WE CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT it is for a manager to know how to delegate and utilize this indispensable tool. When you delegate properly, you can focus less on performing tasks and more on managing and leading. Delegating is not doling out. Delegation is taking something that you currently do and giving it to one of your employees for the purpose of developing her skills and making your organization more effective. Doling out is saying to an employee, “I am too busy; you have to take some of the workload.” Never try to pass off a doling out as a delegation.
BENEFITS OF DELEGATING
There are many benefits to delegating. You get employees who are more involved and motivated because they are acquiring new skills, developing themselves, and being more involved in the success of the organization. Delegation is cost effective for the organization. The company now has someone in-house who can do work that only you were able to do previously. And it frees you up to do other things that are a better use of your time and talents.
Delegating also can help you broaden your perspective. Being a successful manager requires you to be able to see challenges and opportunities as they are approaching and before they arrive. Delegating has the potential to free you up to see further into the distance. Think of it this way—your distance vision is quite limited when you are in the trenches. Delegating helps you get out of the figurative trenches of performing recurring tasks that are not the best use of your abilities.
Finally, delegating is one of the most powerful training tools at your disposal. Sending a team member to a class to expand his skills is great, but actually giving him the opportunity to take on a real task with all the challenges it presents will result in a lot more learning and professional development than any class.
WHY NEW MANAGERS DON’T DELEGATE
If delegation is so great, why don’t managers do it more often? The first reason is that they do not know how; it is a skill that needs to be practiced. Then there are the insecure managers. They are afraid that the employee will do it better than they can or they think that their staff will say, “If he is delegating to us, what does he do all day?” And of course, there are those who just love the job so much that they do not want to give it up. Far and away the most common reason managers don’t delegate is because they are not confident of the outcome. When they perform the task, they know exactly how it is going to be done and what the final product will look like. When they have someone else handle it, the outcome will not be exactly as if they had done it themselves.
None of these are good reasons for not delegating. The only time you should not delegate to others is if someone above you tells you not to or if you have someone who is not ready or is too busy to take on the delegation.
WHAT SHOULD NEVER BE DELEGATED
The things that should never be delegated even if you are the CEO are all your personnel responsibilities. You always keep performance appraisals, salary reviews, giving positive feedback, coaching, discipline, termination, and so forth for yourself. Interviews are an exception. As mentioned earlier, including a team member in an interview for a job candidate can be a good learning opportunity for the team member. In addition, if something were of a sensitive or secretive nature like a company downsizing, you would not delegate that task. Have a delegator’s consciousness. Try to delegate 100 percent of what you can possibly delegate.
TO WHOM TO DELEGATE
You can potentially delegate to all your employees. But you have to handle it a little differently depending on who will be taking on the task. And remember, once again, you do not want to overload your best employees because you know they can do it. If you keep overloading them, they will burn out and you will lose your better performers. When delegating to your less-experienced or less-skilled members, make sure you clearly explain what has to be done and monitor their progress much more than you would one of your more experienced or skilled employees. You can also delegate to an employee who has failed on a previous delegation. When given another opportunity, this employee can regain lost confidence. Try delegating to your problem employees as well. A new challenge or project may cause them to change their outlook on things.
THE DELEGATION STEPS
The following is a particular sequence you may find helpful when you delegate—see if this process works for you:
1. Start off by analyzing which of your current tasks, projects, or jobs you could possibly delegate. Think about what goes into getting the job done, how long it takes, what resources are needed, and so forth.
2. Decide to whom you can delegate the task. Consider who would be most motivated by the opportunity, who has the time, who either has the skill level or could acquire the skills, and who has asked for additional responsibilities.
3. Once you make up your mind, sit down with the employee and describe as many of the details of the task as possible. Also point out the benefits of taking on the delegation. Obviously, if the person is new or inexperienced, you must spend more time with her and provide more details.
4. Come to agreement on the goal of the task and the timeline to be followed. This is vital and should be in writing. A follow-up email that states the specific outcome that was agreed to and the completion date will cover this. You may want to have the team member who is taking on the task compose the email so you can verify that he is clear on the understanding. A complex task may involve multiple review dates and interim outcomes. The importance of this step cannot be stressed enough. Delegating successfully requires absolute goal clarity.
5. Finally, discuss how you are going to monitor the employee’s progress.
THE PERFECTIONISM TRAP
Since the most common reason managers do not delegate is their uncertainty of the outcome, the issue of perfectionism needs to be addressed further. Many people mistakenly think perfectionism is a positive attribute. It is not. High personal standards are a positive attribute. That is not the same as perfectionism.
A common definition of perfectionism is seeing anything short of perfection as unacceptable. Consider this. First, perfection almost never exists. Flaws can nearly always be found in any product or outcome. Second, insisting on an outcome that you see as perfect, even though it is not, means the person you are delegating to has no discretion in how she goes about the task.
If you start the delegation process by telling the person being assigned the task exactly what she has to deliver down to the finest detail, she is not likely to be very excited about taking on the task. You are effectively making her into a robot and in the process demotivating her. You are also forgoing the benefit of her experience, perspective, and creativity—which are all different from yours.
Being a successful delegator requires you to accept and value the fact that the person taking on the task will do it differently than you will. Think of it as agreeing on the date and time the person will arrive at a distant destination, but allowing her to select her own course. Now obviously, if based on your experience, you are aware of routes to the destination that are troublesome, let her know. But trust her judgment to select a course that will work and is likely different from the one you would choose. If you do not trust her judgment on this, she is the wrong person for the task.
When it comes to your desire to achieve a perfect outcome on your own tasks there are some important factors to consider. Some tasks truly require a near perfect outcome. Many do not. The secret to managing an inclination to pursue perfection and in the process increase your efficiency is to be discerning as to which tasks require near perfection and which do not.
Here is an example. Let’s say you have to make a presentation to the board of directors of your company in order to get funding for a new initiative. Such a high profile and important task genuinely requires your best efforts. While perfection cannot be achieved, in this case aiming for it is a good idea. You will likely be justified putting in a great deal of time into preparing, rehearsing, and role-playing how to respond to the questions you are likely to be asked.
By comparison, let’s say that you are going to do a presentation to your team on a new process. While important, a near perfect outcome is not vital. This means that the same level of preparation you put into your presentation to the board of directors is not justified. If you find you are tempted to put forth the same level of effort you need to honestly assess your personal issues with perfectionism.
The core strategy is that you expend only the level of effort honestly required to achieve an acceptable outcome. When determining that level it is important that you are fully acknowledging that a near perfect outcome is likely to take two to three times as much of your time. Your time is finite and valuable. Use it wisely. Do not squander it by pursuing a near perfect outcome unnecessarily.
AVOID UPWARD DELEGATION
Resist taking on delegations from your direct reports. They will come to you and say they are too busy or the work is too hard or you can do it better than they can. If this happens to you, help them with the project or get a subject matter expert to help them; do not take it over. As manager, you want to be in the business of developing others, not rescuing them.
IN THE FUTURE
Delegation can be a great friend to you, your team, and the organization. It is vital to your development as a manager. Not delegating well will significantly hamper your advancement. Start thinking about what you can delegate today, tomorrow, or sometime in the future. Learn to delegate and then do it. Both you and your team members will benefit from it.