If someone else can do a task 70% as well as you, give it to them.
Most people refuse. They look at the 30% gap and decide it is faster to do it themselves. Today, they are right. Over a quarter, they are wrong.
What the 30% really costs#
- Your time. Every hour on a task someone else could own is an hour off the work only you can do.
- Their growth. 70% today becomes 90% in a few months, but only if they get the reps.
- Your ceiling. If everything runs through you, you are the bottleneck. The team moves as fast as your calendar.
The gap is also smaller than it looks. Half of your “extra 30%” is polish nobody notices. The other half is context you never wrote down.
70% is a number Bezos likes too#
In his 2016 shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos wrote that most decisions should be made with around 70% of the information you wish you had. Wait for 90% and you are probably being slow.
Same logic, different problem. Waiting for perfect information and waiting for a perfect delegate both feel responsible. Both quietly cost you speed.
Delegate what you know best#
Andy Grove makes a counterintuitive point in High Output Management: delegate the tasks you know best, not the ones you understand least. If you know the work, you can tell quickly whether the 70% is good enough, and coach the gap.
He also adds the catch:
Delegation without follow-through is abdication.
The 70% rule is not “hand it off and disappear.” It is hand it off, check the outcome, and close the gap together. Early on, you check often. As the 70% climbs, you check less.
How to start#
Pick one recurring task this week that someone could do at 70%. Write down the context that lives in your head. Hand it over. Review the result, not the steps.
Perfect is the enemy of delegated.