Delegation: Let’s keep it simple.
- Find someone who will accept responsibility for the desired outcome.
- Explain that you do not have the time and/or expertise to design the solution.
- Ask the person to propose an approach which you have some confidence (not certainty) will succeed with the resources agreed to, e.g., hours, budget, tools, deadline, etc.
- Don’t abdicate, delegate: follow-up frequently on progress and impediments to show that you still value the outcome, perhaps using something like my progress report format.
“Give as few orders as possible,” his father Duke Leto had told him… once… long ago. “Once you’ve given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.”
—Dune by Frank Herbert
p. 628 Penguin Publishing Group
Which tasks should you delegate? See this post, 3 Ds of Delegation
Hi Tony,
Yes I recall there were so many times when I was given a new task and my bosses were not interested in how I planned to coordinate and work on the task. I also remember that my bosses were not interested or did not have the technical documentation required for the task. This is especially difficult for computer tasks in an Agile Office environment. If speed and accuracy is so important with word processing, spreadsheets and slides, then why are so many managers so aloof and distant. If the level of detail or deep dive is so important, then why do so many delegatees have other distractions of persistent background conversations throughout the day, as well as the responsibility to multi-task a new assignment with eight or more telephone calls and twenty or more emails each day? In these offices, “know what” is more important than “know how”. Yes accurate and timely task completion is very important in most business offices. But I am amazed that many scope, type, exceptions to rules and summaries are not discussed during tasking. As the actor Jim Varney often said, “Know what I mean . . . ! “, or is the correct punctuation a question mark ?