how to succesfully delegate

7/26/2019 How to Succesfully Delegate

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Delegation: Getting

Work Done ThroughOthers


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Overview

As managers one of the most useful skills to master is the ability to successfullyget work done by delegating to others. Delegation doesnt mean abdicatingresponsibility but instead requires you to have trust and confidence in the abilitiesof your team and a commitment to developing the skills of individual teammembers. In this module you will learn more about the benefits of delegation,whats needed for effective delegation and how to address obstacles to effectivedelegation. By the end of the module, youll know more about how to determinewhat and when to delegate and to whom.

Objectives of This Module

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

! Understand the importance of delegation and what it means to effectivelydelegate.

! Increase your ability to delegate including identifying what and when todelegate and to whom.

!

Apply effective methods for holding yourself and others accountable for theexpectations and end result of projects and tasks youve delegated.

! Better identify obstacles to delegation in yourself and in others.

! Understand how to delegate to develop the skills, abilities and experience ofyour teams.


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SECTION ONE

Getting Work one Through Others

You can delegate authority, but not responsibility.

Stephen W. Comiskey


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Getting Work Done Through Others

Making the Most of Your RelationshipsIt is easy for managers and supervisors to get caught up in the daily grind of

meetings, due dates, process requirements and forget that, in the end, it all

comes down to people. In the end,peopledo the work. When managers and

supervisors have healthy relationships with their staff, they are able to easily use

their influence to get things done.

Winning the Race: Its All in the Hand-offThe metaphor we use in this module is the passing of the baton in a relay race.

There was an American team in the Olympics some years ago that was heavily

favored to win. Indeed, their individual

times were mostly the fastest!but they

ended up with the silver medal, beaten by

a team with slightly slower speeds but

flawless handoffs. This section aims to

help you win that gold medal.

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Why Arent YouDelegating?

Are you doing things that direct reportsshould actually be doing? If the answer is

yes, you need to ask yourself why.

Here are some common reasonsmanagers dont delegate work to others:

They have been/are in crisis mode

They dont realize the benefits of delegating

They believe others will mess up the work or others wont do it right

They feel its faster to do the work themselves

Are you refraining from delegating because of any of the above reasons? Are thereadvanced or tenured members of your team that are looking for growth anddevelopment but dont feel they are getting this development?

Group Discussion:

What stops you from delegating? What do you need in order to delegate more?

If you are not currently delegating, consider the following!

Benefits of DelegatingManagers who delegate lessen their immediate workloads and better manage theircompeting tasks, responsibilities and deadlines. This improves effectiveness as amanager and helps with stress management as well. Delegation also reinforces aculture of learning and allows for the increased confidence and self-esteem of yourteam.

Letting Go of Perfectionism

Just because someone else may not do a task the same way as you, does notmean his or her way is less effective or wrong. As long as the end results meet

Time stays long enough

for those who use it. Leonardo Da Vinci


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the stated expectations and are within your organizational boundaries, allowpeople the flexibility to get the job done. Your team will have the chance to developtheir problem solving and critical thinking skills by taking on new tasks andprojects. Additionally, those close to the work often have better, more creativeideas for how to get the work done and will be more invested in the group

outcomes if given the appropriate opportunities. Mistakes may be made butmanagers have the opportunity to provide feedback and catch mistakes early onbefore problems get bigger.

Delegating is Developing Your Team

Review your list of tasks and responsibilities and search for something you candelegate that will fit with a team members level of authority and allows them theopportunity to learn and stretch. Not only does this lighten your load, you arehelping your staff to be accountable for the work that is theirs and to develop newcompetencies that will support their growth and mobility within the organization.Delegation is an effective coaching method for building staff skills. During theprocess of delegation, you can provide a concrete learning opportunity and testsomeones ability to take on new challenges while still providing oversight,feedback and support.

Delegation: What It Is and Isnt

Understanding what delegation is (and isnt) is just as important as understanding

and developing your relationships. This understanding can guide you during the

process of determining what to delegate, when to delegate and to whom to

delegate.

