If you want something done right, have other people do it

Why this backwards proverb is suddenly… correct

The original proverb comes from a world where tasks were smaller, tools were simpler, and “collaboration” meant “two people lifting a heavy thing while silently resenting each other.”
Today, the average “simple” project is a Frankenstein monster made of deadlines, stakeholders, tools, policies, and a Slack channel that never sleeps.

In that environment, doing everything yourself doesn’t make you the hero. It makes you the single point of failure.
If your calendar becomes the operating system, your team becomes an app that crashes whenever you take a day off.

“Done right” is usually a system, not a performance

Think about what “right” really means:

• Quality (it meets a standard)
• Consistency (it stays good over time)
• Speed (it arrives before it becomes irrelevant)
• Resilience (it survives vacations, turnover, and the occasional Tuesday)

Those are system outcomes. Systems are built by teams, processes, and clear ownershipnot by one exhausted person “powering through.”

The real reason “other people” can do it better

1) Specialization beats willpower

Willpower is not a substitute for expertise. You can grit your teeth and “figure out” taxes, SEO, contract law, database optimization, and brand design.
You can also cut your own hair with kitchen scissors. Both are technically possible. Neither is a lifestyle recommendation.

When you delegate to someone who lives and breathes the work, you’re not “handing it off.”
You’re trading improvisation for mastery. That’s how “right” gets cheaper, faster, and less stressful over time.

2) Teams catch what individuals miss

One person can be brilliant. One person can also be wrong in a very confident font.
Teamswhen set up wellcreate built-in error checking: peer review, second opinions, different perspectives, and the magical moment when someone says,
“Wait… are we sure this is what the customer asked for?”

3) Delegation creates momentum, not just relief

Delegation is often sold as “freeing up your time,” which is truebut incomplete.
Delegation also grows capability: your team becomes stronger, decisions move faster, and you stop needing a meeting for every microscopic choice.
In other words, you’re not just getting tasks off your plateyou’re building a plate conveyor belt.

Why delegation feels risky (even when it’s the smartest move)

If delegation is so powerful, why do smart people resist it like it’s a suspicious casserole at an office potluck?
Because delegation triggers very human fears:

• Control: “What if they don’t do it my way?”
• Identity: “If I’m not the doer, what am I?”
• Speed: “Explaining it will take longer than doing it.”
• Blame: “If it goes wrong, it still comes back to me.”

The first time you delegate, it often does take longerbecause you’re paying a training cost.
But when you keep doing everything yourself, you pay a different cost: you cap your growth at the size of your personal bandwidth.
That’s not a business strategy; that’s a stamina contest.

The “Done Right” Delegation Playbook

Delegation isn’t tossing work over a wall and hoping the universe is kind.
Done right, it’s a leadership skill: clear outcomes, real authority, and support without suffocation.

Step 1: Delegate outcomes, not chores

People hate being handed a pile of random tasks with zero context.
They love owning a meaningful outcome.

Instead of: “Can you update the slides?”
Try: “Can you make the story in these slides land with a skeptical executive audience?”

Step 2: Match the work to strengthsand growth

The fastest way to “prove” delegation doesn’t work is to delegate the wrong thing to the wrong person and then act surprised.
A better approach: delegate in two lanes.

• Strength lane: work they already do well (quick wins, confidence, speed)
• Growth lane: work that stretches them (with support and safety)

Step 3: Use guardrails, not handcuffs

Guardrails are clarity tools: scope, budget, deadlines, constraints, and what “good” looks like.
Handcuffs are micromanagement: “Do it exactly like me, but also somehow learn and grow.”

A practical guardrail checklist:

• Definition of done: what must be true for this to be complete?
• Non-negotiables: brand rules, legal constraints, security requirements
• Decision rights: what can they decide without asking?
• Escalation triggers: what should they flag immediately?

Step 4: Clarify ownership with a simple responsibility map

When projects get messy, it’s often because everyone is “helping,” and no one is accountable.
A lightweight responsibility map (like a Responsible/Accountable/Consulted/Informed breakdown) forces clarity before chaos happens.

Step 5: Check in like a coach, not a detective

Checking in is not a sign of mistrust. It’s how you prevent surprises.
The trick is to schedule check-ins based on risk, not anxiety.

A good rhythm:

• Early: quick alignment (“Do you have what you need?”)
• Midpoint: review direction (“Are we still solving the right problem?”)
• Pre-finish: quality pass (“Any gaps before it goes public?”)

Outsourcing, automation, and the fine art of “not doing everything”

“Have other people do it” doesn’t always mean employees. It can mean contractors, agencies, specialists, or software.
The goal isn’t to avoid work. The goal is to protect your highest-value attention.

What to outsource

• Repeatable work: bookkeeping, routine design production, admin scheduling
• Specialized work: legal review, security audits, complex analytics
• High-volume work: customer support overflow, content repurposing, data cleanup

What not to outsource (at least not completely)

• Core strategy: your vision, positioning, and priorities
• Culture: how your team works and what you reward
• High-stakes relationships: key customers, partners, and sensitive negotiations

The sweet spot is often a hybrid: you keep the “why” and the “what,” and delegate the “how” to people who are better at itor at least less emotionally attached to doing it “the old way.”

