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Managerial Skills
The Art of
Skillful Delegation
By Gerard M Blair
Delegation is a skill of which we have
all heard - but which few understand. It can be used either as an excuse
for dumping failure onto the shoulders of subordinates, or as a dynamic
tool for motivating and training your team to realize their full
potential.
"I delegate myne auctorite" (Palsgrave 1530)
Everyone knows about delegation. Most managers hear about it in the cradle
as mother talks earnestly to the baby-sitter: "just enjoy the television ...
this is what you do if ... if there is any trouble call me at ..."; people
have been writing about it for nearly half a millennium; yet few actually
understand it.
Delegation underpins a style of management which allows your staff to use
and develop their skills and knowledge to the full potential. Without
delegation, you lose their full value.
As the ancient quotation above suggests, delegation is primarily about
entrusting your authority to others. This means that they can act and
initiate independently; and that they assume responsibility with you for
certain tasks. If something goes wrong, you remain responsible since you are
the manager; the trick is to delegate in such a way that things get done but
do not go (badly) wrong.
Objective
The objective of delegation is to get the job done by someone else. Not just
the simple tasks of reading instructions and turning a lever, but also the
decision making and changes which depend upon new information. With
delegation, your staff have the authority to react to situations without
referring back to you.
If you tell the janitor to empty the bins on Tuesdays and Fridays, the bins
will be emptied on Tuesdays and Fridays. If the bins overflow on Wednesday,
they will be emptied on Friday. If instead you said to empty the bins as
often as necessary, the janitor would decide how often and adapt to special
circumstances. You might suggest a regular schedule (teach the janitor a
little personal time management), but by leaving the decision up to the
janitor you will apply his/her local knowledge to the problem. Consider this
frankly: do you want to be an expert on bin emptying, can you construct an
instruction to cover all possible contingencies? If not, delegate to someone
who gets paid for it.
To enable someone else to do the job for you, you must ensure that:
• they know what you want
• they have the authority to
achieve it
• they know how to do it.
These all depend upon communicating
clearly the nature of the task, the extent of their discretion, and the
sources of relevant information and knowledge.
Information
Such a system can only operate successfully if the decision-makers (your
staff) have full and rapid access to the relevant information. This means
that you must establish a system to enable the flow of information. This
must at least include regular exchanges between your staff so that each is
aware of what the others are doing. It should also include briefings by you
on the information which you have received in your role as manager; since if
you need to know this information to do your job, your staff will need to
know also if they are to do your (delegated) job for you.
One of the main claims being made for computerized information distribution
is that it facilitates the rapid dissemination of information. Some
protagonists even suggest that such systems will instigate changes in
managerial power sharing rather than merely support them: that the "enknowledged"
workforce will rise up, assume control and innovate spontaneously. You may
not believe this vision, but you should understand the premise. If a manager
restricts access to information, then only he/she is able to make decisions
which rely upon that information; once that access is opened to many others,
they too can make decisions - and challenge those of the manager according
to additional criteria. The manager who fears this challenge will never
delegate effectively; the manager who recognizes that the staff may have
additional experience and knowledge (and so may enhance the decision-making
process) will welcome their input; delegation ensures that the staff will
practise decision-making and will feel that their views are welcome.
Effective control
 One of the main phobias about delegation is that by giving others
authority, a manager loses control. This need not be the case. If you train
your staff to apply the same criteria as you would yourself (by example and
full explanations) then they will be exercising your control on you behalf.
And since they will witness many more situations over which control may be
exercised (you can't be in several places at once) then that control is
exercised more diversely and more rapidly than you could exercise it by
yourself. In engineering terms: if maintaining control is truly your
concern, then you should distribute the control mechanisms to enable
parallel and autonomous processing.
Staggered Development
To understand delegation, you really have to think about people.
Delegation cannot be viewed as an abstract technique, it depends upon
individuals and individual needs. Let us take a lowly member of staff who
has little or no knowledge about the job which needs to be done.
Do you say: "Jimmy, I want a draft tender for contract of the new Hydro
Powerstation on my desk by Friday"? No. Do you say: "Jimmy, Jennifer used to
do the tenders for me. Spend about an hour with her going over how she did
them and try compiling one for the new Hydro Powerstation. She will help you
for this one, but do come to me if she is busy with a client. I want a draft
by Friday so that I can look over it with you"? Possibly.
The key is to delegate gradually. If you present someone with a task which
is daunting, one with which he/she does not feel able to cope, then the task
will not be done and your staff will be severely demotivated. Instead you
should build-up gradually; first a small task leading to a little
development, then another small task which builds upon the first; when that
is achieved, add another stage; and so on. This is the difference between
asking people to scale a sheer wall, and providing them with a staircase.
Each task delegated should have enough complexity to stretch that member of
staff - but only a little.
Jimmy needs to feel confident. He needs to believe that he will actually be
able to achieve the task which has been given to him. This means that either
he must have the sufficient knowledge, or he must know where to get it or
where to get help. So, you must enable access to the necessary knowledge. If
you hold that knowledge, make sure that Jimmy feels able to come to you; if
someone else holds the knowledge, make sure that they are prepared for Jimmy
to come to them. Only if Jimmy is sure that support is available will he
feel confident enough to undertake a new job.
You need to feel confident in Jimmy: this means keeping an eye on him. It
would be fatal to cast Jimmy adrift and expect him to make it to the shore:
keep an eye on him, and a lifebelt handy. It is also a mistake to keep
wandering up to Jimmy at odd moments and asking for progress reports: he
will soon feel persecuted. Instead you must agree beforehand how often and
when you actually need information and decide the reporting schedule at the
onset. Jimmy will then expect these encounters and even feel encouraged by
your continuing support; you will be able to check upon progress and even
spur it on a little.