Delegation IS:

1. Choosing productivity: To be an effective leader you must accept the realitythat you cannot do and accomplish everything expected of you without helpfrom others. Delegation provides the means to meet your obligations byidentifying and prioritizing tasks and projects you must complete versus whatyou can get done through others by delegating.

2. Better management of work tasks & responsibilities: By delegating, youfree up your time to focus on the tasks and projects that can only be done byyou.

3. Trusting and having confidence in your team: Effectively leading your teamincludes trusting their skills and experience and having confidence in theirability to meet the shared goals of the team and the larger organization.


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4. Developing skills, ability and experience of others on your team : Whenyou delegate the right tasks and projects to the correct people, you allowindividuals on your team to develop their knowledge and skills and to improvetheir ability to contribute more greatly to the team and organization.

Delegation ISNT:

1. Abdicating responsibility: In the end, no matter what and to whom youvedelegated the work, you are still ultimately responsible for the outcome and forensuring the end result is satisfactory.

2. Dumping work on others: Others on your team can not get the work donewell if you dont spend the time to properly train them in the tasks, review theexpected results and provide them the proper amount of authority andresponsibility to get the work done.

3. Micromanaging: Once youve taken care of the training, expectations andauthority/responsibility of the delegated task give the person the freedom todetermine the how of getting the work done. If youve set the properboundaries and expectations and chosen the right person, micromanagementshouldnt be needed.

4. Just checking in at the end: Connected with proper training and definedexpectations is regular communication. If you dont check in regularly to find outhow the delegated work is progressing, you send the message its not really apriority for you. Avoiding micromanagement does not mean waiting till the endto learn what work is being accomplished.

The Hand-Off

Delegation is how you make good hand-offs to your staff and others. Your success

is tied to their success.

Know to whom youre handing the baton

Understand and manage the control/trust dilemma

Ensure a successful hand-off

A key to making a good hand-off of the baton is to know what kind of personwill be taking it from you. Failure to gauge the person accurately may result in a

miscue that is costly to the project and perhaps even the relationship.

For example, assuming that a staff person is more ready than he is, a manager

may slow down too soon and send the person racing away without the baton. In

this case, the baton represents the knowledge of what to do and how to do it well.


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Conversely, a supervisor may be micromanagingor crashing into the other

personwho has only just begun to take off.

How do you know when someone is ready to take off with the baton?

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

The Trust-Control Dilemma

When difficulties arise with delegation, the problem usually lies in the trust-

control dilemma.In any managerial situation, the sum of trust +control is always

constant. An increase in control by the manager, for example, leads to a drop in

trust by the employee. An increase in trust of the employee, leads to a drop in the

control by the manager. As a result, successful managers are continually

assessing the balance to see where any adjustments are needed (Charles Handy,

Understanding Organizations).

Good managers recognize that effective delegation is a two-way street. Your

staff trusts you to be fair in your delegation of assignments and to give them the

resources they need to complete their assigned tasks. You trust your staff to keep

you informed of any factors that threaten their progress.

Delegation involves more than giving the responsibility for a task to

someone else. That person must accept the task, have the authority to get the

task done, and commit to achieving the task. How well delegated tasks are

completed will influence the trust-control dynamics of later hand-offs and your

ongoing relationship.

Successful delegation within your organization leads to improved

collaboration.When a culture of collaboration is in place, you are willing to give

up some control and you are well on your way to a healthy trust-control balance.

The Delegation ARC

Once a task is delegated, you both still have the responsibility for its completion, so

work with the employee to determine a follow-up process. This mutual agreement

is called the Delegation ARC(To Do, Doing, Done, G. L. Snead & J. Wycoff).


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Individual Exercise: Using the ARC Model

Apply the ARC model to a recent delegation that was successful and to one that

ultimately disappointed you. How were they different from each other?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

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Group Discussion

When the Delegation ARC breaks down in your delegation process, at which pointdoes it do so Authority, Responsibility or Commitment?

