Management Information |
How To Delegate for Fun and Profit
Ah, the wretched pain of delegation. It comes easy to some people. But others - you know who you are - would rather undergo a double root canal than hand over a task and walk away from it. The good news is that this is a disease you can recover from. And the better news is that when you choose to give up control you benefit along with the delegatee. As with most things in my life this knowledge was hard come by for me. I had just received a huge promotion to a project which was mind-numbingly large. The first day on the job I asked the assistant of the woman I had replaced why he thought she had had difficulty. He said that she had been unable to delegate; had given him virtually nothing to do and had only emerged from under her staggering workload to complain about how overwhelmed she was. This was sobering news for me as this was also my M.O. at the time. I figured I needed to change - and fast. At that time I believed that if I wanted a thing done well I absolutely had to do it myself. Or micromanage it to death. Unfortunately events sometimes proved me right. This only encouraged me. Every once in a while I would loosen my death grip a little and delegate to someone who did a half-assed job. This just reinforced my belief system that I was the only one I could rely on. What I didn't realize was that by excluding my staff I was slowly diminishing the possibility that I would ever get any quality assistance I didn't think I was arrogant. That would have been bad. I thought I was a perfectionist. Which is good, right? Well. Yes and no. I've now come around to the idea that perfectionists are not God's gift to business. Except in their own alternative universe. I didn't think that I mistrusted other people - only that I had great intuition about them. And I didn't realize that my constantly telling myself that I was the only one who could be trusted to do a good job was fueling my view of an untrustworthy Universe. It wasn't the case that I couldn't trust my staff to do work well. It was the case that I didn't trust them to do well. My problem - not theirs. Eventually I came to love delegating. I relished the free time it gave me. My staff thrived on the added responsibility and appreciated my faith in them. After a while they were bugging me for more work; asking what else they could do and how could they help me. Here's how it can work for you. First. Drop the attitude. Your staff knows you're a control freak and they know you don't trust them to do a good job. You may think you're in the closet on this. You're the only one who thinks it's a secret. Get familiar with Chunking. Don't start by delegating an entire project. Certain psychologists believe that anyone can learn to do anything by Chunking. Chunking is when you break down a large task into smaller pieces which are more easily mastered and remembered. Chunking also has psychological advantages. Instead of focusing on the larger outcome ,which might be far away and overwhelming, you are focused on the more immediate goal. So don't delegate an entire task. Delegate a part of it which is within the skills and time constraints of your employees. Better to have several people working on different parts of a project and have one of them get into trouble than have one person dealing with everything and self-destructing. Delegate according to strengths. Everybody is good at something. If not - then why are they working for you in the first place? Take some time to find your employee's competencies. For example if you need a customer service follow-up choose someone on your staff with a personable phone manner. Preferably someone who is well-liked by your customers. For research - choose an employee who has a good eye for detail and who always needs to know the reasoning behind your decisions. Give clear instructions and structure. Set your staff up to succeed. Never give an open-ended task and tell them to bring it back when it's done. Give them a time frame so that they can pace themselves and their other tasks accordingly. If they have a clear idea of when they need to be completed they will get an early heads-up if they're not running to schedule. Set a date and a time when they will report to you on their progress. If you are particularly control-challenged or if the task is really important you can even make it a daily progress report. For Heaven's sakes leave them alone in between reports. Don't ask them how it's going. Try and put yourself in your dad's position. Remember when you would be in the back seat on family vacations whining "Are we there yet" every few miles. Ever wonder why he blew up? Don't hover. Make it clear, though, that you or someone else is always available for questions in between reports. Give them the tools to succeed. Give them checklists, punch lists, computer time, sample reports or forms to copy. Ask them if there is anything they would need or like in order to organize the task their way. Let them organize the tasks their way. People learn and work differently. Some are visual; some are intuitive; some need daily "to do" lists. Concentrate on the outcome and not the process. If you give free reign over the process - chances are good you will get the outcome you want. If possible delegate tasks to the same people on a consistent basis. In a work situation familiarity often breeds confidence. It also facilitates ownership and pride. I once had several different janitors on my staff who cleaned a very large multi-story building every day. There was no organization or structure to their work. They just showed up and all started at the same place at the same time and went on cleaning whatever was in their path until they were done. I can think of nothing more draining than doing a good job cleaning the same bathrooms and floors and elevators each day only to have them messed up overnight and have to come back and clean them all over again the next day. I felt bad for them and wanted to make their job a little more bearable - but who likes cleaning? I hit on the idea of assigning one floor to each janitor so that now they had their own territories. Because they had the same area each day they had pride in their floor. They also got to know the people on that floor so the element of relationship became a factor in their day. They even grew to be competitive with each other as to whose floor was the cleanest. This system also helped me. I could tell right away when I walked off each elevator who was slacking off and who was working. Don't forget to say thank you. Say thank you when they give you the work back and then go back later and pick out one particular detail which you appreciated. Maybe it was the way the work was organized or laid out; the fact that it was turned in early etc. Let your employee know that you noticed and appreciated it. Finally, remember that martyrdom is not an attractive quality. You didn't list it as an attribute on your resume and you wouldn't hire anyone who did. Mary Rosendale is a Coach who specializes in Life Design. Her background is Business and Buddhist psychology and she uses this to design and construct daily structures and action plans for her clients to enable them to make decisions in line with their core values.She is a writer and speaker and can be found on the web at http://www.TheConstructedLife.com where you can sign up for her free newsletter or check out her funky blog http:theconstructedlife.blogs.com
