Delegation on my mind
“More effective delegation” is a goal of almost every single participant in the Middle Management training programs I lead. Sometimes they want to learn how to get their boss to delegate better; they almost always want to learn how to delegate better themselves.
But what they really want, when we dig into a little bit, is to find somebody else to do some of the massive amounts of work they find on their plates. They want to dispose of tasks, rather than delegate them.
Disposing of tasks (or dumping and running) – has a wonderful short-term payoff, but almost always results in more work and pain in the end. And even if dumping-and-running worked, there just aren’t that many tasks we can run away from and still do our jobs. I know – I’ve been figuring out which tasks in my one-person business I can delegate or outsource. Running away is just not an option. If they are not done well enough, they land back on my lap.
Which brings me to another way to look at this topic. What if we think about delegating as partnering? In a partnership, we each clarify what our roles and contributions will be, and agree to work together, with this shared set of expectations, to accomplish a clear common goal. Lofty words. How might that look in practice?
Let’s say a clinical supervisor wants to delegate some documentation review to a senior clinician who is being groomed for promotion. In the world of partnerships, this might involve the following steps:
- A conversation about the goals of the task, and the goals of each participant. Included would be a shared assessment of the strengths of each relative to the task.
- A plan (yes, that four letter word!) to teach and transition some of the documentation review. This plan is likely to move from shared responsibility to increasingly independent responsibility.
- A measurement methodology, hopefully simple and effective, that tells both parties how close they are to achieving their individual and joint goals.
Clarity about what is being delegated is important in both the conversation and resulting “partnership contract.” Is it the doing of a task? Or are we delegating ownership of a set of responsibilities? If we are delegating a specific task, we are more likely to also specify the processes, tools, and timeframes for doing that task. That becomes part of the partnership agreement: “Here is the task and here is how it needs to be done.”
If on the other hand, we are delegating ownership of an outcome or responsibility, we need to be clear about what the outcome needs to be, including any timeframes, but the processes are in the domain of the delegatee.
“We need to have a process that results in at least monthly communication with the Department of Child Welfare about our shared clients. It needs to include problem resolution strategies and a way to quantifiably and qualitatively report on the results of our collaboration.”
The results and outcomes are agreed upon in the contract, but the “how” is left to the new owner.
It also helps to delegate the “whole” set of tasks when we want the delegatee to own the outcomes. If we split an accountability into too many small chunks, we may end up spending more time coordinating (and being perceived as micromanaging) than we have gained by delegating. We want to delegate the coordination of the tasks as well as the tasks.
The hardest part of delegating “ownership” is letting go of “how I would do it” and of the need for it to be “perfect.” Gaining some clarity between all parties as to the type of delegation (task/ownership) and viewing it as a partnership can help.
Lee Ann Slayton
President, Slayton Consulting, LLC
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