Delegating Tasks

“No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit” – Andrew Carnegie

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn how to delegate effectively.
2. Familiarize yourself with the "levels of Delegation".
3. Learn some tips and best practices.
4. Understand how to incorporate delegating into succession planning and performance management.

What is Delegation?

Delegation is the assignment of responsibility for a defined task to a subordinate during a fixed timeframe. Managing delegations, and providing the appropriate coaching, is a fundamental leadership skill. The leader who is delegating assignments always remains fully accountable for the outcome and the possible aftermath. The subordinate whom the delegation is made to is responsible to complete the task. There is never abdication of accountability.

A delegated assignment needs to be vetted out to an appropriate depth depending upon the scope and experience of the delegate. There is both “too much checking” and there is not enough checking. It needs to be a balance depending upon the “level of delegation” that has been granted. This empowers a subordinate to make decisions and still have the safety net and benefit of your experience. These steps are what make delegation assignments such a valuable learning tool. Effective delegation with coaching helps build skill sets and motivates people. This methodology of delegation, review, and coaching is a powerful tool in professional development and should have a prominent position in succession planning.

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell then what to do and let them surprise you with the results” - General Patton

Advantages to delegating work assignments:

1. Frees up time for the supervisor to accomplish other work that might not be suitable to assign to anyone else. Delegation lets you manage by exception. This is a powerful time management tool that you can use to work more efficiently with other people.
2. Boosts the confidence of the employee - it provides some real life "I can". Often this can be the jump-start someone needs to break out of the doldrums.
3. Improved team engagement - this builds their ownership and over time creates an internal locus of control.
4. Gives the team member a chance to experience the work expectations of a higher position in the organization. They can ask themselves is it what I might want for my career? Alternatively, is it uncomfortable? This often provides insight that their line managers job is not for me - or that they love it!
5. Assistance from subordinates in completing tasks the manager simply would not have time for otherwise.

 "The secret of getting ahead is getting started." - Mark Twain

Getting Started

Delegating is actually an art – one that I have learned over the years. There were also times when I delegated and ended up doing the task myself! Everyone will experience elements of both. Experience has taught me a few rules that have yielded results.

1. Know your tasks. As a manager, you have many activities going on every day. Identify your tasks in the beginning of the week and find out those tasks that your people can learn from. There are tasks that are not critical, easily understandable, do not require high level skills. If you do have tasks like this then know that, you can always delegate those. An example would be company roll and attendance checking or minutes of the meetings. For the first item: this would require check back with whomever you assign the task to. This will ensure that you are both on the same page. 
2. Know your people. Identify people’s skillsets. A skills inventory is not an effective inventory if it is not updated regularly. Knowing your people means not only from word of mouth but also by observation. People may claim to know such and such for fear of saying “no”. Other people think saying no to a task is a career limiting move. Make sure to give everyone a chance to work on a particular task. The field should be level enough that your people will not feel like they have been left out. You cannot assign John the same task he is already too good at – give him something challenging. If you staff is struggling with focus on the job then make him a minute taker. Remember – engaging people is the best way for them to improve.
3.  Set expectations of intended results. At the onset of a task, you will have to identify the objective and communicate this to the assigned person. Is this particular task exploratory? Does it have enough room for your staff to find out ways and means without micro-managing him or her from the start to the beginning? Ask your staff how they want to complete the given task. Are the instructions clear? You should also communicate “why” you selected them for the task. Always stay positive and let them know that you trust they will complete the task because they are great at it – or that it is for their own practice. 
4. Observe and Check back. Give ample time for your staff to learn the ropes on how to complete the project but do not forget to observe as well. An example would be after giving the task of rolling out new company policies for your people, you can also do a sit in and observe while they are rolling out the updated. You can also catch the questions when your staff was not prepared to answer them. Observe measurable outcomes. You can also ask how long it took your staff to complete the task the first time they did it and what challenges did they encounter. You can help them figure out how to overcome those challenges. Remember, do not spoon feed. Just like a child, always give them room to explore on their own. That is how they will truly learn and how you can leave a lasting impression.
5. Provide effective feedback including constructive criticism and coaching on the areas of skill and the quality of product. The tasks you delegate to your people are preparation for them to take on bigger and more complicated tasks. In short – this is part of your succession planning. You are training them on specific elements of the position responsibilities they will grow into. So it is both a training and a testing activity in light of succession planning and performance management as well. Always let your people know what skill can be gained by doing a task you delegate to them. Let them know what they need to work on and how they can improve and then assign the same task. If there are improvements – always let them know. Always be transparent with them but be cautious on how your feedback is communicated. 
6. Repeat. Repeat this process for teaching new skills and pushing your people’s performance higher. You do not have to do everything – you have to share the workload and let other people have the fun too!

Delegating as a Performance Management

The goal of every leader should be to duplicate themselves. By duplicating yourself – you will better achieve your team’s goals. Do not forget to share the power too! Letting other people have authority (with boundaries, of course) will allow you to see how their performance impacts the bigger picture, your teams performance, and gain an insight to their genuine leadership style. There will also be times when your staff’s performance may overshadow yours! Yes there are great people out there working under you and do not let this change your mind about delegating – if your staff becomes a stellar performance, remember they owe it (at least in part) to your leadership.

"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit." - Arnold H. Glasow

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Many disgruntled employees complain of their superiors not giving them credit for work they have done and this has ended with either the employee moving on to work in another company OR staying but not wanting to participate in any additional tasks. Look at your team to identify any biases that cause some people’s work or ideas to be overvalued or undervalued. Make sure that the right people are getting the right credit for the right reasons at the right time. It is a best practice to incentivize your team members to acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of others - especially those of the levels below them. Reward those who recognize others - that is the behavior we should be incentivizing.

 “Micromanagement is the destroyer of momentum.” - Miles Anthony Smith

Do Not Micro-manage

Do not micro manage your people when assigning tasks. Remember, once you micro-manage then you have failed in your goal. Your people have to explore the “how” in order for them to learn. When the individual drives the direction of their own work it vests them in the productive outcome and builds momentum for the project as well as subsequent assignments. It is also important to communicate how a certain task impacts the bigger picture.

Levels of Delegation

Often the results of a delegation suffer when the imparted level of authority is misunderstood. Is your direction to assess and report back, assess and complete, or somewhere else in the spectrum? It is worth the time to have some discussion with your reports on how this is done and to clearly define your expectations. Use a model that works for you - but make sure the "level" of delegation is understood.

1. Act. Decide what needs to be done and take care of it, you do not need to get back with me. You got it!
2. Act and Report. Decide what needs to be done and do it. Report back to me and let me know how it went over and what the results looked like.
3. Plan an Act. Size up the situations; let me know your plan, then proceed unless I say not to proceed at this time.
4. Plan and Report. Examine the issues, formulate a plan, do not proceed until we discuss and hash out some of the details. I will have questions and want them addressed before we move forward.
5. Plan the Approach. Identify the issues, propose a plan and a few alternatives, list the pros and cons of each one. I expect that you will recommend one of the paths and pitch it to me but be able to provide reasons for or against the alternatives. You also need to be willing to accept the path that is not your first choice.
6. Gather Facts and Return. Look into the situation, get the facts and report back, I will decide how to proceed. We might move this up to a higher level of delegation depending on what information you return to me with.

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Ernest Hemingway

Top Ten Tips:

No matter how good you are at managing your team and delegating work assignments every leader needs to focus on being better than you were yesterday. Please consider these tips as initial guidance for the new and check points for the veteran to challenge their personal performance against.

1. Focus on enhancing the skill set of the candidate and using the opportunity for coaching and learning.
2. Assignments should be within a reasonable stretch – but never impossible.
3. Make a regular exercise of sitting with the individual and writing out all of the activities they are engaged with - can we cut some of them or even delegate them to a lower level? Can we cut the activity out in total and focus on a great value adding activity?
4. Provide more training? Often we have an employee who is solid on technical grounds but needs help with communication skills, or solid working with people but limited with computers or technology. Perhaps the assignment will reveal a specific skill gap we could address with some focused training.
5. Prepare yourself for the pain of productive (but critical) coaching sessions with your reports. Stretch goals are only as valuable a growth tool as the coaching that must follow. Are you providing adequate follow up?
6. Are you illustrating the magnanimous wisdom to allow team members to learn from their mistakes?
7. Prepare yourself to accept results that are at par - this is in exchange to allow you to focus on the mission critical elements while delegating the less critical.
8. Assign on three principles – is it a task they are familiar with and can learn to perform? does it exercise a skillset they have but need to improve? or can it simply be delegated down a level to allow you to do more critical tasks? This should be considered as a practical aspect of succession planning.
9. Use tasks as part of your succession planning and performance management. Delegation with follow up coaching can be hard work. Often I am told it would be easier to simply do it myself. However, delegation is one of the greatest training tools and can provide insights as to possible career paths for the candidate. Always be patient, provide the follow up, and be sure they know you support them - that's what being a leader is all about.

Key Take Always:

1. Know your tasks and identify them clearly.
2. Know your people and their skillsets.
3. Set expectations of intended results.
4. Appreciate your people.
5. Provide effective feedback, coaching, and use this to inform your training program.
6. Use these assignments to support succession planning and performance management.
7. Make the levels of delegation a clear part of your teams daily language.

Discussion and Activity Questions:

1. Write out all of you weekly activities - cross out the ones someone else would be doing if you were on vacation for two weeks. Delegate out the ones that you crossed off to the person who would do them when you were out.
2. Challenge yourself on the remaining itesm - do they need to be done at all? Cross out the ones your team could live with out (not that you need - that your team actually needs). You might be surprised to learn how much energy you use on activities that are not connected to anything your team actually needs - and if your team does not need it why do you?
3. Prepare a succession planning map – where do you think each person can be in the future? Think about the next small step for each - how you cover an absence or vacation should help guide you in the beginning. The best way to do this is to print out a poster size organization chart and mark up who could step up to higher level positions and who could transfer laterally to the same level positions in order to broaden their experience. Succession is only in part upward - good succession planning is more horizontal growth than upward promotion.
4. What skills will they need in preparation for those positions? Write them out in detail. Include both horizontal and vertical movement.
5. What tasks do you think you can delegate for them to learn those skills? Write those activities down and match them with the list from #4.
6. What is the timeline for your people to gain new skills?
7. Are you delegating and coaching in a rapid enough cadence so that candidates will be ready to move into new positions when they become open?

Further Reading:

Work Less, Do More – Jan Yager

How to Delegate – Robert Heller

Don’t Do. Delegate! – James M. Jenks

 About Tim Crocker

Tim Crocker with employed by SASOL in Westlake, Louisiana as the Utilities and Infrastructure Production Manager. During his career, he has worked on infrastructure development at BASF, Biofuels development with British Petroleum, and utilities management at both Georgia Pacific and Domtar. His areas of expertise are process improvement Lean Implementation, steam and power systems, water treatment, and energy management. Tim received his Bachelors in Chemistry from the University of Portland along with a Major in Philosophy. Later he earned his Master of Science from the Institute of Paper Science in Atlanta, GA. Tim is an active blogger, speaker, and serves on the SWLA Law Center Board of Directors. Tim lives in the Moss Bluff community with his wife, Cathy, and daughter, Yuri. They enjoy gardening, amateur astronomy, cooking, and model rocketry.