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
Never Hire Anyone Dumber Than You Are! In a previous life I was a Navy Pilot. Great life, great people to be around. Culture Management and Creativity Many concepts in the fields of managing creativity are very much applicable to culture management in general. The same concepts that foster creativity and innovation also maximise human capital potential, increase productivity, reduce costs and maintain competitive advantage etc. Leaders Versus Cheerleaders Everyone wants to describe themselves as a leader. Everyday, new books on leadership come out on the market. Employees Commit Corporate Fraud Imagine the following scenario; Ten years ago you decided to quit your job and start your own company. For ten years you worked hard, made sacrifices, and it paid off in the end. Does Your Management Style Remind People Of Something They Read In Dilbert? With thanks to Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian who does the "You might be a redneck series of jokes.If you really believe people in your group are lucky to have a job, you might be a jerk. Managing After Downsizing So, you survived the downsizing. Your company did something that will probably show minimal, if any, return -- and will make your job as a manager a living hell. You Cant Afford the Luxury of Disengaged Employees In today's business environment with increases in staff reductions and rapidly changing roles and responsibilities, it is crucial that all of your team members be fully engaged in the tasks at hand. According to a Gallup survey, 350 billion dollars are lost each year in American companies due to disengaged employees. Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Training is in the Eye of the Beholder This article relates to the Training competency, commonly evaluated in employee surveys. It comments on the value of training to both the company and its workforce. Improve Operations by Restructuring Transitioning from Vertical Hierarchies to Decentralized / Flatter OrganizationsThe need to restructure for traditional, bureaucratic firms is essential in the fast paced, dynamic business world today. Team-based organizations are largely successful in having all of the people in the firm feel accountable and responsible for the operation and success of the enterprise, not just a few people in senior management positions. Encouraging Behavior That Gets Results You're the boss, and you have every reason to feel good about your organization.You've built a great team. Rethinking Workplace Security: How the Rules Have Changed The workplace has traditionally been a dangerous place. Very early in mankind's history perils emanated from the place and type of work they performed. I Cant Use This Approach Unless My Boss Does - Power, Accountability, and Consequences People who work with us often struggle with this dilemma: in theory, they come to believe that it would be very helpful to use our approach with people who have more power than they do, and in practice, sometimes it seems too risky to try. Some examples of things that feel too risky include raising questions with your boss about his or her performance, disagreeing publicly with people who have more power , or otherwise sharing information that might lead you or the person in power to feel put on the sp ot. The Seven Cs: Partnership Danger Signs - Communication Breakdown An ongoing series of articles exploring the seven critical areas that can indicate a partnership is in trouble.COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWNThe "Seven Cs" are the danger signs that indicate your business partnership, or any partnership for that matter, is in trouble. Are Your Marketing Pieces Up to Date? The other day someone asked me for one of my informational brochures. As I was giving her the piece I stated that if I were printing these today it would be a little different. Safety Policy Sample Outline Writing a safety manual is a tough job and most larger corporations outsource such jobs or they have someone on staff with the proper credentials in risk management. Imagine writing the safety manuals for NASA? I had the opportunity to be in the unique position of being able to imagine just such a thing when writing our company safety manuals. How To Decrease Downtime and Increase Productivity All maintenance activities of the workforce must be documented, this includes breakdown repairs, callouts, preventive maintenance, replacement maintenance, overhauls, and Testing & Inspection work. Maintenance work by production line employees must be included, whether or not the employee is listed as in maintenance. Stop Going to Meetings - 10 Questions to Ask Before Attending a Meeting - Get More Productive We get invited to attend so many "meetings" but do we need to attend them all? Use these 10 questions to assess if you should attend that next meeting invitation.What is the agenda of the meeting? Don't attend a meeting without a clear agenda otherwise you are wasting time. Creativity and Innovation Management: Goal Setting Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Interviewing Applicants Can Be Hazardous to Your Wealth 1st Fact: Interviewing applicants is the most common way companies decide whom to hire.2nd Fact: Research proves most interviewers do lousy at predicting if an applicant will succeed - or flop - if hired. Organizational Techniques - Tickler and Chron File One of the biggest problems we encounter in our consulting with businesses, and our students is time management and organizational techniques. This article will concentrate on some good organizational strategies. |
home | site map | contact us |