Podcast — Eight Steps to Delegate Effectively

Learning how to assign tasks to others and to delegate effectively is vital if

you want to lead and manage others, and certainly if you want to progress a

management career. If you don't learn ways to delegate effectively you will

remain stuck doing the tasks that you want to delegate to others. Many new to

management think that delegating is telling someone to do a task and then

sitting back and to wait for it to be delivered exactly as we want it and on

time. I suggest following the eight steps outlined in this video so you don't get

a very rude shock when you don't get what you want and it is a week later

than you expected. Today I'm taking you through eight steps to delegate

effectively. Do keep an eye for the information card showing on screen which

will give you links to further videos and I'll put these links in the

description section below.

My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25 year management career in corporates and

household names through to SMEs. My advice is always keep looking to

improve your delegation skills and how you assign work to team members. Your

career progress depends on it. If you're new to this channel, Enhanced.Training

shares business and people management expertise to help you improve your

performance and that of your team and business. And if you like this video

please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. The first of eight steps to delegate

effectively is to know what to delegate. There are lots of tasks and projects

that you could delegate. The challenge is working out what you should delegate to

others and what you should keep yourself. Certain tasks you cannot delegate such

as appraisals, direction setting and the core tasks of managing a team. The types

of tasks that you should think about delegating to team members are likely to

fall into the following five categories. Time-consuming tasks. The best

ones to delegate are the lower value creating tasks which are repetitive.

Secondly, teachable tasks. The task which you can teach the team members who have

the right skills and aptitudes to do the task well. Thirdly, time-sensitive tasks.

Any tasks that need to be done by a deadline and you don't have the time to

do it. Fourth, tasks you are poor at. These tasks are ones that team members or

others can do quicker or maybe even better than you. And the fifth, tasks that

will be good development opportunities. To build the skills, knowledge and

experience of your team members. Look to delegate tasks that you do so you

personally can then take on additional tasks that will add greater value to the

business. This keeps your career moving forward and keeps you moving up the

value chain of tasks, activities and projects within the business. Build a

list of tasks and projects you do. Prioritise them based on their value

creation, the most value at the top and downwards. And then look to delegate

the tasks and projects towards the bottom of the list. Keep coming back to

the list periodically. The second of eight steps to delegate effectively is

to play to team members strengths. Playing to strengths when delegating

tasks or projects is important to ensure that what you delegate is done

well. Ideally you want the team member to do the task or project delegated better

than you would do it. Each team member will have different strengths, ambitions

and interests. Learning what each team members strengths and interests are in

the first place is of course super important to delegate effectively. Match

up the team members best suited and most interested to each task or project you

want to delegate. And in the real world you often have to delegate to those not

ideally suited to the task because those that are stronger are already fully

maxed out with other work or politics gets in the way or etc. When this

happens put more effort into the other steps such as staying involved and

coaching mentoring and providing feedback to compensate for the less

skilled person doing the task. Flex your approach depending on who you are

delegating tasks to and based on what work you're assigning to team members. Do

your best to play to team strengths when assigning work to others. The third of

eight steps to delegate effectively is to set clearly defined goals. There is a

little worse than being given a task without being told the goal to be

reached. Each time you delegate work you should firstly decide what goals

represent success for the work you're delegating and then secondly the person

you're delegating to must be equally clear as to what the goals are and how

progress was going to be measured against these goals. You need to judge

whether a verbal agreement is enough or whether you need to put the task and

goals into writing and send it to them via email for instance. I found that this

very much depends on the person being delegated to and the complexity of the

task. The more complex or critical the task or problem I'm delegating the more

likely I would follow up the verbal discussion with a quick email summary or

even a one-page summary document. Creating a reference email or document

reduces confusion and reduces the project or task slip due to different

understandings being taken away from the initial discussion. Putting the details

into writing makes what has been delegated and the goals clear for both

parties. Always try to set clearly defined goals when you delegate work to

others and check to make sure both parties are clear what these goals are.

The fourth of eight steps to delegate effectively is to provide context and

the why. I have found that providing the context to tasks or projects in effect

explaining the why we are doing this task or project firstly improves

motivation and buy-in of the other person as they understand how the task

or project fits into the larger picture within the business. Secondly improves

the other person's ability to successfully work around the smaller

problems that invariably come up without having to speak to me and third improves

their judgment of when they need to speak to me about problems or issues

with the task or project. All of these allow the other person to do the task or

project better compared to if they had not been given the context or the why

and thus makes the delegation more effective. The team member also gets to

learn more about how the task interacts with other tasks and projects going on

within the business which of course helps them learn. When delegating tasks

make the time to explain the context of the task or project and explain how it

fits into the team or functional goals or fits into the company's strategy. I

view this an essential part of delegating and assigning work to others.

