THE ART OF
DELEGATING (II)
5.
Establish dead lines for each job. You always
need to establish the job's deadline. I know some executives that
assign tasks and say to their colleagues "do it as soon as possible".
However, in reality, what does that mean? an hour? a day? a week?
You can not leave anything to
chance, everything should be established previously, depending on how
difficult a task is. Therefore you should assign a time limit to each
task. By doing this there won't be any missunderstandings and the
employee's responsibility will increase.
6. Carry out periodic checks.
If you don't constantly revise the progress of the project, then you
will not be able to correct possible deviations that might happen with
the project. A method that works
is having dates by which certain points need to be finished in the
project, this date can be for example, Monday at 09:00; or two weeks,
or every month, etc depending on the nature and complexity of the
project or activity that needs to be carried out.
7. Give positive and constructive feedback When
things go badly, do not discourage others by treating them badly, bad
gestures or telling them off, etc.Try
to focus on the positive aspects and communicate them effectively,
focusing on resolving the problematic situations that have occured. When
a colleague feels that he has our total support, he will try his
hardest to make the project succeed.
8. Provide the necessary resources.
In order to carry out a task or project, depending on its complexity,
you may need to include more Departments within the company, in such a
way that it is always necessary to provide additional information about
people in the organization that can collaborate with the development of
the project. "In Accountancy you can follow this formula", "in Human
Resources you can provide this fact", etc.
9. Offer advice without interfering.
In many companies there are always obstacles or limitations which are
known by everyone. Therefore, it is necessary to let the people
responsible know about these limitations or obstacles so that they can
take the right measures and can anticipate the facts.
10. Establish the parametres, conditions and
rules before you delegate. You
should establish the "rules of the game" before you start, so that
later there aren't any inconveniences or misunderstandings. Once this
is defined, "get to work".
11. Don't allow colleagues to come to you with
their problems This is a recurring issue. Our colleagues
tend to bring us their problems so that we can resolve them, but as it
is in their area of work and they know everything about the situation,
they should be the ones finding a solution to their problems.
When they ask you about a
difficulty, you can respond, what do you think? how would you resolve
it? When they are in the middle of a project and the deadlines begin to
stretch and they ask you for more time, Kathy Paauw asks you
to respond to these questions: Is it possible? Will this help us to
reach our goal? How are you going to manage the situation? What are the
alternatives? What action should be taken? By asking these questions,
you will make the person take responsibility and find the best solution
to the problem.
12. Provide support when necessary.
Sometimes, it is necessary
to "lend a hand" with a project, so that an activity works
out. Kathy Paauw expresses that "there
is a difference between supporting and rescuing". Paauw gives the
following example: "if something is not working out, discretly help
your colleague by making a phone call to someone involved that is not
cooperating. Let you colleague know that he doesn't have to fight his
battles alone".
13. Award all the credit and acknowledge the
person that has completed their job.
When a job has finished, it
is important to award all the credit to the person that fulfilled the
task. If it didn't end happily, assume all of the
responsability and the "failure". When we realize that the person that
we delegated to do the job doesn't have the sufficient skills to do the
task, then we should assume the responsibility.
Everytime this happens, evalue
what happened, how it developed and why the person that we chose was
not capable of carrying out the project. Always try and learn from
these experiences, so that next time you can delegate more eficiently.
Always learn from your mistakes.
