10 Tips For Delegating Successfully

One of the main issues for managers is how much, and what, to delegate. Most managers don’t delegate enough.

The advantages of delegation are: • it is essential if you’re to be effective and to manage your time well, your job as a manager is to get things done, not do everything yourself
• it is essential for developing staff and giving them relevant experience
• it is commercially necessary for work to be done at the right level.

Despite this, managers find excuses not to delegate, the main one being, “ It takes too long, it’s quicker to do it myself. “ This is true, it does take time to delegate properly, but the time invested at the start will be repaid in the future when you can delegate that work without having to spend so long explaining it and you can then spend your time on something more appropriate ( having a coffee, reading the paper, those sorts of things) .

Here are 10 tips to help you delegate effectively.

Tip 1.

Make an assumption that you will delegate work as much as possible. Go through all the tasks you have to do and ask yourself, “ Why shouldn’t I delegate this? “ Only keep the ones which are legitimately yours to do.

Tip 2.

Check the level of experience and knowledge of the person you decide to delegate to. Sometimes you will be delegating work to someone who has not done it before because this is a way of developing them. In that case, you will need to take even more care in how you delegate to them and make them aware of the help that’s available to them, e.g. you, other people, resources, previous examples.

Tip 3.

Take the time to explain the task clearly, it will save time later having to answer questions or amend work which was not done correctly due to misunderstanding

Tip 4.

Do not use “ delegation by Post – It note “, where you just leave something on someone’s desk with a note saying, “ Do this “.

Tip 5.

Where possible, give someone a complete task rather than part of one, it is far more motivating

Tip 6.

If you give someone a task which is part of a larger one, explain the bigger picture and let them know how their task fits into it

Tip 7.

Check the person’s understanding of the task by getting them to repeat the key aspects back to you or making sure that they make notes, do not just ask, “ Is that clear? “ or, “ Do you understand? “ People never admit that they didn’t follow what you said or they may think that they did understand but actually missed something important.

Tip 8.

Do not micromanage – you can set out the standards you expect, but you have to accept that the person may not carry out the task exactly as you would. Do not stand over their shoulder watching them do it.

Tip 9.

Give feedback when the task is completed. If it was done well, congratulate the person and tell them they did a good job. If there are points they need to improve, tell them clearly and supportively.

Tip 10.

Say, “ thank you “ when the job’s done!