Turning Delegation Dreams into Reality

All right, Happy Wednesday, everyone. And I want to talk a little bit today about the dream of delegation. So I wrote an article in Alaska Business magazine about turning delegation dreams into reality, because delegation can seem like a dream to some others. Doing the work, you having time for your life and all you want to do. Happy employees. And it's so often people will say, oh, it's just. Just delegate more. It's easy. And that's partly why I wrote an article about it. I've posted about it, and I want to record some of the highlights about that article and go here on LinkedIn Live and just talk a little bit about the person, the process, and problems with delegation. So let's dive in. Person I'm talking about here is actually you, the delegator. Now, in flying, the FAA has this idea of aeronautical decision making, and they've identified hazardous attitudes that pilots develop. So hazardous attitude would be something like anti authority. And pilots might think in their head they'll say, well, you know, they'll get some instructions from the ATC and they'll say, well, you can't tell me what to do or I'll show them. And those are what's called hazardous attitudes. And so the FAA gives some antidote phrases. So instead, when you hear yourself saying, you can't tell me, an antidote phrase would be something like, well, they're usually right, or it could happen to me. Now, we have our own hazardous attitudes when it comes to delegating. And some of those would be, here's some of the things you might have heard yourself saying. It'll be faster if I do it myself. They aren't ready to take that on yet. This is a core part of my job. What am I going to do if I don't do this? I need to be available for any issues. So when you sense those hazardous attitudes with delegation, you can create your own antidote phrase. So example would be, yes, it is faster if I do it myself, but investing time now will give me more time later. Or no, they can't do it as well as I can, but they can do it well enough. Or, yes, this is part of my core job, but I want to grow and I need to make space somewhere. Yes, they will make mistakes, and people learn best through experience. So you can create your own list of antidote phrases to common hazardous attitudes you have about delegating. So that's why I start with person, because you are the most important person. But let's talk a little bit now about the process. Most people, when they think about Delegating, they think about what can I delegate? What do I enjoy doing? What don't I enjoy doing? Then they ask, well, how do I go about doing it? So that's the second thing people usually ask. But how do I actually delegate? Do I just tell them to do it? Do I monitor? How do I not do this? How do I not be a micromanager? How am I going to evaluate quality? So these are important questions. But the first question you need to ask when you start thinking about delegation is who, who am I going to delegate to? Or who can I delegate to? And what I encourage people to do is make a list of everyone they could possibly delegate to. So that included direct reports, your manager, people in other departments, vendors, it might even include your customers. And then go through that list and consider each person independently, especially your direct reports. And the people you work with, who do they work well with? Who seems like they could take on more work? What kind of tasks could they take on? Who's ready to advance in their career? This exercise alone is going to open up insights of what step you need to take next. For example, you may identify there's a chunk of responsibility you want to delegate, but you don't have someone who's ready to be delegated to or to give that chunk of responsibility to. Maybe you realize you've got some people that are ready to take on more, and so what you delegate to them actually needs to reflect the development opportunities so they can continue to advance. How you delegate will depend on the who and then the what. So most people, like I say start with what or how, but the order I suggest is you start with who, then what, then how. And in my article which I'll link in the. In the comments to this recording, I talk more about the how. So we won't go into that today, but maybe at a later LinkedIn Live we'll do that. I want to just touch briefly on some of the problems that come up with delegation, because no matter how much pre work you do, there's always going to be some problems. Delegation, sometimes people think it's a task like check it off the list or just an activity we do. But delegation is a process that relies on relationships. And as you go through this process, you're going to be consistently learning and growing as well. So I want to give you just some things to watch out for as you start delegating. First is the problem of delegating too much too quickly. See, if someone fails because you've overwhelmed them with too much responsibility, it's going to hurt their confidence and erode their trust that they're able to respond to the needs of the organization or the needs you put on them. And that can lead to stagnation. And so master delegators, to borrow a term from Elisa cone, is they start slowly and they run experiments with people or conduct many projects to help people grow and learn how to take on more. Now, we all know the danger of micromanaging, and that is a problem with delegating. See, delegating is going to grow the capacity of your team and the competence of your team. And if you micromanage that process, it actually has the opposite effect. So it's a good thing to guard against. It's a good problem to be aware of. So when you start delegating, you want to make sure you've got a clear and desired outcome and you know what support they need to do that work. And when you are going to evaluate results. Now, on the flip side, you can also have the problem of under supporting the work. There's been times when I've delegated work and the employee seems very willing and able to take that work on. And then later on they realize they didn't understand the full scope of what was entailed. Sometimes employees don't know what they don't know. And if you don't check back in with them, you can inadvertently under support the work. So make sure you give them the task and then give them some time to absorb it and check back in with them. Now back. One more problem. Thinking back to the person. One of the hazardous attitudes is just overthinking what to delegate. You might do a lot of planning, but then never move forward on actually doing the delegation activity or work. So if, if you're new and you're just starting delegating, start small practice pairing people to work and do this consistently so you can start building momentum. And you will see that you become more and more strategic in your delegation. Okay, last problem that I see in delegation is not considering others. When you start delegating, sometimes others are going to interpret that delegation differently than you imagine. People may see you delegating to somebody, interpret that as a projecting a promotion or some other imminent change in the organization. So some of your delegation initiatives are going to require a greater level of communication with maybe a larger team. And if you don't consider that, you may find that you have unanticipated consequences. All right. Delegation dreams. I call it that because becoming a master delegator can truly accelerate your career trajectory. And it can empower those around you and help develop those around you. And it can seem like a dream, but it doesn't have to be. It can actually be your reality. Go ahead and read my article. If you want to talk more about delegation, I offer a free management strategy call. You Simply go to shiftfocus.com strategy call. You can select a time that's convenient for you and we can hop on a call to talk more about this and developing your management team. Have a great rest of your week and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks.