[00:00:00] Mahan Tavakoli: Dave Kerpen, welcome to partnering leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me. 

[00:00:04] Dave Kerpen: Thanks so much for having me. 

[00:00:06] Mahan Tavakoli: I enjoyed reading your book and love the title as well. Get over yourself, how to lead and delegate effectively for more time, more freedom and more success. Before we get to your book though, Dave, we'd love to know a little bit about you.

[00:00:21] Whereabouts did you grow up and how did your upbringing impact the kind of person you've become? 

[00:00:26] Dave Kerpen: So I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Lower middle class family. The most significant aspect of my upbringing that shaped who I am today as a leader and as a person. Unfortunately I dealt with my dad's chronic bipolar disorder. So at the age of 12, when I had two younger brothers, my dad had his first bout with bipolar during my lifetime, he had a previous bout. And unfortunately it was really chronic. And he was in and out of hospitals for the rest of his life and the last 35 years of my life.

[00:01:00] And it shaped me. Significantly, because it forced me to be a leader at a very young age. At the age of 12, I was really taking care of my younger brothers and supporting my mom and supporting my dad. It's very hard, of course, to deal with, but it helped me to become independent and Develop a strong work ethic on my own.

[00:01:21] I wish he had an easier time in his life. But I'm grateful for the lessons that I learned along the way and for how it shaped me as a leader and as a human. 

[00:01:30] Mahan Tavakoli: Those formative experiences that shape us, help us contribute back and you've done that through your work and through your writing.

[00:01:38] Now, a lot of times when people become leaders, Dave, they do it. And if they're asked how they did it they can't explain it. You have an ability to understand systems and look at it almost from an out of body experience, the way you've done. So with delegation, where does that come from?

[00:01:58] Dave Kerpen: That's a good question. I was very fortunate with my first book. We were building our first company social media marketing firm. I had always thought it would be cool to write a book, but so many entrepreneurs and leaders. Didn't really know where to start.

[00:02:12] Hadn't really put pen to paper or finger to keyboard as it would be now. And fortunately for me, a publisher approached me and said McGraw Hill said, Hey, we'd love you to write one of the first books on social media marketing. And I, Okay, I guess I got to figure that out even better than I figured it out so far.

[00:02:31] And so did some research and did the work and it worked out so well, we hit the New York times bestseller list with that first book that I got the bug. I said, let me continue to try to figure stuff out and share like you said, it's share the lessons learned along the way.

[00:02:49] And so it's funny. I identify myself as a serial entrepreneur. I've started now and built six or seven businesses. Many of them have not succeeded. A couple of them have succeeded, but the way I look at entrepreneurship and leadership is succeed or fail. If I learn a lot along the way, then I can share what I've learned with others.

[00:03:08] And hopefully others can learn from my mistakes and learn from my successes and the world can be a little bit better off. 

[00:03:14] Mahan Tavakoli: Absolutely. And that's one of the joys of conversations on podcasts with the podcast listeners enjoy learning from those experiences so they can learn from the lessons you have learned and the mistakes you've made.

[00:03:28] Now you focus this last book on delegation, and for decades, delegation has been one of those critical elements of management. But it's still so poorly done. Why did you choose to focus on delegation?

[00:03:44] Dave Kerpen: Great question. Part of it is selfish. My newest company is called Apprentice and we connect the top college students with executives and entrepreneurs very high talent, college students doing work on marketing, business development, research data and analytics for our clients.

[00:04:03] And I realized that the biggest challenge that I had with clients not tapping into our talent correctly was that they were really bad at delegating the work to them. So I said I can't. make more talented kids because I've developed a really good pipeline for bringing in the most talented, smartest college students around.

[00:04:26] And I can't build a better sales funnel because I've done a pretty nice job here, thankfully, of building a great sales funnel is bringing in the right clients. But what I need to do somehow is control for To the best of my abilities. What happens after I sell a client and bring them on to apprentice.

[00:04:46] So I wrote a book cause this hopefully will help people delegate better in addition to that admittedly somewhat selfish reason just being in business for so long and a couple of my businesses have supported other small businesses I would say I have literally encountered, worked with, or coached.

[00:05:03] Over a thousand small businesses at this point and what I see time and large businesses, but businesses of all sizes and what I see time and time again, the biggest mistake that leaders make is in not delegating well, and I wanted to help solve that, right? There's two big challenges here.

