Delegation...Essential to your Success

Delegation...Essential to your Success
How do you find the time to develop your people?
Delegation both frees up your time and can develop your
people. It also increases productivity, morale and
commitment. As the economy becomes more dependent on
knowledge, managers need to delegate to be effective
leaders. The number one reason for management failure is
an inability to delegate.

So, why don't managers delegate? The following are common
reasons with my counter-arguments:

1. They think it's easier and more efficient to do it on
their own. In the beginning, that is probably true!
However, if they continue to do it on their own, their
employees will never learn how to do it and they will be
stuck doing it, as opposed to having more time to focus on
more strategic initiatives.

2. Some managers simply aren't sure how to do it correctly.
Delegation is both an art and a science. There are some
basics in terms of doing it—find the right person,
set clear expectations, settle on a regular check-in time.
There is also the art of knowing people well enough to know
how much they can handle; to stretch them without breaking
them.

3. Other managers have a lack of trust in their people.
These managers need to work on developing that trust. If
they don't trust their employees, it is quite likely their
employees don't trust them. Building trust is essential to
retention of employees. That can be done by getting to
know them on a more personal level (within reason, of
course!) and by showing them trust—including
delegation. In other words, one way to start trusting your
people is to just do it—delegate to them and trust
that it will get done well. When you have put the correct
systems in place (discussed in detail below) you mitigate
the risk of someone failing in a delegated project.

4. Finally, other managers have the perception that there
is nobody they could delegate to. Many managers tell me
that everyone is too busy. Realize that delegating may
require you to help some of your employees prioritize their
work more. In other cases, nobody reports to the person so
they assume they can't delegate. There may be other people
in your company who would be better suited for some of your
tasks. Talk to your manager about who could take on some
of those responsibilities.

The University of Michigan did a study that found that 70%
of managers' work could be delegated. To delegate more of
your tasks do the following exercise:

1. In a two week period, list all of the tasks that you
perform. Be as detailed as possible (in other words,
instead of listing "responded to e-mails", track which ones
take a while to reply to or require action to be taken).

2. At the end of that time period, decide which ones you
could delegate to someone else. Focus on full projects, as
opposed to individual tasks. Be creative—for example,
realize that you do not need to attend every meeting that
you are invited to.

3. Decide who would be the best person to delegate to,
keeping in mind each person's strengths, needs for
improvements and workload.

4. Finally, put in place a structure to delegate,
including clear expectations and check-in points. If
things are not getting done correctly, evaluate whether it
is a training issue or an ability issue. If it is
training, work with the person to make sure they get the
knowledge they need. Coach them when possible. If it is
an ability issue, re-evaluate what responsibilities that
person has. If things are not being done in a timely
manner, address it immediately with the person.

Finally, make sure that you are delegating authority with a
project. This will save you time in not having the person
continually coming back to you asking for permission to
make decisions.

Delegation is a practice that can be developed over time,
learned by observing great managers do it and honed through
coaching. It will greatly enhance your abilities as a
leader, through helping you develop your people and
allowing you to focus on more strategic work.

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Kerrie Halmi of Halmi Performance Consulting specializes in
increasing women's success in business through speaking,
coaching and facilitation. Kerrie has over fifteen years
of experience in the Human Resources field with such
clients as eBay, Wells Fargo and Kaiser. She received her
MBA from the University of Michigan and is certified in
coaching with Corporate Coach University International.
See
http://www.halmiperformance.com