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Field Manager’s Guide 12/25/09

Effective Delegation: Giving Orders

All managers have to produce results beyond their own individual capabilities. The

solution to this is not to do more, but to delegate more. In other words, the secret to

successful management is achieving results through others, and that is accomplished

through effective delegation.

Delegation involves more than simply assigning work to someone else. It means making

one of your representatives accountable for the results. It means giving that person

latitude to make decisions about the means to achieve those results. That is not to say

that to delegate is to abdicate. As a Field Manager, you still have to monitor and control

the tasks you delegate because you have the ultimate responsibility for their completion.

Delegation is a tool, never an end in Itself. Your success in delegation will never be

measured by how you go about delegating, to whom you delegate, or how often you

delegate. Rather, you will always be judged according to the results you achieve

through delegation.

Why Delegate?

Practicing delegation Delegating improves your ability to manage. Delegation It also

enhances your ability to work with others. Delegating authority and responsibility to

others requires adeptness in communication, a willingness to Iisten, an ability to

motivate, and the capacity to inspire loyalty. You may now be wondering: “Once I have

delegated a substantial portion of my current workload, what do I do with myself?” The

answer:

• You plan: You set goals, consider contingencies, and devise methods for achieving

results. You look ahead.

• You direct: You guide subordinates your representatives towards effective effort

without making decisions for them. You check their work to keep them on track.• You organize: You devise structure and policy best suited to maintaining efficiency

within your sphere of control.

Delegation clears away time for important managerial tasks. It helps you to avoid crises,

and when they do happen, delegation helps you to cope with them. Effective delegation

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transforms you from being a “doer” into being a true manager.

Tasks To Delegate

The following guidelines can help you identify tasks suitable for delegation. Naturally,

you must evaluate each task on its own merits, but those that fall into these categories

are worth considering:

• Routine

• Trivia

• Special skills

• Chores

• Pet projects

Routine Tasks: Why delegate routine tasks? First, because a routine task is usually

easy to pass on to a subordinate. You have done it yourself. You are aware of any

problems that may come up. Second, delegating routine tasks pays big dividends. Once

you have prepared the delegated representative, set up controls, and passed on the

task, you are a winner because you benefit each time the representative performs the

same task. In other words the results you achieve from delegating routine tasks are

greater than those that flow from a one-time delegation.

Trivia: It is easy for managers to become involved in many tasks that have very little

impact on the results they are trying to achieve. Tasks under the heading of trivia are

prime targets for delegation. First, they take up your time—often a great deal of your

time, without producing really important results. Second, they rarely require the skills of

a manager. A subordinate can handle them adequately. Third, they are often easy to

delegate. And finally, they give the delegated representative a chance to exercise

authority and decision-making in any activity where the consequences of poor handling

are not devastating.

Special Skills: The delegation of tasks that require special skills is often one of the

easier and more natural forms of delegation.

Chores: Chores may fall under the categories of routine or trivia, but one characteristic

that always marks a chore is that you don’t like doing it. Anything can become a chore.

Consider those long drawn-out meetings that eat up time and produce few results, and

the reports you have completed many times before. All these tasks can become dull

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and dreaded and the best way to rid yourself of them is to delegate. Another factor

justifies the delegation of chores. Because delegated tasks are new to your

subordinates, they may bring to these tasks a new interest and enthusiasm that allow

them to do the job better than you would have done. Delegation removes routine tasks

that you may be approaching half-heartedly.

Pet Projects: It may seem odd to delegate the aspects of your job that you most enjoy,

yet these are often the tasks you hang on to, even though they may not represent the

best use of your time and attention. They may be related to your area of expertise or to

earlier positions you have held with the company. They may be enjoyable because they

are familiar, but this does not always mean that these projects represent the best use of

your time.

Naturally, this does not mean that you need to delegate every pleasant aspect of your

job. Many true managerial tasks are enjoyable. The point made here is that you risk

retaining easy tasks to delegate simply because they are your pet projects.

Tasks Not To Delegate

Tasks that generally should not be delegated include:

• Ritual

• Policy making

• Specific personnel matters

• Crisis

• Confidential matters

Ritual: Some duties depend more on your position than on your skills. While anyone

could do them, only you can do them effectively because of who or what you are. Such

tasks call for your position, your prestige, your title.

Policy-Making: Policy sets the limits of decision-making. Managers can delegate tasks

to be accomplished within established policies. They should not delegate

responsibilities that require the delegates to make decisions that actually determine

policy.

Specific Personnel Matters: A large part of a manager’s responsibility involves

working with people. Every contact you have with one of your representatives involves a

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human element, a crossflow mixture of emotions and perceptions. Because these

contacts involve evaluation, discipline, praise, resolution of disputes and handling of

crises, you should, as a rule, not delegate specific staffpersonnel-related matters.

Crisis: Crisis management is one task that must not be delegated. In times of crises or

emergency, you and you alone must take responsibility for the actions and decisions

you make. This is the reason why you have been chosen for your position.

Confidential Matters: Maintaining the secrecy of confidential information is a vital

responsibility for a manager. Clearly, any form of delegation that requires you to reveal

confidential information is inappropriate. Personnel data, , salaries information, trade

secrets, and security data are examples of information that often falls under the

category of confidential.

Selecting the Delegatee

Ideally, the person you choose to do the work should have the knowledge, skills,

motivation, and time needed to get it done to your complete satisfaction. Frequently,

however, you will have to use someone who has less than ideal experience, knowledge,

or skills. In these cases, you would need to select an individual who has intelligence,

natural aptitude, and—above all—willingness to learn how to do the job with help and

guidance. This is how people develop, and the development of your team should be

your conscious aim whenever you delegate.

You are Iooking for someone you can trust. How do you know whom you can trust? The

best way is to try people out first on smaller and less important tasks, increasingly giving

them more scope so they learn how far they can go and you can observe how they

perform. If they do well, their sense of responsibility and judgment will grow and

improve. You will then be able to trust them with more demanding and more responsible

tasks.

The Elements of Delegation

When you delegate you should ensure that your representative understands:

• Why the work needs to be done.

• What the representative is expected to do.

• The date by which the representative is expected to complete the task.

• The authority the representative has to make decisions.

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• The resources and help the representative will have to get the work done.

• How you propose to guide and monitor progress.

• The progress or completion reports that should be submitted.

Your representative may need guidance on how the work should be done. The extent to

which you spell it out clearly depends on how much he or she already knows about the

task. You do not want to provide directions in such detail that you run the risk of stifling

your representative´s initiative.

Monitoring Performance

• Set target dates for monitoring performance.

• Be sure to remember these dates and monitor accordingly.

• Ensure that deadlines are met and progress reports are completed on time.

• Discuss deviations, if appropriate.

• Reinforce extent and limits of authority so your representative can truly feel

empowered.

• If, on the other hand, your representative has exceeded his or her authority, correct

this accordingly.

• Strike a balance between being too rigorous and allowing too much license.

Whenever delegating, it is always best to follow Robert Heller’s Golden Rulethis

principle: If you can’t do something yourself, find someone who can and then let that

person do it his or her own sweet way.

[END]

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