[00:05:21] One is doing the work yourself. Because you're afraid to delegate. And we can get into the details, but what most leaders do, they make one of two mistakes, either they refuse to delegate and they do way too much themselves. Or, on the opposite side of the spectrum, they delegate, and then they micromanage, and they try to control everything, and that's of course a big mistake as well.

[00:05:44] And I'm hopeful with this book that we can help people find that middle ground where they're able to get work off of their plates. And focus only on the key things in their leadership role, and then delegate the rest and truly empower the people that they're delegating 

[00:06:01] Mahan Tavakoli: in those two.

[00:06:02] You captured a lot of the challenges that I see with executives and CEOs. I work with Dave just earlier today. I was talking to a CEO. I've been working with her and her leadership team. One of the challenges is she is overstretched, strained, working a lot, not spending her time and effort focused on the board and some of the other external responsibilities that she has as a CEO because she has difficulty delegating and sometimes micromanages.

[00:06:40] In her relationship with the leadership team. So this is not just something people have a challenge when they have an apprentice from outside organizations, it's a challenge at all levels of organizations that I see. 

[00:06:53] Dave Kerpen: It really is. It's a challenge from.

[00:06:55] Solopreneurs who can't get anything off the ground because they're always worried about doing it all themselves all the way up to 10, 000 employee organizations where leaders and managers are so focused on hitting their metrics that they don't delegate and just can't get the job done to its fullest.

[00:07:15] But worse yet, And this is why the stakes are so high. Your life goes by. And failure to delegate as a leader impacts your life. It impacts your time. It impacts your freedom. It impacts your ability to spend time with family in doing the research for this book, I talked to a lot of people who had serious regrets about how hard they worked.

[00:07:37] And the sacrifices that they made losing that time with their kids, for example, that you never get back I talked to one woman who was so focused on moving up the chain to work very hard and she was successful, but now she's past child rearing age and she's not going to have kids.

[00:07:54] And that was a goal of hers, I'm not saying you need to have kids, but if that's a goal of yours, Then you can't let life go by and be so focused on moving up the leadership corporate food chain that you lose sight of what those priorities are and delegation in my opinion. My humble opinion, delegation is the single set of tools that unlocks the ability to not only grow as a leader, not only grow as an organization, but to be able to prioritize what's most important to you outside of work, whether that's kids or your spouse or being in great health or running marathons or traveling or taking care of animals, whatever that is.

[00:08:34] Delegation allows you to focus on that with your time. 

[00:08:37] Mahan Tavakoli: Couldn't agree with you more, Dave. Leadership and management to great extent is getting results through other people. And delegation is a critical part of being able to do that. I do want to touch on one other point that you mentioned before going on to delegation.

[00:08:57]  You also address in the book, fitting work into life rather than the other way around. Would love for you to touch a little bit on that.

[00:09:05] And then the role delegation can play in us fitting work into our lives. 

[00:09:11] Dave Kerpen: First let me say that I do speak from a privileged place having worked very hard to build companies that are successful that allow me without any reservation to fully prioritize my family and my life before work.

[00:09:26] That being said, I truly believe that everyone can do that and that some folks hide behind some fear. They say they can't do that because they have a mortgage to hit. They have this or that. And to be clear, I understand the perception that you don't have a choice. I would just hate for you if you're listening and you're thinking I don't have a choice.

[00:09:48] I got to work. I got to put in these hours. People don't have regrets on their deathbed about wishing they had worked more hours. Nobody ever. They have deathbed regrets about not spending time with family and friends about not pursuing their passions about not making time for themselves.

[00:10:06] Those are the things that folks have their regrets about. So I urge anyone listening that is thinking Dave you don't have the mortgage that I've got. You don't have to put food on the table like I have to prioritize first, what is most important to you and Figure out what hours in the day you can work that you can dedicate fully to work and then figure out a way to say no to working outside of those hours.

[00:10:33] And honestly, I know it's hard. I get it's hard, especially in the new hybrid work environment. Everyone's expected to be working all the time. But people also respect boundaries. And if you command that respect and you say to your boss, and if you work for the CEO, you say to your CEO, if you are the CEO, you say to your board, you say to your chairman, these are the hours that I'm shutting off my phone to, and you don't even need to say what it is, but fill in the blank with what that priority is I'm all in on the other hours, but these are the hours that I'm shutting off that phone that's the first step, and then, yeah, you got to figure out how to delegate the work to make sure the work gets done in the hours that you have, but The first step has to be setting those boundaries and prioritizing and from that, the rest will come versus what we end up doing is saying, Oh, we got this to do list.

