Topics—Leadership
Delegation
Leaders can build relationships and improve delegation by sharing experiences, and by coaching. This improves the quality of people's work-life, and builds outstanding company performance. Such delegation is a subtle dance.
When Your Voice is Too Loud
When you delegate you want to direct people’s attention to important issues, but you don’t want them to drop what they are doing, and focus on your concerns, at the expense of their regular work. As the CEO of a major corporation commented, only partly in jest, "I can make a passing comment on the 12th floor in the elevator. By the time we get to the ground floor it's already a command, and people are acting on it."
His was the usual top-down corporation where leaders concerns became bureaucratic initiatives and programs, with detailed paperwork and reporting procedures that brought work overload, low morale, and low productivity. You certainly don’t want that. It creates the passivity and lack of responsibility you want to get away from.
Developing the art and skills of delegation requires deftly balancing the
dilemmas of the dance. Are these thoughts familiar?
Manager—"How can I share my ideas without you taking them as prime directives?”
Employee—"How can I accommodate your concerns without abandoning mine? If I don't put your concerns first, you might think I am unresponsive."
Employee—"How can I discuss my problems or try out my not-yet-clearly-formed ideas on you without you judging me as unprepared?"
Manager—"I want to give you my input, but I don't want to take on your problems."
Employee—"I want your input, but I don't want to lose control of problems in my area."
Ideally, you will discuss these, usually unspoken, concerns with your manager or employees. Pick a quiet time, when you are not under pressure to make an immediate decision. I have found that this is an excellent subject for a (management) team discussion, sometimes as part of the more general discussion on the topic, "How do we want to manage ourselves?”
Delegate Using Questions?
When I recently suggested to John, a regional director in Southern California, that he talk directly with his managers about delegation, he hesitated. He felt that he and his managers were not yet ready to share their personal thoughts and experiences in this sensitive area. Instead he chose to expand step one, of the Four-Step Decision Process (see Making Better Decisions) and use it to build a more open, coaching style of management.
John wanted his managers to come to him with their problems and ideas. Using questions, he could keep an open door, not take their problem away, and be sure they included areas he saw as important. John was there for his managers. He was dependable, without creating dependency. These are a few of the many questions John developed:
- “Tell me more about the problem…what's behind that?"
- "Whose problem is it?"
- "Who else is affected by this problem? How could you involve
them?"
- "Do we know what the problem costs us?"
- "What will solving it save? (What is the value added?)"
- "How does this fit with our long-range plans?"
- "What can I do to help you move this along?"
His managers and supervisors loved it. They quickly realized what John was doing, and soon started using questions with each other, and with the first line employees—to everyone’s great satisfaction and benefit.