How often do we truly take the time to adequately delegate a responsibility?
Delegation is a key skill that leaders and managers require to be successful in their roles.
However, when we as managers want someone to take over a role, portfolio, task etc., we are often short on time.
As a result, we tend to provide the bare minimum of information and guidance to the delegate to get started… and expect that person to “hit the ground running”.
If the person fails to do so, we are disappointed.
We see the delegate struggle. But instead of helping and giving more training, we tend to get impatient and prefer taking back the delegated work or whining about the ineptitude of the person.
We tell our spouse in the evening “I told you so, asking John to take on this role was a big mistake. I’d better continue doing it myself. It costs me less time and the results are much better.”
This way of working creates a lot of waste and frustration in organizations.
So, the question is: how could we improve this situation?
The answer might lie with Stephen Covey’s concept of “stewardship delegation” from his famous book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”.
As Covey defines it, “delegating involves clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment in five areas.”
These five areas are:
1. Desired results. Create a clear mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; on results, not methods. Be patient. Be sure the delegate understands what is being asked to do.
2. Guidelines. Give a few general guidelines that need to be adhered to. Not to impose a certain method, but rather to set some ground rules. This is to avoid the situation that delegates may believe they can do whatever they want as long as they meet the target.
3. Resources. Clarify which resources (team members, budget, technology etc.) the delegate can work with.
4. Accountability. Set a performance target (e.g., KPI) and a specific date when reporting and evaluation will take place.
5. Consequences. Specify what will happen if the results are good or bad, e.g., financial rewards, new assignments.
According to Covey, trust is the most important human motivation. It brings out the best in human beings. But it takes time and patience and requires guidance until people are competent enough to take full ownership of a responsibility.
Therefore, key to delegation is:
1. Make a conscious decision. Do you really want to delegate, knowing that it will take time and patience?
2. If the answer is yes, then dedicate appropriate resources, time and energy.
3. Allow for it to fail and don’t blame the delegate.
4. If it fails, gather lessons learned and try again later.
The above equally applies to outsourcing. If we hire a company to take over some of our work and deliver it as a service to us, whether it is IT outsourcing, BPO, catering or gardening, we also tend to be disappointed and complain.
Some client organizations have started to realize that when outsourcing does not yield the expected results, some element of responsibility lies with themselves. As a result, they have implemented 360 degrees feedback mechanisms to allow service providers to share a point of view on the outsourcing relationship. With this feedback clients obtain valuable insights in how to further optimize their own organization in order to make the outsourcing project a success.
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Notes
The Central Bank of Ireland has confirmed that delegation and outsourcing are to be treated as one and the same [in the context of regulatory compliance]. Source: Deloitte “Delegation and Outsourcing: Two sides of the same coin.”
Further suggested reading on outsourcing and delegation:
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8f15e1_53cbd259bc2d46e984bf3088edada313~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_654,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/8f15e1_53cbd259bc2d46e984bf3088edada313~mv2.jpg)
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