[00:11:24] And as soon as we get through the to do list, then we can spend time with our kids, cook dinner, go golfing, whatever Those priorities are, it's got to be the other way around. , if your number one goal in life is to become , a two handicapped golfer or whatever it is, then you got to set aside the time that you're going to practice golfing every day.

[00:11:42] And then after that. Figure out how you're going to get the job done, not the other way around, which is unfortunately what so many folks end up doing. 

[00:11:50] Mahan Tavakoli:  And that's why it makes delegation even more important  now the sheer model is the cornerstone of your book. Would love for you to Talk about the share model and the significance in your view that it plays as a model to the process of delegation.

[00:12:09] Dave Kerpen: So the share model focuses on what any leader absolutely needs to do on their own and helps guide them as to how to delegate the rest. And there will be many people listening that say, but I got to do this, but I got to do that, but I got to do this. So again, I hear you. I know the voices.

[00:12:27] I've heard it before. So if you're already going to be thinking that just give me a moment. So the three things that any leader CEO, but really any leader of any team can and should be obsessed with and focused on you don't need to delegate everything. But the three things are the strategy and vision.

[00:12:45] For the company, if you're the CEO or for your team, your division, if you are an executive running any sort of team the hiring of your direct reports, so if you're CEO, that means the hiring of your executive team. It does not mean hiring two levels down the hiring and the making sure that your direct reports are the right people in the right seats.

[00:13:06] That's the second thing. And the third thing is. The assuring access to resources, cash, if you're the CEO, or if you're not, I would say your budget and your headcount, making sure that you have enough budget and headcount to accomplish your goals and the company's goals for your team. Those are the three things that any leader can and should be focused with.

[00:13:36] That's the S, the H and the A in the share model. The R is that when something comes across your plate. Remind yourself that if it is not one of those three things, we need to e empower somebody else to get the job done that could be somebody on your team. That could be a vendor. That could be an agency, a consultant, somebody on Upwork, somebody on Fiverr, an intern, an apprentice.

[00:14:00] There are numerous ways to solve that work. But it can't be you. It shouldn't be you because every time you start doing that task, even if you think it's small, it's taking you away from those three pivotal aspects of leadership and by definition, diluting you from focusing on those three essential. 

[00:14:24] Mahan Tavakoli: So Dave, in focusing on those three essential items, I was wondering if people would think, would there be another eight that would be exceptions?

[00:14:33] Because I run into a lot of CEOs and executives who come up and say you don't know exactly what I am dealing with. And they come up with a long list of exceptions. 

[00:14:44] Dave Kerpen: Yes, I've heard this before. In fact, I'll tell you a funny story. As I wrote the book, I did the book with Ben Bella as my publisher, wonderful very entrepreneurial, smaller, but fierce major publisher they did Geno Wickman's Traction, so lots of wonderful books on their imprint, and I was fortunate enough to work directly with the publisher Glenn, and it was ironic because I wrote a book about delegation and the CEO of the company is the one reading the book, but fine.

[00:15:12] He wanted to read the book personally. So he did the first read and he came back with some feedback and he said Dave, here's my issue with the share model. He said. What if I really am good at something, Steve jobs was really good at this. And what if you're really good at this?

[00:15:30] What if you really enjoy doing the marketing, Dave, you enjoy marketing. Are you saying that you don't have to do the marketing for your companies? And I said, look, can you make exceptions? Yes. Can you do stuff that you really enjoy? Of course, but you don't have to. And there is a downside to the CEO jumping in to do fill in the blank exception.

[00:15:52] That downside, for example, is disempowering the marketing VP. Now, if I'm the CEO and I say, okay you're the marketing VP you're in charge of marketing, but I love marketing and I'm really good at it, so I'm just going to help out. How is that giving the marketing VP the full autonomy?

[00:16:12] To get their job done. It's not. It's literally disempowering them by definition. So we need to be aware with every exception comes perhaps a little hidden downside that we're not thinking of. I'm sure we don't intend to disempower the marketing VP in that case, but we might be. So I just be cautious.

