If your default thought when someone asks for help is "it is faster if I just do it myself," you do not have a time problem. You have a control problem. And it is the most expensive problem in leadership.
In Episode 6 of The Better Daily, Prashant Nagpal, MD shares the moment a mentor told him he was excellent at his job but terrible at letting other people be excellent at theirs, the arithmetic of the 70% rule, and the Jain philosophical concept of anekantavada that finally broke his grip on the work he should have let go of years earlier.
WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY
- Why every task you hold at 90% is preventing the work only you can do
- The three forms of delegation failure: the identity trap, quality anxiety, and the time illusion
- Why "someone else could do it at 70%" is the right threshold, not 90%
- A three-move application for this week:
1. The Task Audit — sort by who can actually do it
2. The 70% Handoff — one task, delegated properly
3. The Identity Question — paid to do the work, or to ensure the work gets done?
EPISODE QUOTE
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Peter Drucker
ABOUT THE HOST
Prashant Nagpal, MD is Section Chief of Cardiovascular Imaging and Professor of Radiology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He trained at Brigham and Women's Hospital (Harvard Medical School) and the University of Iowa.
Opinions are his own.
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Small shifts. Big life.
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