Delegation is hard when you're secretly as fun as a bag of rocks
Jordan, my best friend and colleague, is out of office for the next three months because she just had a baby (!!!), and dude, she’s only been truly out of office for a week — yet I probably spent three hours today fantasizing about all of the new responsibilities and power I’m going to bestow upon her when she comes back to work at the end of October. (Not something she has explicitly asked for, but I can read her heart of hearts.)
Stacy Nguyen Creative has grown to the point where I definitely cannot do it all. Also, intellectually, I know that I really should not be doing it all — but emotionally I am dumb. I think I have a bit of founder’s syndrome.
I honestly trust myself most of all. I honestly believe myself to be the hero of my story (though I’ve probably been the villain or a mere side character in someone else’s story.). Second to my own belief in my own heroism, I trust only Jordan. But Jordan is currently engaged in a huge life change, so ultimately it means I’m left with just myself.
And I’m hella annoyed about it and honestly wish I wasn’t on the hook for so much shit right now. I wish I had less responsibility.
At the same time, I like to hold power with the gravitational pull of a collapsing star, so I cannot delegate any of the big shit to save my life. I just cannot. You can give me a bunch of tips and a bunch of hacks and a bunch of advice on this, but I cannot hear it or internalize it because my problem is definitely emotional and psychological.
Like, one of the things I sometimes don’t like doing is business development and vetting potential clients and writing up proposals and scopes of work. Sometimes when I’m particularly over it, I fantasize about bringing in a white man with a power suit into the fray and letting him run with biz dev, leaving me totally free to create and oversee just the creative work.
And then I imagine this fucker going out and selling all of the wrong things — like racist-ass things to racist-ass clients. Or this fucker goes out and makes ridiculous promises that are completely unrealistic because he comes from a corporate environment and he’s like, “Blah blah blah jargon jargon surprise our new client is a car dealership! We’re making billboards, Stacy!”
And then I’ll be like, “Are you fucking kidding me, Kyle?”
And to my face, he’ll be like, “I’m so sorry! I must’ve misunderstood you.” But on the side, with his friends, he’ll be like, “Stacy has no freaking clue! She doesn’t know what she’s doing at all!”
And while that might be true, it’s like, fuck that guy for saying it.
And then the next six months will be me wasting my time pointlessly engaging in power plays and psychological games with this psychopath.
So it’s like, do I want to do that? No.
I think that one “mistake” I made early on is naming my business Stacy Nguyen Creative. To be real with you, it wasn’t my overwrought ego that drove the name. It was because I logistically wanted it to be easy for people to write me checks. It was very Vietnamese of me. I just didn’t want clients to have to remember a name like, “Flower Power Creative.” They just had to remember my name.
Obviously, when I started my business, I thought that it would be a one-woman shop forever. Unfortunately, that is currently not the case.
And now this is our name! Forever! Or until we go out of business because of my gross incompetence!
Our name is my name, so I feel pretty pressured to show up and be present with nearly every client. I know it technically doesn’t have to be this way — and there are a small number of clients that Jordan used to handle just on her own — but psychologically, it’s just a trip to have your name on stuff. It makes you feel inordinately responsible, and I’m already prone to feeling extra responsible for stuff.
Having my name on stuff sometimes feels complex sometimes.
In the past, I’ve worked on things that had really charismatic founders and leaders. I worked at Northwest Asian Weekly with Assunta. And we do work for Nonprofit AF with Vu. And there are people out there who thinks that Assunta edits and actively manages her newspapers every week. There are people out there who think that Vu is his own web developer and advertising rep.
It isn’t at all their fault that they’re awesome and well-known, but there have been moments in the past when I felt super invisible as I witnessed both of them accidentally get credit for work that I did.
I know how annoying that can feel. And because of those past experiences, I wonder a lot if I’m currently doing that to people. I wonder how people who work with me feel about it. (I’m a little bit scared to ask them, so that’s why I don’t know.) I wonder if they would even tell me the truth of how they feel. I also wonder if they even care. Maybe they don’t? I wonder if I’m a person who is prone to caring about that stuff because I’m more ego-driven than most. I wonder if that’s actually a bad thing.
And then I vow to myself I will be better about giving credit and correcting people when they attribute someone else’s work to me.
And then I vow to myself to get better at using “we” language instead of “I” all the fucking time.
And then I vow to myself to figure out ways to be okay with handing over more responsibility.
(By the way, delegation is often not a straight line. Hilariously, there have been times in the recent past when I try to offer out more responsibility and some of the people who work for me responded with “No thanks, Stacy. I want to practice self-care and life-work balance.” And I’m like . . . wow. Okay. So it’s like that?)
I think I’m secretly uptight.
We only live in and experience our own minds, so I have no idea if that confession was like, quite the revelation to you or if you read that and you’re like, “Duh, Captain Obvious.”
I can tell you my perspective though. My perspective is that I put in a shit-ton of effort in showing up and performing. I pull out a lot of effort to smile, to be funny, to be gregarious, to be super easy to work with, to be just super fucking pleasant. I call it a performance because it doesn’t always feel natural. It feels like pulling on someone else’s skin and wearing someone else’s face sometimes.
It’s kind of very important to me to come across as easy-going and chill and flexible. It’s not an insecurity thing — like, I’m not ashamed of my true self. It’s more of a client management and relationship management thing. I put out a really pleasant version of myself so that work goes efficiently and fast and easy and feels good for everyone involved. Because like, is anyone craving the opportunity to work with an anal retentive asshole? Like, is anyone just wanting so much for work to be a grind full of conflict and disagreement?
Nah, man.
People often ask me how I’m so efficient and productive. I think they ask me that because on the surface, I might appear like someone who super casual, super friendly, super go-with-the-flow — and often people who are so relaxed like this aren’t always the most structured.
I think my secret is that I’m actually just about as fun as a bag of rocks. Like, sometimes I’m not very fun at all. Sometimes I am anal retentive and rigid and uptight and have this burning desire for stuff to be just so, and it’s a concerted effort to let stuff go. These days, I try really hard to embrace gray areas, but it often feels unnatural, and I’ve made a bunch of mistakes in the past. I’ve been really oppressive and demanding in a crushing way with people in the past.
Sometimes it’s tiring to be two types of people. I never know if I’m doing a good enough job at being either person — because, again, we only live in our own minds.
I think it’s the rigid aspect of my personality that makes it so hard to delegate and to let go of control, even as I know that it’s probably good for me, good for the business, good all around.
Also, there is just not enough time. There’s not enough time to be deliberate and thoughtful about this. I can’t just pick up a mountain of responsibility and chuck at the nearest person and hope that it goes well. There’s probably a lot of investment in training and mentoring on my part, in order to create better conditions for success. Like, I know what happens when I’m inattentive and people have to guess on stuff. Like, it’s not great.
So it’s hard to be making big moves when I’m buried under shit.
Part of the reason I’ve been saying no to work is because I’ve been trying to create space and creating a feeling. I want the space to think about how I might go about shitting the stick out of my ass. I also want to know what it feels like to not be working so much — I imagine it feels nice — so that I tangibly know what I’m aspiring toward.
It is a little gnarly for me to be articulating this out like this. Because I’m the kind of person that doesn’t voice stuff until I’m sure I can ace them. I like to stack odds in my favor that way to look more impressive than I actually am.
It’s a bit vulnerable for me to be telling you that I’ve been trying and will continue to try to work less and hoard power less, because I could totally fail at this. Like, I’m really not good at this.
But we’ll see!