[00:16:30] Look, whoever is listening. You're the boss. I'm not here to tell you're not allowed to do other things. I am here to say when you make exceptions, there may be hidden downside to that including but not limited to disempowering others. Taking your focus off of the most important things or taking your focus off of the time, right?

[00:16:50] That whatever you've prioritized previously, as we've talked about in your personal life, in your family life, but go ahead. You want to make an exception but to your point, that's often what the real, what's really happening when we hear those exceptions, but I need to do this, but you don't know my organization but only I know this.

[00:17:08] What's really happening here is fear. Fear of delegating, fear of trusting somebody else lack of trust, need to control, the emotional detractors as I identify in the book, that is what is probably happening if you're listening right now and you're thinking but Dave, what about Oh, Fill in the blank, that's probably what's happening because in a well run organization and hopefully you work for a well run organization.

[00:17:33] If not, you should, consider going somewhere else, run organization. If you do those three things,

[00:17:39] The work will get done and you'll grow. So what else do you really need to do to get the job done? 

[00:17:46] We can come up with a whole list of excuses and why our specific situation is very different. And I want to underline two of the points that you mentioned, which relate To delegation.

[00:17:59] Mahan Tavakoli: One is the fact that you are not empowering and enabling the person that you're delegating to develop. One of the key things many people in organizations look for is an ability to have autonomy and grow as well, you're taking that away from the individual. Then the other thing is everything that a CEO or an executive says yes to because they enjoy it because they come up with an exception.

[00:18:29] There are  other. Priorities. They are saying no to, by all means, Dave doesn't know your situation. I don't know anyone's particular situation. We don't always reflect on what we are saying no to by saying yes to all of these minutia that many times we take on rather than delegating effectively to others.

[00:18:54] I understand. I am a type A personality. . I'm an achiever. I love to say yes to things. But to your point, everything you say yes to is literally a no to something else. There is no possible way I could say yes to doing this podcast and do something else.

[00:19:10] Dave Kerpen: I'm saying no to everything else right now. That micro decision that we make every single moment of every single day, when we say this is only going to take two or three minutes, let me just check my email, let me just fill in the blank. This is only going to take a few minutes. You're saying no to a lot.

[00:19:28] And when you multiply that Three minutes by thousands. There goes your life, right? There goes your life. So my key thesis here is be much more intentional. How can you be more intentional about how you prioritize your time including how you prioritize the opportunities for your time at work and how can you then say no to things with.

[00:19:58] built in systems, tools and people to do the work so that you can focus on what you have to say yes to the SDH and the a, the strategy, the hiring and the access to capital and resource. That just has to come first. 'cause if you say yes to other things, one of those three things is gonna suffer eventually.

[00:20:17] And that's going to catch up with you as a leader. 

[00:20:21] Mahan Tavakoli: So in order to be able to do that well, to focus on the S and H and A, you have to be able to delegate well, and  the first element that you talk about is clear communication, which is essential. What are you communicating? What should you delegate? 

[00:20:38] Dave Kerpen: In an ideal world, it's the outcome. Now. That's easier said than done, and it depends on the nature of the work and the project.

[00:20:46] You might have annual OKRs that have, specific metrics around specific outcomes that, because it's annual you might have intermediary outcomes along the way to check in quarterly or even weekly. The challenge is that the more we move towards short term outcomes, the more we end up micromanaging, even if not intentional.

[00:21:09] In an ideal world, we are pointing at short term outcomes. The finish line, making sure there is complete alignment on precisely what the finish line looks like, and then pretty much giving the person the autonomy to get to the finish line the way that they see fit with again, some benchmarks and check ins and all the five C's.

[00:21:35] But

[00:21:36] if that's uncomfortable for you, you can start with the how, you can give people the how to get there. It can be very helpful to get to the how and playbooks and standard operating procedures. There's lots of very valuable tools when it comes to getting to the how, but sometimes we get so caught up in the how.

[00:21:53] That we lose sight of the finish line. I've been an entrepreneur, been a CEO for a long time several different companies when I want something done, I really don't care how they get there. I care that they get there. I care about getting to the outcome. And I think that it would be great if more leaders could be more okay with delegating the outcome versus delegating the precise way to get there. 

[00:22:15] Mahan Tavakoli: The closer we can move to delegating that outcome, the better.

