Letting go of dead work for unconventional leaders is a delegation problem. I am calling it out.
I had a client this week who kept holding onto a service that no longer fit his business. Not because he wanted to. Because handing it off felt like admitting he couldn’t do it all.
Here’s what actually moved him: a hard timeline. He told the client exactly when the work would be done, under exactly what terms, and that if those terms couldn’t be met, he wasn’t the right person for it anymore.
He expected to lose the account. Instead, the client stayed, brought in more support on their end, and the relationship got clearer, not weaker.
Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind. If a part of your business isn’t your strength anymore, that’s not a confession, it’s information. Hand it off, set the timeline, and watch what happens.
What deadline have you been avoiding setting because you’re afraid of what it will force you to admit?
Transcription:
This is the power of recognizing this might not be your strength, wrapping up these types of things.
And if that’s the case, that’s okay. Then it’s time to ask somebody else to help you do that. It is time to figure out the process for saying, “You know what? We’re no longer doing… This has actually died within our business. This is no longer here. How do we clean this up? How do we move on from this and honor all of the clients?”
In particular, the story I had shared earlier about the client, what he realized by the end of the conversation was he just needed to put some really hard timelines on things so that he would be able to say, “If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it between this amount of time, and it will be completed actually by the end of August.
And if we can’t reach those parameters, I’m not the right person, and we do need to move you on to somewhere else.” I can also tell you that he’d sent that email, and they did reach out to him, and they want- didn’t wanna work with anybody else, and they will make it happen, and they actually allocated some additional staff and support to make sure that it happens, that he gets the information he needs, so forth.
So clear… We talk about this all the time. Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind. When part of your business is no longer functioning, you’re no longer doing a particular service, that type of thing, it is important to, to chop that down, like my tree over there. It is important to chop that down. It is important to handle all of the wood, and it’s really important to be clear with the people that might still be part of that where they can go to get that additional service that you’re no longer doing or help them recognize that’s actually maybe not a service or something that they need, and there’s better options.
Maybe you provide those better options. Maybe you don’t. I get that. Either way, clear is kind. Brene Brown was always good at explaining that. I’m JoyGenea, Unconventional Leadership Coach, and championing you to grow your business and your life in a ton of incredible ways, but also recognize when it’s time to say, “That’s not serving me anymore, and I need to move on.
I need to chop it down and get it out of my yard, out of my life.” Bye now.