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Using the Principles of Effective Delegation to AchieveCompleted Staff Work

The principle of completed staff work is that you are able to delegate a problem or

assignment to a member or members of your team and they are able to think

through it entirely, analyze the issue in depth, identify several alternatives, the

consequences of those alternatives, and then finally recommend one of them. This

saves you time, and gives you the latitude to focus on other issues, opportunities

and challenges that are central to your role as a leader.

Effective managers ask their staff to think through problems and issues and bring

in recommendations. This practice prompts people to plumb their own resources

and put together a specific final recommendation that represents their best

thinking. If the manager approves it, all that remains is implementation of the

decision or the recommended plan of action.


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Besides saving the manager time, completed staff work stops people from copping

out in the name of group think or lets get together and talk it over. It forces

them to use critical thinking.

Steps for Completed Staff Work

1. Provide a clear understanding of the desired results.Once a person knows this

they can be set free to work independently or with others to meet a particular

deadline, bring a final recommendation of what the alternatives are, what the

decision should be, and why. All details must be thoroughly digested and finalized.

2. Give a clear sense of what level of initiative you expect. You need to make clear

whether they are to make a recommendation, do the work and report immediately, or

do the work and report periodically.

3. Clarify assumptions.If people want early feedback from you to make sure theyre

not going in the wrong direction, they should bring in their understanding of your

assumptions before completing the work. If they dont clarify assumptions up front,

they could head up a blind alley and bring in a recommendation only to have you

say, You didnt understand what I was asking for.

4. Provide as much time, resources and access as possible. Nothing is more

frustrating than the expectation of doing completed work without the necessary

information and resources. If you face a genuine crisis and simply dont have muchtime to respond, clearly communicate these conditions.

5. Set a time and place for presenting and reviewing the work.Give your people a

chance to make an effective presentation of their work. Be sure to ask: Does this

represent the best alternatives and ideas? Is this the best recommendation or

alternative you came up with? Is there anything that can be improved?


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SECTION TWO

Essential Tools For Successful

elegation

Conductors of great symphony orchestras do not play everymusical instrument; yet through leadership, the production is anexpressive and unified combination of tones.

-Thomas D. Bailey


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Managing Delegation

As you may have already gathered, delegation is not a singular instance. Instead, it is aprocess that involves various management skills. In this section, we cover someadditional tools you can use in your process of delegating, including:

Defining expectations by understanding how to create accountable agreements

Developing coaching skills to manage delegated work by providing properfeedback and recognizing employee efforts and success

Avoiding some common pitfalls of delegating

Accountable Agreements

Making Accountable Requests

When delegating, remember that how you assign work and define expectations cansignificantly impact the outcomes. One way to influence and motivate others to meetexpectations is to ask for things, or make requests, in a way that holds themaccountable to you. As leaders, you need your staff to see themselves as key players inmeeting your departments work objectives and being accountable for the delegatedwork. Asking for the right things in the right way can be a powerful tool for influencingothers to get things done together.

When making requests of others in your agency, you need to ask yourself:

What does making an accountable request mean in our context?

When Im developing objectives and defining an employees assignment, am Imaking an accountable request?

Am I defining how I will hold the employee and myself accountable during thecourse of the delegated task or project?


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Steps to Making Accountable Requests

Step Action Approach

1 Assess the person and the

situation.

Is this the right person, time, place?

2 Define the result you want toachieve.

Do I know what I really want? Am I clear about myintentions and outcomes? The benefits and costs? Am

I ready to make my request in a clear and honest

way?

3 Ask for what you want. Have I defined expectations and measurable

outcomes? Have I helped create conditions andexpectations for success? Are we prepared for non-

performance?

4 Invite a commitment. Do we have clear agreements? Has my staff engaged

me in the agreements?

It is very difficult to find closure and resolution to a situation if there isnt a clearagreement. Good agreements provide direction when there is a dispute aboutsomething. Good agreements also help to build trust.

Making agreements with others is the basis for accountability because they make theconnection between ourintentions and ouractions.


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E x e r c i s e M a k i n g A c c o u n t a b l e R e q u e s t s

Instructions:

1. Decide on a request that you need to make of one of your staff members todelegate a task or project to them.

2. Use the steps for making accountable requests and practice making the requestwith peers.

3. Keep working through the process until you are sure you have arrived at a clearaccountable request.

4. Be prepared to provide a debrief of your discussion with the full group.


1 Assess the

person and thesituation.

