Delegation Tips

From AEC Management Solutions - our office accountant has been printing these out for me, haha.
I think the hardest parts for me is relinquishing control and not micro-managing, and then remembering to tell them what they did wrong, not just fixing it myself and moving on. It's so hard!!

Successful delegation does not happen by accident. It is a learned skill that is both art and science. If you are to advance to your highest potential as an owner, project manager or supervisor - good delegation skills are essential.

1. Select a Good Candidate for the Task
The emphasis here is on a "good candidate" and not the perfect candidate. Let's face it, the perfect candidate is you - but you just don't have the time. The good candidate is a person who has a reasonable chance of being successful. This means they have the required skills and the time available to complete the task.

2. Realize it is an Investment of Time
Like most investments it does not have an immediate payback. In order to leverage your skills and efforts through others, you must invest time training others. After a number of iterations of delegation you will start to see results and free yourself to concentrate on higher level activities.

3. Provide all of the Available Information
Don't fall into the trap of only providing the information you think the delegatee needs. Provide all of the available information to provide a comprehensive context of the task at hand.

4. Show them an Example of a Completed Work Product
A picture, or in this case an example, is worth a thousand words. By providing an example, the delegatee will have a target to shoot for and reduce the need to reinvent the wheel.

5. Agree Upon a Completion Date
Make sure you both agree on a specific date and time of completion. A good example of this would be Wednesday June 2nd at 2:00. A bad example would be a due date of sometime in the middle of next week.

6. Check in from Time to Time
Make sure you check in at least once a day until the agreed upon completion date. Five minutes of your time could easily save hours or days of wasted effort on the part of the delegatee. On the other hand do your best not to micro-manage the process.

7. Make Yourself Available for Questions
Make sure the person performing the delegated task is comfortable coming to you with questions. Yes it is difficult to stop what you are doing to answer questions and yes it is not always possible to be available - but do your best. Open communication is required to be a successful delegator.

8. Accept the Fact that You Can Do It Better
Of course you can do it better; you probably performed the task 500 times in your career and could do it blindfolded. If you are to be a successful delegator, you need to accept the fact that your chosen candidate will make mistakes. When they do make a mistake, correct it and explain why the correction is being made. This is part of the teaching and learning process.

9. Accept the Fact that They Will Do It Different
For most people the end product being different is the biggest emotional hurdle to overcome. It is not that the result is not as good - it is just different than they would have done. In all honesty the end result might even be better.

10. Focus on the Results and Not the Process
At the end of the day the most important thing is that the task is done and it is done well.
Mistakes may have been made, the end product may have been different and they sure did ask a lot of questions. Correct the mistakes, accept the differences and realize you are one step closer to permanently delegating this type of task to someone else. The next time you delegate a similar task to the same person it will take less time. After several more iterations of this process you will save a substantial amound of time and free yourself for higher value activities.