Delegation tends to be a d-word – d for difficult. It should not be dumping – saddling others with things you don’t want to handle, although often that is the motivation. It should be used for development.
It should be strategic, the result of careful thought, not dictated by the hurly-burly of your workplace. We shouldn’t be seized by the a-word - anxiety – at the prospect of delegating but often we are. We think we can handle things quicker and more effectively ourselves. We are comfortable with many of the tasks we do and prefer them to what might be the replacement if we delegate. Or worse, we fear somebody will figure out we aren’t doing as much as in the past and we’ll suffer for that revelation.
Consultant Suzi McAlpine suggests asking what makes you anxious about handing over work. And what would lower that apprehension. “If you don’t believe in the capability of your team members, where specifically do they need development in? What needs to happen to change this?” she writes on her blog.
Here are reasons to delegate, offered by executive coach Mary Jo Asmus on her blog:
- You won’t be overwhelmed and stressed out with too much work;
- You will be able to focus on more important things;
- You might get that promotion because you are now doing bigger things;
- You can go on that extended vacation because your work is better covered;
- Your direct reports will be engaged while growing and developing;
- Turnover among your best employees will slow down because they are being challenged;
- People will be prepared to take your place when you get a promotion.
The next step is to work out what to delegate, which is an interplay of the people and tasks available, and their situation and your own.
If the person best able to take on a task is overloaded, be careful.
I think two crucial aspects at this stage are to be willing to gamble a bit – if the delegation is a stretch for the individual you select, that’s a good thing – and to not dump. I repeat that prohibition because often that’s where delegation starts, with getting rid of things we don’t want to do, so we dump them on other, supposedly lesser souls. Yes, leaders should focus on important tasks but these days everyone is supposed to be a leader, including the people to whom you want to delegate. More to the point, sticking with some tedious tasks is good for your soul.
So I part company somewhat with career strategist Jenny Blake who starts a list in Harvard Business Review of six factors in delegating with tiny tasks (that add up, robbing you of time and flow) and tedious ones. It’s based on the notion – which runs through the literature on delegating – that the delegator is all-important. But do you really want to rob your subordinates of their time and flow? Think it through. It’s more complex than the standard advice admits.
Tasks you’re terrible at, which she mentions, are a wise delegation, as well as those that are teachable and so time-sensitive that you can’t handle them. She also suggests time-consuming tasks where you can step in near the end and add value.
Once you work out the person and the task, you will need to sell the idea. Remember, that colleague probably feels overwhelmed already. This is not an unalloyed gift you are handing over, so don’t oversell the development advantages. Save your breath for explaining how the delegatee can fit the task into their day (and perhaps explaining why it should not be seen as dumping).
Ms. McAlpine says one of the biggest mistakes is failing to agree on what success will look like – how will you both know when you have achieved your goal? She suggests another step often mishandled is identifying checkpoints along the way to ensure you’re both comfortable with the progress and on what aspects you expect to be consulted.
Then you need to essentially get out of the way and deal with your emotions, since they will flare as things happen differently from the way you would have operated. And that’s vital because, while you have delegated the task, you are still responsible.
Yes, delegation is difficult – demanding. But it can pay dividends if you divest wisely.
Cannonballs
- Amazon’s artificial intelligence system developed for recruiting – but never used, the company claims – taught itself to discriminate against women, in part because the industry is male-dominated and so the best résumés came from men. Their word patterns and experiences became what was expected for success. Of course, we humans have been doing that for years, right?
- New research from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto by doctoral student Yeun Joon Kim and associate professor Soo Min Toh finds leaders tend to try to transfer the culture of the previous group they were a part of to the new group – falling back on familiar approaches -- but it can be a liability in the new situation.
- In closing: “If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate," said motivational speaker John Maxwell.
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Harvey Schachter