When you do talk to Jimmy about the project, you should avoid making
decisions of which Jimmy is capable himself. The whole idea is for Jimmy to
learn to take over and so he must be encouraged to do so. Of course, with
you there to check his decisions, Jimmy will feel freer to do so. If Jimmy
is wrong - tell him, and explain very carefully why. If Jimmy is nearly
right - congratulate him, and suggest possible modifications; but, of
course, leave Jimmy to decide. Finally, unless your solution has significant
merits over Jimmy's, take his: it costs you little, yet rewards him much.
Constrained Availability
There is a danger with "open access" that you become too involved with the
task you had hoped to delegate. One successful strategy to avoid this is to
formalize the manner in which these conversation take place. One formalism
is to allow only fixed, regular encounters (except for emergencies) so that
Jimmy has to think about issues and questions before raising them; you might
even insist that he draw-up an agenda. A second formalism is to refuse to
make a decision unless Jimmy has provided you with a clear statement of
alternatives, pros and cons, and his recommendation. This is my
favourite. It allows Jimmy to rehearse the full authority of decision making
while secure in the knowledge that you will be there to check the outcome.
Further, the insistence upon evaluation of alternatives promotes good
decision making practices. If Jimmy is right, then Jimmy's confidence
increases - if you disagree with Jimmy, he learns something new (provided
you explain your criteria) and so his knowledge increases. Which ever way,
he benefits; and the analysis is provided for you.
Outcomes and Failure
Let us consider your undoubtedly high standards. When you delegate a job, it
does not have to be done as well as you could do it (given time), but only
as well as necessary: never judge the outcome by what you expect you would
do (it is difficult to be objective about that), but rather by fitness for
purpose. When you delegate a task, agree then upon the criteria and
standards by which the outcome will be judged.
You must enable failure. With appropriate monitoring, you should be able to
catch mistakes before they are catastrophic; if not, then the failure is
yours. You are the manager, you decided that Jimmy could cope, you gave him
enough rope to hang himself, you are at fault. Now that that is cleared up,
let us return to Jimmy. Suppose Jimmy gets something wrong; what do you want
to happen?
Firstly, you want it fixed. Since Jimmy made the mistake, it is likely that
he will need some input to develop a solution: so Jimmy must feel safe in
approaching you with the problem. Thus you must deal primarily with the
solution rather than the cause (look forward, not backwards). The most
desirable outcome is that Jimmy provides the solution.
Once that is dealt with, you can analyse the cause. Do not fudge the issue;
if Jimmy did something wrong say so, but only is very specific terms. Avoid
general attacks on his parents: "were you born this stupid?", and look to
the actual event or circumstance which led to the error: "you did not take
account of X in your decision". Your objectives are to ensure that Jimmy:
-
understands the problem
- feels
confident enough to resume
- implements
some procedure to prevent recurrence.
The safest ethos to cultivate is
one where Jimmy actually looks for and anticipates mistakes. If you wish to
promote such behaviour, you should always praise Jimmy for his prompt and
wise action in spotting and dealing with the errors rather that castigate
him for causing them. Here the emphasis is placed upon
checking/testing/monitoring of ideas. Thus you never criticise Jimmy for
finding an error, only for not having safe-guards in place.
What to delegate
 There is always the question of what to delegate and what to do
yourself, and you must take a long term view on this: you want to delegate
as much as possible to develop you staff to be as good as you are now.
The starting point is to consider the activities you used to do before you
were promoted. You used to do them when you were more junior, so someone
junior can do them now. Tasks in which you have experience are the easiest
for you to explain to others and so to train them to take over. You thus use
your experience to ensure that the task is done well, rather than to
actually perform the task yourself. In this way you gain time for your other
duties and someone else becomes as good as your once were (increasing the
strength of the group).
Tasks in which your staff have more experience must be delegated to them.
This does not mean that you relinquish responsibility because they are
expert, but it does mean that the default decision should be theirs. To be a
good manager though, you should ensure that they spend some time in
explaining these decisions to you so that you learn their criteria.
Decisions are a normal managerial function: these too should be delegated -
especially if they are important to the staff. In practice, you will need to
establish the boundaries of these decisions so that you can live with the
outcome, but this will only take you a little time while the delegation of
the remainder of the task will save you much more.
In terms of motivation for your staff, you should distribute the more
mundane tasks as evenly as possible; and sprinkle the more exciting onces as
widely. In general, but especially with the boring tasks, you should be
careful to delegate not only the performance of the task but also its
ownership. Task delegation, rather than task assignment, enables innovation.
The point you need to get across is that the task may be changed, developed,
upgraded, if necessary or desirable. So someone who collates the monthly
figures should not feel obliged to blindly type them in every first-Monday;
but should feel empowered to introduce a more effective reporting format, to
use Computer Software to enhance the data processing, to suggest and
implement changes to the task itself.
Negotiation
Since delegation is about handing over authority, you cannot dictate what is
delegated nor how that delegation is to be managed. To control the
delegation, you need to establish at the beginning the task itself, the
reporting schedule, the sources of information, your availability, and the
criteria of success. These you must negotiate with your staff: only by
obtaining both their input and their agreement can you hope to arrive at a
workable procedure.
When all is done for you
Once you have delegated everything, what do you do then?
You still need to monitor the tasks you have delegated and to continue the
development of your staff to help them exercise their authority well.
There are managerial functions which you should never delegate - these are
the personal/personnel ones which are often the most obvious additions to
your responsibilities as you assume a managerial role. Specifically, they
include: motivation, training, team-building, organization, praising,
reprimanding, performance reviews, promotion.
As a manager, you have a responsibility to represent and to develop the
effectiveness of your group within the company; these are tasks you can
expand to fill your available time - delegation is a mechanism for creating
that opportunity
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