[00:22:19] There are some roles that are much more measurable. Some roles in some organizations are not as measurable. It's a little harder. Now, one of the C's that you talk about is coaching that is a critical part of it. So how can that coaching be done? Dave, where it's supportive, it's helpful, but it's not micromanaging or telling the person what to do step by step.

[00:22:46] Let me first address the word coach because I really liked the word coach and I make a distinction in the book between the word manager and the word coach. My guess is that most of the listeners. I have a manager in their title or once had manager in their title or have manager in their job responsibilities, but very few of y'all have a coach and your title or responsibilities. Would you rather work for a manager or a coach? Would you rather feel like you are being managed or feel like you are being coached? Anyone that has ever played sports has had a coach. And if you've had a good coach, You liked playing for them.

[00:23:27] Dave Kerpen: You like going to work for them. You love getting that support and encouragement from your coach. I am a coach an actual, baseball coach for my son. And I get great joy out of helping these kids become better baseball players and playing as a team. Sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but learning and growing throughout.

[00:23:48] That's the kind of mentality that I would love for more folks to embrace in leadership and in management. But if you're a leader, if you're a so called manager can you embrace your role as a coach and be there? To do what a great coach does.

[00:24:04] Cheer on your person, support them, give them the tools to succeed, help them when they have challenges along the way and congratulate them. When they hit their goals, that's what a great coach does. And it's very different from the way we think of management.

[00:24:21] Mahan Tavakoli:  Is there an element for corrective coaching that plays into this? Steve? 

[00:24:28] Dave Kerpen: Yeah. Look, people are going to make mistakes along the way. My model for what you might call corrective coaching is the classic Dale Carnegie praise sandwich with a little bit of a twist and I do recognize that Adam Grant, who's kind enough to endorse my last book and has been a wonderful friend recently criticized the praise sandwich, but it has to be done with authenticity.

[00:24:49] And it can still be quite effective. I will give somebody genuine positive feedback about a situation. Then when I am aiming to point out a mistake or error, I don't make it about them. I make it about me. So let's say I'm coaching a salesperson on going for the close too quickly and attempting to close the deal before, there was enough buy in I might say, having seen this call, boy, I thought back to when I was a salesperson back at Disney.

[00:25:23] And I remember being so excited to close deals That I would sometimes get a little ahead of myself and jumped the gun. And the thing is, people are smart. They get it. But then by me putting it as an, I statement for the way I've screwed up, it lets them get to where they need to go on their own without me telling them.

[00:25:41] That's the key issue. And that's what a great coach does. So then they might think, Oh man, I guess I did that. Wow. Oh, and it wasn't for lack of sincere enthusiasm. I really thought it was a good fit. I totally get you. I remember when I was in that situation I might've really thought it was a good fit. My heart was in it. I wasn't just trying to close the deal. I was trying to really help the client, but I remember being so bummed because my initial enthusiasm Would curse the deal and then nobody would win. 

[00:26:12] So I got to become more patient over time. Wow. Dave, hearing from your example really reminds me that I need to be more patient over time. Great. So I heard you say, and now I'm reflecting back what they've said. And now they've realized what the error was and they're correcting it for themselves, not me, correcting it for them.

[00:26:33] Maybe it feels very nuanced but I'm a big fan of the psychology behind this. There's real data that shows that when we use I statements, people can hear. But when we see you statements, you need to do this next time and you need to do that.

[00:26:48] People shrivel up, they feel attacked, they feel criticized and it's very hard to grow from a place of feeling that way because we get very defensive. 

[00:26:56] Mahan Tavakoli: It actually builds on that authenticity and the vulnerability of the leader also being willing to admit the mistakes they've made and the lessons they've learned as a result.

[00:27:06] Now, one of the things that is really important, you mentioned trust, but verify, and that's a critical part of this process. Are there systems, methods, ways of doing that to track the progress.

[00:27:21] Dave Kerpen: There are lots of project management tools that you can use, but really the most valuable aspect of Trust but Verify is start small and work your way up.

[00:27:31] You don't have to , immediately hand over the keys to the car to your 17 year old before you teach her how to drive. I'm teaching my nearly 17 year old how to drive right now, and I do trust her, I'm teaching her and we're starting small.

[00:27:45] We're working our way up. And one day she can drive my car, without me in the car. And then maybe she'll even get her own car. Great moving up the chain. I want to make sure I answer your question with respect to, trusting on an ongoing basis, because people do change?

