Delegate Responsibilities, Not Tasks
First rule of management: delegate. Easier said than done.
For most of us (both experienced old managers and freshly minted ones) the general rule is that we tend to delegate tasks. It’s the exception—or maybe better stated, the exceptional—manager that delegates responsibility.
Delegating tasks is (admittedly) easier. There’s always work lying around that needs doing, and when a few steps along the pathway to accomplishing a goal can be handed off to a trusted colleague, managers jump on the opportunity. In that moment it’s far harder to carefully think through the total requirement and to delegate the entire responsibility for a project or outcome to a subordinate.
Yet, giving your team members their own initiatives to spearhead energizes them to bring their best effort to the task at hand, produces greater employee satisfaction and (most importantly) grooms your team members for future managerial positions.
And, as if these benefits weren’t enough, by delegating broader responsibilities instead of constantly dealing with the back and forth of task delegation, you also free up more of your own valuable time.
But before you can experience these benefits, you first need to identify your existing delegation tendencies…
Get started by just watching yourself
The first step in the journey toward delegating responsibility in place of tasks comes when you start to realize how little responsibility you actually delegate today.
For the next 30 days or so- keep a delegation log, a simple list of what you ask each person on your team to do. At the end of the 30 days, review the list and mark each item as either “T” (for task) of “R” (for responsibility).
Why review at the end of the 30 days and not each day?
Because, in the moment, you are likely to believe each task you assign truly is a responsibility. But with a bit of hindsight and a list of all the other items delegated, you will see things a bit differently.
Most people notice that when they delegate a responsibility, the issue delegated does not show up on the list more than once. However, when all that is delegated is a task, the issue (in one form or another) shows up several more times as it advances toward full completion.
Where do you want to direct your attention- to continuously reiterate every little step on the path to project completion, or to allocate the minimum personal resources required to produce real forward motion towards your outcomes?