The fifth of eight steps to delegate effectively is to allocate the right

resources and authority level. Whether you do the work yourself or delegate the

work to team members you want the work to be delivered successfully and the

goals reached. This is by far the best result for everyone and for you

personally. Having the right resources available at the right level at the

right time can make a huge difference to the outcome. So take the time to plan out

the essentials needed for the project or task to be successful and work out what

resources are sensible to be made available to complete the task quicker

cheaper or better. In all businesses resources are constrained so

prioritizing where these resources get used is an important task of management.

Create the best conditions for success that you can when you assign work to

others. Examples of resources include things like time, cash, manpower, skills

and knowledge, access to the systems or data at the right level etc. And don't

forget to set and communicate the right authority levels for the person you are

delegating to so they can undertake the work as effectively as possible. Setting

the right authority levels also maintains good risk management for the

company itself. The sixth of eight steps to delegate effectively is to follow up

and stay involved. Keep tabs on the task or project you have delegated so you can

make yourself available to help if the team member you have delegated to runs

into trouble, falls behind or encounters resistance. Delegating a task then

walking away until a delivery point of course can work, usually for the simpler

tasks or with your best team members. The more complex a task, project or problem

the more moving parts and the more people involved the higher the chance of

problems arising that need to be resolved and for delays to occur. For

these reasons keeping tabs on progress gives you an early warning of these

problems and gives you the best chance of reducing or avoiding problems.

Following up, the task of checking in with the person doing the work, asking

about progress and being there to help is, in my opinion, practiced too little by

the majority of managers. Following up is essentially about managing the people

aspects of focus, of prioritization, of getting enough effort put in. Following

up also demonstrates that this task or project is important to you, therefore it

becomes important to the person doing the work. Every business I've worked in

has multiple projects and tasks going on at once, all demanding the time and

attention of employees. If you are not keeping their attention and time on your

task or project, chances are that they will end up doing other ones that seem

more important because those managers are following up more. And just for the

avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting that you should micromanage individuals

which 95% plus of the time is detrimental to them, the task and you as

a manager. Make the time to keep tabs on the project or task and stay involved so

you can help your team members if needed. The seventh of eight steps to delegate

effectively is to coach, mentor and provide specific feedback. Without a

feedback on what went well and what didn't go so well, it is very hard to

learn and improve. Assuming you want your team members to get better at their

jobs individually and as a team, then taking the time to coach, mentor and

provide specific feedback is essential. This gives your team great opportunities

to improve their performance, their skill level and what they deliver, which in

turn benefits you as their manager. Some of the many additional benefits from

coaching, mentoring and providing feedback include firstly increased

motivation and loyalty of team members, secondly increased engagement and work

ethic, third reduced staff turnover, fourth increased interest in internal

staff moves to your team and fifth quicker career progression for you and

your team members and then sixth better knowledge of what team members are

working on and what challenges they face. I booked in a weekly one-to-one meeting

with each of my direct reports and insisted that they also do the same with

their reports. I use this time to mainly coach, mentor and provide specific

feedback. Booking the meeting each week signaled the importance I placed on

learning and improvement and made sure team members got regular coaching,

mentoring and feedback. The last step to delegate effectively is to praise good

results. Positive reinforcement works, plus everyone likes to receive praise,

particularly when you've worked hard to deliver some great work. There is too

little praise within many workplaces. Research has shown that to keep a staff

member engaged and happy you need to praise three times more than to

criticize, three times. When giving praise make sure you are specific with your

praise and you described what happened, the impact, why the action results were

good and add in how they might improve further if appropriate. Make sure your

praise is honest, sincere and given soon after the results are delivered. You can

praise in private, in public, give prizes, in fact there are so many ways to praise.

Do make the time to praise team members, get comfortable doing so and look for

opportunities to praise. So I've taken you quickly through an eight-step

framework to delegate work more effectively to employees and colleagues.

Do follow each of the steps and discover the benefits of getting better at

delegating. The eight steps are, as a reminder, firstly know what to delegate, second

play to team members strengths, thirdly set clearly defined goals, fourth provide

context and the why, fifth allocate the right resources and authority level, sixth

follow up and stay involved, seventh coach, mentor and provide specific

feedback and then eighth praise good results. If you have any questions please

leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much

for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.