Among us... isn't that the feeling? That delegating means "extra work"?
To begin to banish this, the first thing is to make a good diagnosis of the situation by answering some questions:
- Are you swamped with work while those around you have free time?
- Are you doing almost the same things you did before becoming a boss?
- Do your collaborators turn to you every time a decision needs to be made?
If most of the answers are yes, then you are delegating little.
“Shared competencies”
You and your colleagues likely have some competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) in common. This is even more common when you became a manager by rising within the same area or department rather than coming from elsewhere.
If we graph it, it would be like this:
Now that this is clear, it's possible to visualize the tasks we're still performing that fall within the set of common competencies. The key is to be able to identify complete processes rather than specific tasks, as this will generate greater engagement while avoiding the need to constantly mediate between them.
What are the things we should never/can never delegate?
- Performance management and feedback.
- Decisions about promotions or dismissals.
- Tasks that someone else has delegated to you.
This first part of the delegating process requires some dedication. However, the benefits of doing it right will quickly become apparent.
As always, I want to invite you to think and to do so I propose to answer some questions:
- What are the skills shared by your team?
- Why would it be a good idea in your case to delegate entire processes and not specific tasks?
- How would you handle the delegation of unpleasant tasks?
For reflection, I'll help you with a quote from Juvenal (a Roman poet): "To trust everyone is foolish; but to trust no one is foolish."
We keep thinking,
Lic. Viviana Liptzis
