5 Steps to Delegate Effectively

SHIFT FROM DOING TO LEADING

Effective delegation requires letting go of control and it starts with a big mindset shift.  Don’t stretch your own limits, stretch the limits of your team.  Shift your mindset from doing to leading others.  From generating an outcome yourself to helping others achieve the same outcome.  From practicing the skills that got you here to investing in building the same skills in others so that they can do it too. Build fault tolerance in your mind and attitude.

MAP RIGHT PROBLEMS TO RIGHT PEOPLE

Picking the right person is the crucial part of getting the job done well.  It’s not always the person who can do it best.  You need to ask yourself – who needs this opportunity right now?  Who needs to practice these skills?  Who might seem interested to take on this challenge?  Who actually ha the bandwidth? Once you are able to identify the parts that only you can do, identify ways to delegate t6he rest.  Map people to different areas based on their strengths, the opportunities they need or the skills they have been looking to practice.

DELEGATE PROBLEMS, NOT SOLUTIONS

Managers fail to delegate effectively when they pass on opportunity but refuse to give the autonomy that goes with it.  They share the “what” but hold on to the “how”.  To delegate effectively, focus on the results and not the method. Think in terms of the final outcomes you desire and not the specific tasks someone needs to do to achieve it.  When you define the outcome clearly, but empower others to implement their own solutions, they aren’t restricted to one way of doing things.  Giving people a choice of method also makes them feel responsible for the results.

DELEGATE, DON’T ABDICATE

Empowerment does not mean boundary less freedom.  You cannot be too hands off and expect people to figure everything out on their own.  People need support to feel empowered.  Leaving them to struggle and figure everything out on their own leads to frustration, adds to confusion and lack of support can make them feel helpless.  They need your support along the way.  Involved too much? You run the risk of micromanagment. Involved too little? It can make you miss those critical moments when your support or advice could have made a difference. The magic, is in the balance.

INCORPORATE FEEDBACK LOOP

The only way to know where you stand and what you can do to improve is to incorporate feedback from the process.  Spend some review time with your team: Did they understand the problem clearly? Were they empowered to solve it?  Did they get the context and support required to solve it effectively?  What were they missing?  What can be done better?  What’s going well and how can it be improved?  What should you absolutely stop doing?  What should you start doing to make delegation more effective? What part of delegation doesn’t work and needs a new strategy to make it more effective?

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