Episode #417: Stop Procrastinating And Start Delegating

The most fatal words ever spoken by a leader are , “it will be faster if I do it myself”. No it won’t. If you want to scare yourself, sit down and write down all the tasks that you face both regular and irregular. That is one long, long list for leaders. Are you really going to be able to get through all of these items and take care of filing your taxes on time, see the kids sports events, have a romantic dinner with your partner, lie on the couch and read a book, magazine or the newspapers? In short, you won’t, because you will be working all of the time, putting off life to earn a living. The treadmill you should be the on is the one down at the gym, not the one where you are working like a dog, because you are trying to do it all yourself.

Inherently, we know we should delegate, but we have had prior bad experiences with it and are now gun shy about using this important tool in our leader toolkit. When I was growing up in Australia there was a common expression that “a good workman doesn’t blame his tools”. Delegation gets a bad rap because it is a misused tool and the tool itself is fine. What we are mistaking is dumping for delegating. What does dumping look like? My old boss at Jones Lang LaSalle literally dumped two huge file collations on my desk, with a “whump”, they were so thick. He just said “take care of this” and walked away. I had to take on the work in those files, but there was no guidance, no instructions, I just had to work it by myself.

Is there a simple and better way to make sure that as the leader we are only working on the most high level tasks that only we can do? Here is an eight step process to make delegation work for you.

Step One: Identify The Need

Among the many tasks facing us, which ones will lend themselves to being delegated and what does a successful delegation outcome look like in our mind?

Step Two: Select The Person

This may sound counterintuitive, but select the person on the basis of how this delegated task will help them achieve their goals. Wait a minute? Isn‘t the delegation about me achieving my leader goals of getting work off my leader desk? Actually no. We are focused on using delegation to build leader bench strength in the organisation not playing “pass the parcel” at work. Think about the team and identify which strengths need attention and how this piece of work will build this person’s capabilities.

Step Three: Plan The Delegation Meeting

We don’t plan to fail, but we fail to plan and this is one of the big missing pieces in the delegation puzzle. Leaders will just willy-nilly grab the person and starting downloading what they want them to do, without thinking the conversation through in any meaningful way. There are three sub-goals involved here.

1. Desired outcome – what is the outcome to be accomplished and what does success look like? Think ahead to be able to explain what is in it for the person receiving the task.
2. Current Situation – Clearly analyse where we are today both internally and externally. What factors may hinder or help this delegation?
3. Goals – Define and set goals which are reasonable and yet challenging.

Step Four: Hold The Delegation Meeting

There are four subset goals.

1. Identify their vision or goals. We are trying to align the task with their own goals so we need to be clear what is in it for them.
2. Identify specific results to be achieved. We need to make success clear and also talk about the strengths they have which will allow them to succeed in this task.
3. Outline the rules and limitations. There are bound to be resource limitations around time, money and people. These need to be made clear from the start.
Review the performance standards. To what level of sophistication are they required to deliver results?

Step Five: Create A Plan Of Action

We don’t create the plan – they do. This is important to give them authority and ownership of how this task gets done.

Step Six: Review Their Plan

They create it but we must check it so that we are all on the same page and have a clear understanding of what happens next.

Step Seven: Implement the Plan

If there are other people going to be impacted by the plan then the leader’s job is to clear the way and provide any needed air cover, while the task is under way.

Step Eight: Follow Up

Without micro managing the task, the leader needs regular progress updates so that everything is going as expected and there are no surprises at the end.

None of these steps are diabolically difficult or complex. Well then, why don’t all leaders follow them? It could be because they haven’t thought about a process for delegation or they fear the time required for Steps Three and Four.

Stop procrastinating. These two steps, Three and Four, are not that big a time steal, so suck it up and get going. You will never have the time available which you need, unless you start seeing delegation as a tool to develop the talents of your subordinates and treat the whole process that way. Delegation is just Latin for coaching!