When most people start out learning management and leadership the one thing they have the hardest time learning to do is to delegate some of their work to their subordinates. One common thing I hear from people just starting out in management (the practice, not just the position) is “When I give out tasks they don’t get done. It’s just better to do them myself.” Telling your boss this is a great way to not get promoted ever again (unless you reform); it displays managerial incompetence to the boss.
Just because you delegate a task to someone does not mean it will get done. Further, it does not mean you can ignore the task. By delegating a task you have shifted your work from one type of work (doing the task) to another type of work (tracking and managing the task).
If you delegate writing a document to someone (for example), you now no longer have to write the document. You do have to track who is writing the document and when certain revisions are due to you. The person you have delegated the document to will not go off and reappear with a perfect document minutes before you need to send it. If you think this is how delegations works, then it should be no surprise that your efforts on delegation fail.
You need to break the larger writing of the document down into smaller chunks. Say it is a one page memo that is due in a week (Friday) and the person writing it is doing it for their first time. You want at least a day to put you final polish on it (due to you by close of business Thursday). You will want to make sure the product you receive is close to what you want, so you’ll want at least two progress checks (noon on Monday and Wednesday).
Monday comes around and the document is two pages and has a lot of useless information. You spend fifteen minutes with your direct report explaining what you liked and what you feel needs to be improved. This is the point you often realize that you did not communicate the initial task well enough to get the result you wanted. You spend this time refining your initial guidance.
Wednesday rolls around and you review the document with your direct again. It is much closer this time. There are some formatting issues and, while it says what you want fairly well, there are some things still missing. You give further guidance and send the direct back off to rework the document once more.
You come in Friday morning and see the final document in your email inbox. Is it perfect? No. Is it good enough for you to work with? Most likely. You spend about ten minutes making the final edits and sending it out, giving a copy of the final version to your direct.
Giving your direct the final version is not an insignificant step. Giving your direct a copy of the final product allows them to see what the desired result is and allows them to improve on similar tasks in the future.
This first time delegating , you have probably spent as much time with this document as you would have doing it by yourself. The key difference is that your time was mostly spent on educating and training your direct. The next time you do this it will take less attention from you. After you do this enough times you’ll simply give it to your direct and say, “Send me the document by COB Thursday.” Your total time is ten minutes because your direct now can do it without a lot of intervention from you.
Are you willing to train your directs now to free up time for you later? What have you delegated that requires more follow-up from you?
Additional Resources
- The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker
- The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman