, is I always want to be hands-on myself. I want to be involved in everything. I want to look at everything. I want to touch everything. And I've got way better at not touching everything. I've got better at delegating. I think that's a word that gets talked about a lot, but not done probably very well because I think true leaders probably got successful because they wanted to be hands-on. They wanted to lead from the front. And there's a point in time where you got to lead from behind a little bit. 

You've got to put the structures in place, put the people in place, train them if they need be, trust but verify obviously 'cause it's your name on it. But at the same token, you just can't touch everything and not if you want to get ahead of the game, you can't With today's world, with so many things, so much more going on in marketing, so much more going on with safety, so much going on with procurement and then on top, just the install, end of management that if you don't put people in place, train them, trust and verify, let them do their job, get out of the way. And I think another area that's kind of a repeat for me sometimes because I love AI, as you know. I can't get enough of what it can do for us. And I still only touch 1% of probably what it can do and  I use it a lot. But AI, there's so many things there that you can use to streamline your processes along the way to where you don't have to be so involved in every little bit of the nitty-gritty, if you will. 

But I think the key more than anything is developing a culture within your association, your agency, your business, whatever it is that you're doing to delegate as much as you can as quick as you can. And understand that the old theory, Alex, that goes way back, people talk about a lot is fail yourself forward. You can't be afraid to fail now and then. It's going to happen. You'll learn what you didn't teach your people the fastest by letting them fail. They will learn the quickest by failing, trying, failing because then you get to go back. 

I had a founder of one of my manufacturers years and years ago that once told me when there's a big issue going on, he said, "You know what? The problem that we're having doesn't bother me. What bothers me is if we don't fix it and we keep having it over and over and over, the repeat offense. Because if you don't have that problem at times, that rears its ugly head. It maintains itself just below maybe your site level to where it's creating issues that you don't know it's creating because it's not a big enough issue that's in front of you and it's costing you dimes, so you don't see it. Until it costs you dollars someday, then you're go, "Okay, I got to fix this thing and get out ahead of us." 

So I think if we look at also and treat our people with, "It's okay if you fail." We'd rather not do it every day, right? And let's not do the same failure like 12 times in a row, but let's go ahead and get out ahead of things, give them the opportunities to make or break on themselves, fix it. But like I said probably the key there is always trust but verify. 

Alex Tolle: Yeah. I love it. And I think that's so important to be able to, I mean we all learn from our mistakes, so letting your team learn from their mistakes, they're just going to get better from there. 

Randy Chaffee: Absolutely. Because you can't operate, whether you're a business leader upfront or at any position through the organization, if you're operating out of fear, if you're operating out of fear of making a mistake, the mistake you make is you don't do anything. And that's the biggest mistake of all and the most costly mistake because there's the lost opportunity mistakes that you don't even know they exist and  those are the most dangerous. The ones that you can identify, you can fix. The ones that you never identify, because nobody's willing to take that extra step or two and step out of the box or see no box, are the costly ones. 

Alex Tolle: Yeah. I love it. Thank you again. As always, Randy Chaffee, appreciate you. 

Randy Chaffee: Of course. Appreciate you. Be good.