Delegacion

Delegation

Unskilled

Doesn’t believe in or trust delegation

Lacks trust and respect in the talent of direct reports and others

Does most things by him/herself or hoards, keeps the good stuff for him/herself

Doesn’t want or know how to empower others

May delegate but micromanages and looks over shoulders

Might delegate but not pass on the authority

May lack a plan of how to work through others

May just throw tasks at people; doesn’t communicate the bigger picture

Skilled

Clearly and comfortably delegates both routine and important tasks and decisions

Broadly shares both responsibility and accountability

Tends to trust people to perform

Lets direct reports and others finish their own work

Overused Skill

May overdelegate without providing enough direction or help

May have unrealistic expectations for direct reports and others, or may overstructure tasks and decisions before delegating them to the point of limiting individual initiative

May not do enough of the work him/herself

Some Causes

Delegate but don’t follow up

Delegate by throwing tasks at people

Delegate little pieces

Don’t develop your people

Hoard most things to self

Not plan work

Not trust others

Overmanage people

Too busy

Too controlling

The Map

Do you hoard tasks, keeping the good ones to yourself? Do you throw tasks at people without any overall plan or follow-up? Do you micromanage because you don’t trust people will perform? Unless you can do the work of the unit all by yourself, both performance and morale will suffer until you learn to delegate.

Some Remedies

1. Need convincing? Learn the benefits of delegating. How busy are you? Can’t get everything done you would like to get to? Boss on your butt for more? No time for reflection? No time to get to long-range planning and strategy? Longer hours? Saturdays? Work at home? Family wondering if you still live there? Postpone vacations? If this sounds familiar, you join the majority of managers. Time is the most precious commodity. There is never enough. One of the main causes of this is that managers do too much themselves. The major fixes are better personal time management and organization, setting better priorities, designing better work flows and delegation. Delegation frees up time. Delegation motivates. Delegation develops people. Delegation gets more done. Learning to delegate is a major transition skill first-line supervisors are supposed to learn when they leave the personal contributor role early in their careers. Read Becoming a Manager by Linda A. Hill for how that’s supposed to work. We say “supposed to” because there are many high level executives who still have not learned to delegate. They generally get to everything tactical and let everything strategic go until last. They also don’t have the time to develop others, leading to their reluctance to delegate because their people aren’t good enough! No wonder. You cannot fulfill your potential until you learn to delegate more and better.

2. How to delegate? Set expectations. Communicate, set time frames and goals, and get out of the way. People need to know what it is you expect. What does the outcome look like? When do you need it by? What’s the budget? What resources do they get? What decisions can they make? Do you want checkpoints along the way? How will we both know and measure how well the task is done? One of the most common problems with delegation is incomplete or cryptic up-front communication leading to frustration, a job not well done the first time, rework, and a reluctance to delegate next time. Poor communicators always have to take more time managing because of rework. Analyze recent projects that went well and didn’t go well. How did you delegate? Too much? Not enough? Unwanted pieces? Major chunks of responsibility? Workload distributed properly? Did you set measures? Overmanage or abdicate? Find out what your best practices are. Set up a series of delegation practices that can be used as if you’re not there. What do you have to be informed of? What feedback loops can people use for mid-course correction? What questions should be answered as the work proceeds? What steps should be followed? What are the criteria to be followed? When will you be available to help?

3. Providing the right amount of detail? Communicate the what and the why, leave the how up to them. The best delegators are crystal clear on what and when, and more open on how. People are more motivated when they can determine the how for themselves. Inexperienced delegators include the hows which turns the people into task automatons instead of an empowered and energized staff. Tell them what and when and for how long and let them figure out how on their own. Give them leeway. Encourage them to try things. Besides being more motivating, it’s also more developmental for them. Add the larger context. Although it is not necessary to get the task done, people are more motivated when they know where this task fits in the bigger picture. Take three extra minutes and tell them why this task needs to be done, where it fits in the grander scheme and its importance to the goals and objectives of the unit.

4. What to delegate? Figure out the best things to delegate. Delegate as much as you can along with the authority to do it. Delegate more whole tasks than pieces and parts. People are more motivated by complete tasks. Delegate those things that others can do. Delegate those things that are not things you do well. Delegate tactical; keep strategic. Delegate short term; keep long term. One simple and effective way is to ask your people: “What do I do that you could help me with? What do I do that you could do with a little help from me? What do I do that you could do by yourself? What do you do that I could do faster and more effectively (re-delegation)?” You certainly won’t agree to everything, but if you are now a poor delegator, they will help you improve by 50%. Pick one

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