I am going to delegate a task to:

The reason this is the right person, time, place is:

2 Define theresult you

want to

achieve.

What are my expectations about outcomes?

How will we know when we are done/successful?

What will we do if there are problems/issues and the task cannot becompleted?


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3 Ask for whatyou want.

What is the task?

What are my responsibilities? How will I support success?

4 Invite a

commitment.

Ask for questions or clarification needed.

Invite the person to commit to the outcome. I will ask by saying:


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Coaching for Delegation Success

Effective managers possess good coaching skills and focus on cooperation and

facilitation of employee development. Coaching involves creating a comfortable

environment in which managers and employees can focus on giving and receiving

feedback and creating action plans for developing beyond the current level of

competency and performance. The process of delegating work provides managers

many opportunities to coach employees through new learning and successful

outcomes.

Effective CommunicationManaging an employee during the delegation process requires clear and consistent

communication. Specifically, remember to:

Spend time developing an accountable agreement about the work that will be

done, expected outcomes and required deadlines. Also discuss preferred

methods of reporting progress or other check-ins.

Actively listen to your employees concerns and provide them the ability to ask

questions.

Giving Feedback

Feedback is useful and often invaluable information that tells people how theyre

doing and inspires people to act.The purpose of giving feedback is to help

employees continually improve their performance. How well do you use feedback to

help employees perform at their best? Giving feedback is a way of helping employees to

consider changing their behavior. Feedback is most effective when used as part of a

frequent, ongoing dialogue between you and those you manage.

The Dos of Feedback

Actively demonstrate how things can be done in alternative ways.

Follow up with employees to see how they are progressing. Build milestones orcheckpoints into the schedule of any program.

Give employees a context in which to think about a situation. Use analogies andmetaphors to explain what you mean.


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Offer new insights into old challenges or issues.

Show support and appreciation when employees do things differently and showimprovement. Help employees focus and build on their successes.

Provide concrete and specific examples. Use a straight-talk approach.

Recognize and celebrate individual and team successes when they occur.

The Donts of Feedback

Avoid jargon, descriptions that are pompous or vague, and judgmental language,which puts employees on the defensive.

Avoid giving destructive feedback or comments.

Avoid trying to build a case by linking one particular situation to other situations.

Avoid speculating on motives. Instead, check your assumptions.

Giving Recognition

When delegating, dont forget to celebrate an employees success. If they completed atask or project within the specified outcomes and timeline, acknowledging this goes a

long way towards encouraging continued successful behaviors and actions.Additionally, simple rewards (thank you notes/emails, recognition during team meetings,etc.) can have a big impact on employee morale and ensuring employees feel like theyare contributing to the team and organizational goals and mission.


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Avoiding Unsuccessful Delegation

Remember, an unsuccessful end to delegated work usually means the manager orsupervisor did not properly choose what to delegate, when and to whom, or did noteffectively communicate with the employee somewhere along the way. To help ensurethe end product you expect, be sure to avoid:

Over DelegatingGoing back to what delegation ISNT, avoid merely dumping a list of tasks on a teammember. Delegate one project or task at a time, particularly if you are newly delegatingto someone on your team.

Not Defining SuccessRemember that what may seem easy or routine to you may be complicated andconfusing to someone doing the task for the first time. Make sure to plan the appropriateamount of time for instructions and make sure your accountable agreement includes aclear definition of what it means to have a successful end to the delegated work.

Unclear DeadlinesA sure fire way to not have your delegated work completed is to not specify an end dateor time period for the work. When the employee is prioritizing their work, the taskswithout a due date are sure to end up at the end of the list.

Limited Follow-UpDont wait until the expected end of the project or task to check in with the person towhom youve delegated work. Ongoing communication will help your employee seekclarity on any confusion and make corrections in approach before the end of the project.


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Appendix A

Additional Delegation Tools


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Appendix B

Post Workshop Evaluation


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