Delegation - How to Free Up Some Time
Get someone else to do your work!
How often have you heard someone say – or maybe you’ve said it yourself - “I just don’t have the time…”. Increasing workloads, tight deadlines, feeling that you’re not spending time working on the things that you should be?
Time management skills can help prioritise what needs doing, and what’s urgent. We may make an active decision that if something will take two minutes or less we’ll do it straight away so that it never even hits the ‘to do’ list. This is great for getting organised, but what about those tasks that still need doing but at the moment are not at the top of your list. If you leave them too long then they will become both important and urgent. What about those routine tasks, you do them every week/month/year because they need doing. With all these tasks you need to ask yourself “Can someone else do this instead of me?” If the answer’s ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’ then explore whether you can delegate the task – if you can then one result will be to free up some of your time.
Delegation is a useful tool, not only in the workplace but also at home. If used well it can result in increased job satisfaction, motivation, build team resilience, and strengthen team dynamics. However, if delegation is used inappropriately it can result not only in poor performance but also reduced productivity and a break-down in relationships.
What do you need to consider when thinking about delegating a task?
Make sure you know and understand everyone’s skills, strengths, and capacity. People are likely to seem busy all the time – this could be because they are finding work to do to keep occupied. Sometimes they may not be working on valuable tasks. By knowing this you are going to be in a position to determine who is the best person to delegate to.
Unless you’re delegating to a peer or superior (yes, you don’t always have to delegate to someone lower than you in the organisation’s structure) don’t look for someone who has the same knowledge and experience as you – this is an opportunity to develop someone, the idea is to grow them into the task therefore increasing their skills and experience.
Don’t be afraid to ask for volunteers. Although you may have a good idea of who to delegate to it doesn’t do any harm to see who’s interested. Even if they aren’t chosen for this task, you will be aware of their willingness to learn and take on new work. If you know someone is keen you can discuss it with them at their next one to one discussion and see if there are other ways you can develop them.
You can also ask your team who they think would be good at the task – see if people appreciate other’s strengths. It may be possible to have two or more people collaborate to complete the task. Tasks people can work on together are great for building team relationships, as long as they are managed appropriately!
You will need to be very clear about why the task is needed in the first place, what outcome is expected, and to what standard. Anyone being delegated to needs to know exactly what they are doing and why. If they are not sure then there’s a good chance that things won’t go to plan. If you’re very familiar with a task it’s easy to think other people understand everything you do – don’t make assumptions!
Delegating a task is a great way to see if there’s a better, more efficient way to do something. In some instances the way the task is carried out will be pre-determined by a process, or systems that have to be used, but even with these jobs there are usually opportunities to make some improvements. Initially the task may be done exactly as you’ve done it whilst someone else gets used to it, but as they fully understand what’s going on changes can be proposed. It can be really useful to encourage the delegate to ask challenging questions as you are first instructing them – usually ‘why’ questions.
Delegation isn’t dumping a job on someone else and letting them get on with it – so make sure you agree how you’re going to monitor things. It’s not going to do anyone any favours if you watch over their shoulder all the time but leaving them to it probably isn’t going to work either. Make sure they have access to all the resources they need to complete the task.
Initially it is likely that the task won’t be done as quickly, or even not as well as you would have done it – be patient if you can remember back to when you first started doing the task you won’t have been as slick at it as you are now!
Resist the temptation to take over or take the work back. Delegation, especially when being used to develop someone, takes time and commitment. Sure, it might not get done as well as you would do it first time, but there is usually a learning curve. Stick with the delegation and support the individual to improve each time.
Give constructive feedback, it could be a simple as ‘thanks for X, job well done’. With short tasks feedback on completion is fine, with longer tasks provide feedback when you check in on progress.
Until the person is fully capable of completing the task to the required standard, without the need for any support then accountability stays with you. Once everything is working smoothly then delegation is fully complete and accountability will pass to the new task owner.
It’s very important to NEVER present someone else’s work as your own. If you’ve delegated the task make sure that any credit is attributed to them. This is a step on the slippery slope to being a bad boss and will undo any benefits that should be gained from effective delegation.
Now, go ahead and free up some time, give the work to someone else to do!
There will be two more newsletters covering delegation coming up in the next few weeks, one will deal with how to successfully delegate, and another will deal with the barriers we put in our own way that stop us from delegating more!