[00:28:00] People do, get. Lazy or preoccupied or whatever it is. It is great to have a dashboard of sorts there's lots of different tools that can do this, a dashboard of sorts that folks are filling in that's brief. When you get into a super long dashboard where people have to fill in everything that they've done I had this kid that was working for me.

[00:28:19] Recently, I asked him to send me, what he was working on. I got like a 20 page document on everything that he was doing. And I think it probably took him more time to do the document than it took him to do all the actual work we have to be wary of that. But. Having certain benchmarks that people can fill in . So that asynchronously, you can check in at any time and just. Verify that things are good. Things are on track.

[00:28:44] Mahan Tavakoli: It is really important. I've seen extremes on the trust, but verify where on one extreme it is so cumbersome that takes a lot of effort for people on the other extreme, there is none of that. Therefore, no transparency unless there is a one on one conversation or meetings somewhere in the middle, using a tool to be able to keep track of the process would be good enough. 

[00:29:14] Dave Kerpen: Yeah, and especially in today's day and age when.

[00:29:17] So much work is conducted outside of the office, if you will, that's just a reality. Now it's helpful for a leader to have those metrics on hand for sure, but I think there's a danger in overdoing it that I see a lot of folks do.  That's a fine line between managing with metrics and overdoing it with micromanagement. It's just really important to make sure that we're not bogging down our people. In managing the metrics that they don't have the time and freedom to do their jobs 

[00:29:46] Mahan Tavakoli: There are a couple of changes that we've been going through, and I want to see how you see those impacting delegation.

[00:29:54] One of them is the challenge with hybrid work in that most organizations have settled into somewhere around three days of in office work, there is a day or two per week where people are not together in the office, 

[00:30:08] how do you see that impacting delegation, if at all? 

[00:30:12] Dave Kerpen: The biggest way that impacts delegation is that leaders who are a little more old school, leaders who are a little more afraid, leaders who are a little more hesitant to truly empower can sometimes go too far when it comes to managing their team when they're not in the office.

[00:30:32] So there's a lack of trust sometimes that when folks are not at the office, they're not going to get their work done. And that lack of trust leads to micromanagement, which leads to employee dissatisfaction, which leads to employees actually going out of their way, ironically, to cut corners.

[00:30:50] And the win here is accepting the fact that hybrid is how it is, you got however many days you have of your people in the office and when they're not in the office, it's a great opportunity to work on our letting go of what we can't control and focusing again on outcomes versus how to get there.

[00:31:13] I was coaching a great entrepreneur friend he had an employee. He was very upset because she was going like shopping in the middle of the day. And I said, is her going shopping impacting her productivity?

[00:31:27] I said, no but she shouldn't be going shopping in the middle of the day, I said, huh is your goal the productivity or making sure that she doesn't shop? It's the productivity. Obviously I need to get this and this done. Okay. Again, is the shopping getting in the way of hitting the goals?

[00:31:43] No. So he came to the insight that okay so she's shopping during the day. Who cares? So are people going to take more flexibility with their personal time when they're working from home? Yes, of course we all do. Of course. It's natural. If my people are working from home and they want to binge watch some show or take their dog for walks or spend more time doing this or that, I don't care as long as they get the job done.

[00:32:12] And it's all about embracing that acceptance that yes, they're going to do stuff but delegate the outcomes, manage around the outcomes. If they don't hit the outcomes, that's a problem. But if somebody doesn't hit their outcome, they could be sitting by the computer all day, working their ass off, but just , not working smartly and they could miss their outcomes.

[00:32:33] Or they could be playing tennis and golf for eight hours, but working, late at night every night and crushing it. As long as they hit their outcomes. 

[00:32:43] Mahan Tavakoli: What an outstanding perspective, Dave. And that is a big challenge with a lot of leaders. I was speaking to a CEO a couple of weeks ago who was using an example of people walking their dog or whatever else during the day. That's why they want to stay at home and was complaining about primarily millennials and Gen Z employees where he felt that's what they were doing. And we had somewhat of a similar conversation about whether they're producing outcomes.

