Last weekend I reviewed a homework assignment from a manager who talked about the difficult economy and how people now seemed to be more receptive to learning new skills and working more independently. His focus was on upgrading technical skills so people could operate more efficiently now and, of course, when business picked up again.
After reading his work, I thought this would also be a good time to delegate more work. Yes, I know we're all looking for things to do. And delegating work will take some of those things away from you. But that's okay, because you can fill that time with the coaching, teaching and mentoring necessary to delegate work properly.
All too often delegation fails because we avoid it as much as we possibly can. When times are busy we absorb more and more work ourselves until we reach a crisis point that makes us delegate work on the fly. With quick instructions given under duress and pressure. With minimal training and little to no follow-up. Often times this process dooms the delegate to failure. We then take the work back, do it ourselves, and think: "See, I would have been better off doing it myself in the first place."
When delegation is done properly, the necessary teaching and training is done on a planned basis in a non-crisis environment that allows thorough training, follow-up and feedback. This of course takes time. And right now many of us have that time available.
About Pelleyblog: Pelleyblog is designed to be a resource for supervisors and other first line managers. Currently most of our readers are from
Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment