Do you know “Upward Delegation”?

Managers (a few I believe) find themselves extremely busy sorting out things for their team members, Is it the same case with you?

If Yes, then the concept of Upward Delegation needs to be understood at first place!!

Upward delegation is a situation where?a task that was delegated to a team member comes back to the team manager? – and she/he completes it. Funny Right!! however this happens even with some of the industry’s “je ne sais quoi”

Why it happens & how to solve are both complimentary to each other, let’s understand quickly.

Micro-Manage Vs. Belief in team

I carry a strong opinion that people micro-manage as they are not confident on their own team members. Its fine to train/coach for a while however staying leeched to your team & their mundane tasks will certainly lead to things getting back to you.

• For Example : As a marketing manager my team works with more than 300 unique vendors, where 5-10 are key contributors. Let's assume if I start reviewing agency performance on a weekly basis then 2 things will certainly happen :

1. My team will have reduced control over the agency & even Agency folks will come directly to me for Non-value-adding matters. (My team will certainly say “Bhai tu hi dhekhle / Bro, you handle yourself ”)
2. Team members will start banking on me to get into situational problem-solving rather than they evaluate root-cause > find possible solutions > come to me with their best option for my consent Or may be at times just notify me that they are taking one of the solutions forward.

Scrutinize to Excellence Vs. Learning Progression

Many of the managers get to the sciatic nerve of excellence, one must understand that there is always a learning progression and more importantly to execute big one must always act in smaller portions.

• For example, if a manager in most cases alters the presentation flow/content that the team prepares enthusiastically?working long-hours, then team members will start putting across Half-baked items back & across leading to the manager ending-up doing all the stuff by himself.

Briefing Vs. Outcome Projection.

I have even seen managers write “FYI & NA”, many of you would relate to this pun. Briefing with outcome projection is an art where background, current context, resources, challenges, & even in certain cases execution cues need to be stated along with the expected outcome.

• For Example : A simple meeting to be organized Vs. meeting to be organized to win back the confidence of a 20-year-old partner who has recently been approached by an entrant competition with higher margins & so on…. ending with the expected outcome from the meeting. Now this requires some meeting preperation!!

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