Three concrete examples where “other people” wins

Example 1: Marketing that doesn’t depend on one person’s brain

A founder writes every email, every landing page, every ad, and every social post.
Quality is decent. Growth is… also decent. Then the founder gets busy, and the entire funnel becomes a museum exhibit titled:
“Marketing Campaign, 2023–2023.”

A better model: build a small content system. Delegate keyword research, editing, design, and distribution.
Keep final approval on brand voice and offers. Suddenly marketing becomes a process, not a personality trait.

Example 2: Software teams and the myth of the “10x hero”

A single engineer can move fastright up until they become the bottleneck for every decision, code review, and deployment.
The team ships less, risks increase, and knowledge gets trapped in one head.

Strong teams distribute ownership: modules, services, quality checks, on-call rotations, and review practices.
“Done right” becomes repeatable, and the product stops depending on one person’s availability (or mood).

Example 3: Healthcare, aviation, and other places where solo heroics are… frowned upon

In high-stakes environments, “I’ll just do it myself” is not inspiringit’s alarming.
The standard is teamwork: clear roles, checklists, cross-checks, escalation paths.
That’s not bureaucracy; that’s how people stay safe and outcomes stay consistent.

Common delegation mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Mistake 1: Delegating the pain, not the purpose

If you only delegate the annoying work, people notice. Fast.
Delegation shouldn’t feel like “Here, hold my stress.” It should feel like trust and development.

Mistake 2: Giving responsibility without authority

Nothing says “good luck” like making someone accountable while requiring approval for every decision.
If someone owns an outcome, give them real decision rights within clear guardrails.

Mistake 3: Vanishing completely

The opposite of micromanagement isn’t leadershipit’s abandonment.
Delegation works when leaders stay close enough to coach and align, but far enough away to let people own the work.

Mistake 4: Confusing “my way” with “the right way”

There are two kinds of standards:
non-negotiable (safety, legality, brand integrity) and preference (your favorite spreadsheet format).
Delegation becomes dramatically easier when you stop treating preferences like laws of physics.

Conclusion: Stop being the hero. Start being the architect.

If you want something done right, having other people do it isn’t a cop-outit’s a design choice.
It’s how you trade fragility for resilience, chaos for clarity, and “everything depends on me” for “the system holds.”

The goal isn’t to do less. The goal is to do what only you can do:
set direction, define standards, build trust, and create an environment where great work happens without you hovering like a quality-control drone.

And yes, sometimes you’ll still do it yourselfespecially the first time, or when it’s deeply personal, or when the stakes are too high to hand off quickly.
But if “done right” means sustainable, scalable, and consistently excellent, then the real flex is building a team that can deliver without a cape.

Experience Notes: What “having other people do it” looks like in real life (and why it’s awkward at first)

The first experience most people have with delegation is not elegant. It’s a little like teaching someone to drive while you’re in the passenger seat,
gripping the door handle and whispering, “We’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine,” like an emotional support parakeet.

The “I can do it faster” phase

Early delegation usually feels slower. You explain the task, answer questions, and watch someone make choices you wouldn’t make.
Your brain screams, “See? I knew it!” even though this is exactly what learning looks like.
In many workplaces, the first win is simply delegating something small and surviving the discomfort.
When that goes okay, the next win is delegating something slightly bigger and realizing your world didn’t end.

The “my standards vs. our standards” phase

A common experience is discovering that your “high standards” are sometimes a mix of genuine quality and highly specific preferences.
Teams that get delegation right separate the two. They document what matters (accuracy, brand tone, customer impact) and loosen up on what doesn’t
(font choices you personally love, the exact order of bullet points, whether someone uses your favorite keyboard shortcuts).

This shift can be weirdly emotional, because it forces a question: “Do I want it done right, or do I want it done my way?”
The answer changes how you lead.

The “delegation boomerang” phase

Many leaders experience the boomerang: they delegate a task, it comes back half-finished, and they grab it back with a dramatic sigh worthy of a reality show reunion.
What’s happening is usually one of three things:

• Missing context: the person didn’t know why it mattered or what “good” looked like.
• Missing authority: they couldn’t make decisions without approval, so everything stalled.
• Missing feedback loops: no checkpoints meant the first review happened at the worst possible time.

When teams fix those three, the boomerang stops flying. Delegation becomes a glide, not a ricochet.

The “trust compound interest” phase

Over time, delegation starts paying compound interest. A team member who owns a process improves it.
Someone who’s trusted with decisions begins thinking two steps ahead. People start flagging risks early, not late.
The leader’s job changes from “doer of everything” to “designer of clarity,” which is less exhausting and far more effective.

This is also where many people report an unexpected benefit: work becomes more enjoyable.
Not because everything is easy, but because responsibility is shared, growth is visible, and progress stops depending on one person’s heroic sprint.

The “delegation is culture” phase

Eventually, delegation becomes a cultural default:
decisions are made close to the work, ownership is clear, and escalation is about risknot permission.
Teams that reach this phase often look “fast” from the outside, but the speed comes from something boring and powerful:
consistent roles, clear expectations, and the freedom to execute without constant approval.

In practice, “If you want something done right, have other people do it” becomes less of a slogan and more of a daily operating principle:
build the system, trust the people, and keep refining the process until “right” is repeatable.