D is for Delegation
D is for…
Delegation is more than giving unwanted tasks to others, it is a vital art and leadership skill in the age of urgency, efficiency, and speed. More importantly, delegation, when applied properly, can transform organizations from being bogged down by endless tasks and battling bottlenecks to being focused on high-level effectiveness, organization-wide.
Organizations become stuck when key management team members hold on to too many actionable tasks, become barriers, create logjams, and fail to see this as an issue! The outcome of this approach is lower efficiency, frustration within the team, slower delivery, lessened results, and overwork by the ones who are holding too tightly to items they need to let go of.
Delegation is not about offloading tasks you don’t want to do. It certainly may involve shifting tasks that you are not good at to others who may be better at and like the task. It is a deliberate exercise in the recognition and use of the skills of team members. Effective leaders understand that delegation is integral to growth and success. And they know that it is not easy to do!
Delegation is a strategic effort to improve efficiency, empowerment, and ownership throughout. It requires high levels of trust, establishing clear expectations, follow-up and support, provision of resources, and measurement.
I find Gino Wickman of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), and author of the book Traction – Get a Grip on Your Business, among others, has a uniquely helpful perspective. EOS considers delegation to be a two-part process: Delegation, the assignment of tasks to others, and Elevation, the shift of all parties to the place of greater purpose contribution.
When I delegate a task to a team member, I am then able to elevate my focus and efforts to the highest calling of my role – to the place where I am best able to contribute to the greater good of the organization. The individual (s) whom I delegate to, then shift to elevate themselves in their role, making the best use of their unique skills and aptitudes, and so on along the line. It is the ‘elevate’ component that really strikes a chord with me as being the secret sauce of effective delegation!
Why, then, do leaders struggle with letting go and choose to continue to get bogged down by tasks, keeping them firmly ‘in’ the business, when they really need to be working ‘on’ the business? Most of us are so deeply ingrained in the hamster wheel of ‘busy-ness’ that we fail to see what is truly happening, or we simply have not developed the superpower of self-awareness needed to see our way toward increased effectiveness. Understanding the need to delegate begins with looking in the mirror and being brutally honest with how we and our organization are being run.
Beyond that, there are many reasons for choosing to eschew delegation. These include:
Fear of losing control or giving away power.
Fear of failure – perfectionism.
The frontloaded amount of work to train, empower, measure, and build accountability – it is easier and faster to do it myself.
Identity (ego) being wrapped up in our tasks and completion thereof.
Unrealistic belief in our own proficiency when someone on the team can perform the task more effectively and to a higher standard.
Lack of awareness of self, reality, and the state of the team.
Lack of confidence in the team – not having the ‘right people, in the right seats.’
Short-term thinking – “It is faster and easier to do myself than to train someone to do it….”
Not knowing where to begin with the process of delegation.
Delegation is not easy, nor is it natural for most people, including me. We tend to hold on to things tightly, sometimes irrationally, even to those things that we absolutely should let go of. Sometimes, I find a certain comfort in doing specific tasks. When my mind is jumbled up with a pile of unresolved issues, it is very satisfying to do something I understand and that has a clear start and finish. And, hey, it is okay to hold on to things that you are passionate about, that you enjoy, and that fill you up. Just be mindful when this becomes detrimental to the team, to your effectiveness, and the success of the organization.
How, then, are we to determine what tasks you should hold on to and those that should be delegated? I recommend undertaking a simple audit of what each of your key people is doing over a week, and slot each task/responsibility into one of the four quadrants below. From there, light shines, and a short list of key items to delegate can be built. Each of those tasks should then be assigned to someone on the team who will thrive by taking them on and executing them at a high level, keeping in mind that ‘elevate’ is part of the delegation process for all stakeholders – it provides purpose.
Imagine, if you will, a Quadrant with the following sections: I love the version below!
Quadrant 1 (Top Left): Work you LOVE and are GREAT at
Quadrant 2 (Top Right): Work you LIKE and are GOOD at.
Quadrant 3 (Bottom Left): Work you DON’T LIKE, yet are GOOD at (95% of the world)
Quadrant 4 (Bottom Right): Work you DON’T LIKE and are NOT GOOD at
Let’s wrap this up by identifying the key conditions that need to be in place for effective and sustainable delegation to take root. In no order:
Trust – high levels of trust are the foundation.
Accountability – to self, for self, to others, and to our roles.
Clear expectations and desired outcomes– ideally in writing.
Communication – scheduled meeting rhythm, 360-degree feedback
Provision of resources and support – sink or swim is not an effective approach.
Measurement –
Accountability - a sense of ownership of the tasks and results.
A culture of delegation provides nimbleness, adaptability, growth, collaboration, efficiency, alignment, and engagement, and leads to improved results.
In a fast-paced, busy world where urgency often drives the agenda, delegation is an essential leadership skill and definer of organizational culture.
Until next time!
