3 Simple Ways To Improve The Effectiveness Of Delegation

Does this sound familiar?

It’s the beginning of the week and you look at your calendar. You see all the meetings you have. You begin thinking of all the tasks you hope you remembered to put into your calendar so you’ll know when they’ll happen. You then start thinking about all the relationships in your life that you want to support. And finally you start questioning how you will ever find time for yourself in the mix?

Before you’ve even begun your week, you’re feeling the weighted sense of overload, that sense of too much to do and not enough time to do it.

One of the greatest solutions to your struggles is to delegate! Delegate is defined as assigning responsibility or authority. And while the very thought of delegating some of your responsibilities to others may make you feel overwhelmed, I have 3 different strategies you can use to alleviate some of that stress. Discover which approach will be right for you. It could be one or a combination of all 3.

1st Strategy

In a recent Jones Zone, I talked about the natural progression of questions that come after discovering that sense of overload. We tend to ask a bunch of “What” questions. Questions like:

What else can I do?

What can I change?

What can I cut out?

But what if you’re asking the wrong question? What if instead of asking what, you started asking who? So often when we get overloaded, we fall into the mindset that it should be on us only to get everything done. That can be more exhausting and time consuming then it needs to be. Rather than struggle through each individual task, ask yourself these 3 who questions:

Who has ideas? If you’re stuck on something and need ideas, who can you call, text or email to help generate some?

Who can do it at least 80% as good as me? So often we expect perfection when working on a problem. But would it be okay and if so, who could do it 80% as good as you?

Who would encourage you to take the next step? An overpacked schedule often generates a feeling of dread that can trap you or make you feel frozen in place. But who do you have in your life that is an encourager? Someone who will help you move forward?

2nd Strategy

Become a Delegation Hero! So often when I talk about delegating responsibility, I see people cringe. 😬 They’ll remark that it’s too difficult of a task to teach others how to do things. But delegating responsibility doesn’t have to be hard when you can follow a process. In the book Hero Maker, by @davidferguson and Warren Bird, they make delegating simple with their fantastic 5 step process for teaching others how to take on a new responsibility. The steps are as follows:

1. I do. You watch. - You have no responsibility, I’ll do it.

2. I do. You help. – This time you give them some part of the task or responsibility to teach them how to do it.

3. You do. I help. – This is where you switch and allow them do the task but you are helping out if they need it.

4. You do. I watch. – They have almost all of the responsibility but not quite.

5. You do. Someone else watches. – Learning is complete.

Once learning is complete, you are free to focus on your most important tasks.

3rd Strategy

Remember your 4T’s: Teach, Time, Trust and Thanks. Maybe you’ve already tried to delegate tasks out to other people and things went badly; the other person didn’t get it right, or maybe it took more time than you wanted to invest and decided it was easier just to do it yourself. While delegation is not easy, it is necessary. Any time not spent on important things, is time wasted on something else.

Keep these 4T’s in mind when you’re looking to delegate a task:

Teach – (Not Train) Training is when you tell or show someone what to do. Teaching is sharing more about the why and how they are are going to be doing a new task. It’s a fuller, more complete picture of the value and importance of that task so that they are more motivated and invested to do a better job with it.

Time – It does take time to teach someone to take on a new task…initially. The time you spend, however, is an investment that you will get a larger return. As an example, what might take you 4 hours to teach someone to do, puts you in the hole 4 hours. But after that, you’re gaining time that you can use later.

Trust – When you assign a new task, give them some guidelines and then give them some space: trust them to do the task well. Following up behind them or micromanaging them will only increase frustrations that can lead to undesired results.

Thanks – Give thanks before, during and after you’ve delegated a task to someone else. And whether they did a fantastic job or a mediocre one, they still stepped outside of their comfort zone to help you. Remind them that you are thankful for their work and of the value their work brings.

Successful leaders are always looking for a chance to grow others. Failing to delegate to those on your team may be preventing you from working on higher priority tasks and ultimately from achieving better results.