The Secret to Delegation
Delegate! is a one-word instruction that sounds simple; to hand over a job currently on your to-do list to someone else. But if you treat delegation as a briefing task you’ll only end up digging yourself deeper into the “I can do this better (faster) myself” hole.
Successful delegation is critical to growing your business. Whether you’re onboarding new team members or handing off part of your role.
So how do you do it effectively?
Successful delegation is critical to growing your business - so how do you do it effectively?
If you don’t trust your team, are frustrated with colleagues, feel overwhelmed with work and are not making time to think strategically about your business, chances are you’re not delegating effectively.
So, how do you delegate successfully?
You’re short on time, so let’s get to the punchline. The secret to delegation is trust - and trust is a two way street.
But the secret of great delegation is that those who do it well build great businesses. See if you can you work out why by the end of this article.
Founder Tips for Delegation
1. The secret to delegation is trust.
2. Each person you delegate to will require a different approach.
3. Prepare to delegate before you need to.
4. Delegation takes practice.
The process of winning and awarding trust
The first step to successfully delegating work is to overcome your resistance to delegating. Perhaps you’ve tried and it didn’t go well. Trust in your team has been eroded. You’ve started to expect them to fail. You’ve started believing it’s going to be quicker and better to do it yourself. This may be true, but your time is finite and you have a business to grow.
The good news is – you’re not alone. Others have been in your shoes, got great at delegating and got (some of) their time back.
A case study
A client came to me for help implementing her business plan. To achieve her goals she needed to be doing less of ‘the work’, take more of an oversight role and focus on business development.
She had 8 team members and felt she could trust some more than others with client work. We needed to work out why in order to work out how she could hand off more work.
There was only one senior team member she felt she could trust to own and run a client project. She knew she’d be kept in the loop and consulted when needed.
Another senior team member she didn’t trust to simply respond to a client email in the required timeframe. They were expecting a promotion but were instead on track for performance management.
A junior team member wanted more autonomy and she wasn’t giving it to them.
Another team member she didn’t often think to involve in client work - she didn’t know them well - but there was potential to engage and develop them further.
The work we did together
I invited her to plot the team along a line where at one end she trusted them with very little - she was checking the work they did every step of the way. At the other end she felt confident to hand over entire client accounts to them.
Once she’d plotted the team on this continuum I invited her to consider why she’d placed the team members where she had along the line. What prompted her to place one a little further along or behind another? Were there differences in the types of work she trusted them with? How had they earned that trust?
What she discovered
She recognised that there were ‘gates’ along the line that team members passed through. For her, these ‘gates’ were types of client work she was happy for them to do unsupervised.
As we talked through how they ‘passed’ these gates she realised she was looking for evidence of five competencies:
1. They were following a fit-for-purpose process to deliver the piece of work.
2. Expectations such as response and turnaround times were understood.
3. They had the technical competence to deliver the work.
4. They understood the client’s needs and were communicating effectively.
5. They knew when to check-in with her and when to escalate to her.
By evidencing these competencies they had won her trust to work independently and take on more responsibility.
What this enabled
With this framework of gates and competencies she was able to communicate her expectations to team members and motivate them by showing them what they are working towards (the gates) and how to get there (the competencies).
Having an objective set of criteria gave her confidence to give her high performers more autonomy and manage her poor performers more efficiently – freeing up her time.
It enabled her to justify to herself and explain to others why some team members were progressing faster than others, independent of their ‘seniority’.
For the senior team member she didn’t feel she could trust, she was able to provide them with a set of competencies they needed to evidence to be awarded that trust.
For the junior team member wanting greater autonomy, she realised she’d been holding them back for no good reason. They’d evidenced the competencies and earned the opportunity to be awarded more responsibility and more challenging work.
Applying it to your work
You don’t need to have a team of 8 to do this exercise. You can do it for an individual employee or a team of contractors. If you’re not sure where to start, a business coach can help you tailor an approach for your team and your business.
A personalised approach
When starting to delegate to a team member you’re starting to build trust and a relationship with them. Good delegation can build a team member’s confidence and their trust in you to be supportive and fair.
Taking the view that your team are competent will enable you to delegate more quickly and empower the person you’re delegating to. For example, asking how they’d go about completing the work rather than telling them step-by-step how you want them to approach it.
Prompt them with questions relating to each of the five competencies above to give you confidence to let them get on with the task and give them the confidence to take responsibility. Equally, let them know our expectations against each of the competencies and ask what they need from you.
It is as important for them to trust that you’ll provide them with the support they require and respond fairly if they don’t get it ‘right’ as it is for you to trust them with the work.
In the example given, my client recognised that different people and different types of client work required different approaches to build these competencies.
For some team members you may need to show and tell them the first time they do a piece of work. The next time you may need to review their work at each step. Then only before it goes to the client. After that, simply being cc’ed on the final deliverable may be enough.
To successfully hand off responsibility to a team member it must be done at a pace that feels safe for you both.
Delegate before you need to
Another realisation my client had is that she tended to delegate to the same few team members she really trusted. Senior team members who were already at capacity.
This was because the work she most needed to delegate were urgent tasks that weren’t important enough for her to do herself.
She recognised that other team members could probably do the work but she didn’t know them well or have a good working relationship with them. She wasn’t giving the right work to the right people and utilising her team effectively.
To expand the pool of team members she could delegate to when under pressure she needed to start getting to know them.
She started by delegating non-urgent work to them, gauging their level of competency and giving them an opportunity to learn how she works and her expectations - building a relationship that would endure a quick handover of urgent work in the future.
Delegation takes practice
Delegation is a skill that requires practice, reflection and patience to master. There will be a learning process with each new person you work with and you won’t always get it right.
Learning to delegate is also an exercise in letting go of:
The idea of getting 100% of your time back. Delegation done well takes time, but that 10% you get back on each task adds up.
The idea that you can ever truly had off responsibility. Delegation isn’t abdication – you’re still responsible for the work that’s being done when someone else is doing it.
How work is done. No one will deliver a piece of work exactly the way you would have done it. Perhaps it will be better! - or you’ll learn to accept work that is ‘good enough’ in exchange for your time back. Perfect is the enemy of done.
Have you worked out why?
Have you worked out why people who are great at delegating build great businesses?
They recognise that delegating isn’t about making their lives easier, it’s about being a great leader and people manager.
When you delegate successfully to your team, you develop their confidence and competence. Enabling them to perform at a higher level, boosting business performance.
The way you build trust and relationships with your team, how you communicate with them and support and develop them shapes your company culture. When people are clear on what is expected of them and feel safe to have a go, to ask for help and make mistakes they’ll perform at their best.
When team members are clear on what success looks like in their role - what the next stage of development is for them to take on more complex work or more responsibility, to secure a promotion or pay rise - it helps to motivate them. Having this clearly mapped out provides transparency, which builds trust.
You are a role-model for the future leaders within your business. As the business grows your direct reports will have their own direct reports. You’re teaching them to delegate to their future team members and setting your team and your business up for success.
Delegation done well
- Reduces stress
- Motivates and develops employees
- Supports diversity and inclusion
- Sets team and company culture
- Enables succession planning
What are you taking from this article?
If you feel resistance to delegating, you’re normal! Emotional barriers are the #1 reason people don’t delegate.
Business coaching can help you work through those psychological blocks and identify an approach to delegation that works for you and your business. Book a no obligation Chemistry Call to find out more.
Referenced for this article:
Podcast ‘ Delegation Masterclass’ by Barnaby Lashbrooke, author of The Hard Work Myth)