[00:33:13] And one of the challenges in this organization is For many roles, they don't have clear outcomes. So before the pandemic, the outcome was you're in the office physically. They didn't know if people were surfing the web or doing whatever they were doing while in the office. They felt more comfortable as executives in the organization and the CEO felt comfortable walking through and seeing everyone looking busy in front of their computers.

[00:33:41] But now he knows that they are sometimes walking their dogs and it's driving him nuts, but it requires rethinking what are the outcomes we want produced? How do we delegate more effectively toward those outcomes rather than wanting to see bodies in front of. 

[00:34:00] Dave Kerpen: That's precisely it. The issue is not that they're walking their dogs.

[00:34:04] The issue is that they don't have clear outcomes and clear goals. And it's easy to focus on you can't walk your dog during the day. It's harder to look inward and say, Huh, maybe I'm not being clear with my expected outcomes. And if I work on that then maybe it won't matter whether they walk their dog or not, as long as they hit their expected outcomes.

[00:34:25] Now, again, I know you mentioned the the E word earlier. Are there exceptions for this? If you're in customer service and you're monitoring a live chat, and, it is your job to monitor to the live chat, you can't go walk your dog for 20 minutes and leave the live chat. I get it. But those are the exceptions.

[00:34:46] And by the way, there's chat software that you can monitor from your phones now. So maybe you can walk your dog while you're monitoring the live chat. My point is there are some exceptions, but for the most part, knowledge workers can do their work from anywhere, anytime they got to show up for meetings.

[00:35:05] But with the right zoom background, you could basically still be anywhere, when you're doing that meeting and it might not matter as long as you're prepared. 

[00:35:12] Mahan Tavakoli: So that hybrid work getting results in the remote environment is one big shift, the other big shift. And you previously alluded to it briefly is AI and generative AI and how it's being incorporated in almost.

[00:35:28] Every office productivity tool. How do you see that impacting delegation, David? 

[00:35:35] Dave Kerpen: I think it's there, while there, while it is very scary to many people like many things like many changes, if we embrace it then it opens up an enormous set of opportunities to better delegate work to the humans will never be fully Replaceable, and I think there's a lot of fear around middle management that those roles will get will get swallowed up.

[00:35:58] And in reality, will some roles get swallowed up? Yes, they will. But the leaders that will win now will be the folks that will embrace these tools and figure out how to master them and how to use them to save. Money and to create new opportunities. So if you're not all in on GPT tools yet I would say it's a very worthy homework assignment for listeners.

[00:36:21] Mahan Tavakoli: So in addition to that homework assignment, are there any resources books or otherwise that you typically find yourself referring to or recommending on leadership or on delegation? 

[00:36:35] Dave Kerpen: I wrote Get Over Yourself because I thought there wasn't a lot of great stuff on delegation, to be frank on leadership I love all of Pat Lencioni's books I love Adam Grant's books, I find them applicable, even if not directly related to leadership Vern Harnish I have a whole list And I mentioned earlier Gina Wickman's attraction.

[00:36:53] I think there's a lot of really wonderful books out there for folks to digest and become better leaders. 

[00:36:59] Mahan Tavakoli: And yours is a wonderful book as well. Dave, how can the audience find out more about get over yourself and connect with you and follow your work, Dave? 

[00:37:10] Dave Kerpen: Thank you. I'll get over yourself. Book. com it's in bookstores everywhere. Amazon and bookstores online everywhere, of course. And one of my personal core values is responsiveness.

[00:37:19] So anyone that reaches out to me on social media, it's just my name, Dave Kerbin, K E R P E N. I'm happy to connect with you. And if I can be helpful, I'm happy to be helpful. I have free office hours every Thursday afternoon. And I've met with 837 people in the last 10 years helping them with Their careers, and I'm delighted to help you.

[00:37:37] You go to schedule, Dave. com to book that time. Absolutely. No strings attached on that. And yeah, if I can be helpful, I'm happy to be, 

[00:37:45] Mahan Tavakoli: I've really appreciated both the book and this conversation, Dave, because back to a point you made early on delegating effectively can help people fit work into their lives, can

[00:38:00] help leaders develop their people and be more effective in their roles as well, whether they are the CEO of the organization or a supervisor or an entrepreneurial startup. So I really appreciate the conversation and your book, get over yourself, how to lead and delegate effectively for more time, more freedom and more success.

[00:38:24] Thank you so much for joining me in this conversation. 

[00:38:27] Dave Kerpen:  Thank you again for having me