The art of delegation — a practical guide for managers
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Here at The People Collective, we’ve trained 100’s of managers over the last few years. The majority of managers who fail make one mistake:
They don’t delegate effectively
In this short blog I wanted to share 10 tactics to get better at it, but first some context 👇
The context:
I posted recently about the traditional career paths being broken. Most people move into management when they don’t have the confidence or capability, and companies don’t set them up for success.
Why?
To make more money, or because it’s the only option to develop and grow, or because they think they should.
What does this mean?
A lot of managers aren’t up to scratch. This is bad for them, bad for their teams and REALLY bad for business.
What can we do to solve it?
Over the next 6 weeks I’m going to post a blog a week, taking apart our learnings from delivering 50+ cohorts of our Manager Accelerator Programme, and providing actionable ways for managers to improve, and the launch of our Actionable Management Hub.
But to get us back on track, I want to kick off with ten ways to level up your delegation skills ⭐️
1. What should you delegate?
What should you delegate? As much as possible, and that’s no joke. You need to design yourself completely out of your job. Set your sights lower than that and you’ll delegate WAY less than you should. But don’t freak out: Responsibly delegating that much will take months, and you’ve got to start with the basics:
Consider the work you need to complete in the next 2 weeks. Answer the below questions for each project/task:
- How impactful is this work?
- Who can do it?
- Who would like to or is capable of learning to do this?
If there is no one suitable to delegate to at the moment:
- How will you share your learnings to increase the number of people who can do this work?
2. Delegate goals not tasks
Delegating tasks is relatively easy. “Please do x by y time”
But it’s not going to make you great at delegating, or connecting people to the impact of doing the work — and that’s critical.
Instead, you have to give people the goal and the WHY? Why is this important? What does it mean for the team or the company?
Your team will thank you and you’ll get better outcomes
3. Set expectations with your own manager
You think the most important part of delegation is how you focus on your team. Nah, it’s your manager. Now, you don’t need to be perfect, you just have to show them WHY you’re delegating — yup, more context. So let them in on your plan:
- Show that the must-do’s will be handled well
- Show that you’ll be stretching and testing your team
- Show your working on exactly where you expect mistakes might happen
- Show how you plan to handle anything that breaks
- Remember: You’re actually managing your boss.
4. Set expectations with yourself
Your team will not do things the same way that you do. So you have a choice:
- Waste a ton of time trying to make them do it your way?
- Harness their new perspective and enthusiasm to do it better?
Choose the second — Different, but better.
Remember: 5 people doing 80% as well as you did is 400%.
And be honest with yourself:
- If you have to hang onto something, do it.
- Question delegating a miserable task if you feel guilty.
- If you can’t delegate them anything, you have a bigger problem.
5. Delegate for your development
The only way you’ll grow into a bigger role is space for your own development. That’s the carrot every time you find yourself saying “It’s easier if I just do it myself this one time.”
Your initial delegation prioritisation should be:
1) Anything partially delegated -> Completion achieves clarity, so make it happen.
2) Where you add the least value -> Your repetitive work is their growth.
3) The routine -> Ripe for a playbook or automation, help your team own this
Turn this into action — look back at that task list and also your calender
- What goals and tasks should you delegate and what should you keep?
- Whom could you delegate to, who is best suited?
- What touch points or support will they need, and can you bookmark time?
- Diarise time to share learnings after projects or key work to keep that virtuous cycle
6. Delegate for their development
This is thebig one. Time to focus on the stretch each employee needs to excel. TRM is a great way of structuring your thinking on this.
- Are they new to a role or the company? Be more directive.
- Are they established and growing? Ask them how they would solve the problem.
- Are they an expert? Challenge them to find new problems to solve and get out the way
Whichever stage they are at: Always be clear on what a great outcome looks like
Everyday practical tip
Ask them how they would approach solving a problem, the steps they would take, and challenge them, using a coaching approach. Get them to work out how to solve problems by themselves. Check in at 20% and 80% completion
Longer term practical tip
Ask them how they want to grow. People usually know. And they’ll feel agency over their own development. Challenge them to go out and find and take that work, but be there to support them. Virtuous cycle.
7. Set expectations with your team
Good delegation is more than assigning tasks: It’s goal-oriented, it’s written down, it’s intentional.
Going deeper on point (2), give them more context, align tasks 👉 goals 👉vision and watch them thrive.
Want the original link to the article in the thread? Check it out here:
8. Work on the mechanics
You’ve already:
- Defined your goals for your team
- Given the resources they need — time, money, whatever
- Aligned on success, so they know what great looks like
Now, start climbing:
- Steps over Tasks, ensure they can enunciate them
- Processes over Steps, how does this change our long term approach
- Responsibilities over Processes, level them up to take responsibility
- Goals over Responsibilities, ensure they have the context for the goals
- Outcomes over Goals, focus on the outcomes
Each rung is higher leverage.
9. Watch out for: delegating and walking away
You need to trust your team to do great work. But you also need to verify that it’s been done — and done well. You also have to support their efforts. Clear metrics and surveys / feedback are a good starting point, as are quick and simple retrospectives.
Simple questions:
- What would you do differently next time? Get them to explain.
- What could I do to better support you when delegating? Get them to be frank
Checking in is not Micromanaging. That’s different, that’s your insecurity. Your job is to enable, motivate and assess the various paths. If they’re being defensive when you keep asking for updates, that ones on you buddy!
10. Bonus points — Radical Delegation
I would recommend getting the basics down before going here. But if you need a picture of what’s possible, this is a pretty inspiring one.
Now, if you made it this far, what have I missed??
Coming next week: 10 practical steps to holding difficult conversations
For now, if you’re a Founder, a manager or a People Leader, get in touch about our manager accelerator programme for your business here:
“Curriculum was research-backed, applicable, digestible and interesting. Implementation of the program was seamless” Chelsea Williams — People Director, Reachdesk
“There has been a positive impact following the programme of global manager accelerator with managers support increasing by 14% and managers giving feedback by 13% and one of the biggest issues was manager goal setting which is also up by 13% and a lack of comments on this subject as there was last time. These were the group results. For some of the individual studios these increases were in the 30% increases! THANK YOU!” Sinead Ryan — CPO ustwo
