RM Online - Delegation can bail you out . . . if you're willing to loosen your grip

The art of delegation is a very powerful but underutilized management tool. Effective delegation frees up your time - it enables you to concentrate on your most critical management duties. It's excellent on-the-job training for your team members. It's an invaluable leadership tool during a crisis. And it's free.

So why is this amazing management tool so underutilized? Because it confronts two common but very wrongheaded beliefs: first, that it is "Easier just to do it myself" and second, that "If I want a job done right, I have to do it myself."

Delegation is especially difficult for entrepreneurs who have built their thriving companies from scratch. (Is that you? If so - in this industry - you're in the majority.) Doing everything themselves becomes second nature to these folks. When growth and improved customer service necessitates delegating increasingly more responsibilities and tasks to their employees, it is extremely difficult for managers to let go even when they clearly understand the necessity to

do so.

Initially, delegating tasks does take more time than actually doing it yourself. But when a task is recurring and can be safely delegated to a competent employee, you start freeing up your time for more important responsibilities by

delegating it.

Here are some ideas to help you master the art of delegation:

Start a log. Your first step to successful delegation is beginning a daily, weekly, monthly and annual log of all your tasks and repetitive decisions. Then track or carefully estimate the time you spend completing tasks, such as checking rental invoices for accuracy or preparing for weekly staff meetings.

After identifying your most time-consuming and repetitive tasks, you can begin delegating some of them. You will very likely be surprised how many tasks can be safely delegated when you put your mind to it. Even more pleasing is adding up how much time you will save over a year after initially training your team.

Starting to delegate tasks frees up more time for you to actually manage. We are all creatures of habit and routinely do many tasks without giving their appropriateness much thought at all. Early in this review process you may also discover that some tasks are no longer relevant and can be safely eliminated altogether.

Match tasks. You have two paramount considerations when delegating tasks: matching the tasks to each employee's individual interests and competencies; and providing growth opportunities for every team member.

No two employees are alike. Successful delegation requires an understanding of each employee's particular wants, needs and desires. Jill, for instance, wants to work a lot of overtime during the next six months to buy a sailboat. Although you have always been able to count on Jill to be there for those overtime tasks, after she gets her boat Jill may no longer be happy to work late during those warm, summer evenings when she could be boating. If you never determined Jill's motivations for working overtime, you might be unduly upset when all of a sudden Jill isn't highly motivated to work late.

Everyone is unique. It is your obligation during the delegation process to work within this context. While not delving too deeply into their personal lives, get to know your employees well enough so you can more effectively match your delegation process to their specific interests and needs, both on and off the job.

Equally important: remain detached from any personal From Page 97 bias during the delegation process like, for instance, assuming that older workers can't learn new tricks.

Create self-motivating opportunities. Just as it is unfair to put all the "grunt" tasks on one employee you may not like, it is just as unfair to load seemingly endless tasks on your best employee. Delegating everything to your best employees pretty much guarantees that your best employees will leave, either for less stressful surroundings or to apply all this experience to a higher-level job somewhere else. Although it may take a little longer to train Henry or Patsy to learn new skills or tasks, do it anyway - develop some depth.

Matching your delegated tasks to each employee's personal goals, skills and particular needs empowers them to grow professionally. Carol Ann, for instance, wants to move into managing the rental branch store where she now does the books. Assigning Carol Ann to increasingly more challenging and varied assignments meets her needs by enhancing her skills inventory. Creating self-motivating opportunities like these through the delegation process makes your team more competitive; it also increases their morale and keeps their interest in their job high.

Focus on objectives. Always be clear about your expectations when delegating tasks. Employees can't be expected to know how best to complete a task unless they clearly understand the goal or goals they are working towards. Telling Andre to always test-run a machine upon its return from a customer doesn't tell him much. He needs to comprehend that the reason rental machinery is started up and run upon its return is to ensure that the customer left the machine in good working order before returning the deposit and to be certain that the machine will run well for the next customer.

That may be obvious to you, but not necessarily to every employee. By stating your goal for a task, you have helped your employee see your commitment to customer service.

Also recognize that your way may not always be the best way. Let your employees find their own best practices to accomplish a job. They will feel more responsible and more motivated because they're in control.

Delegate authority. Giving someone responsibility for completing tasks without the commensurate authority to control the resources required to successfully complete the job is about the same as ordering someone to dig a trench with a toothpick. Effective delegation always provides people with the wherewithal to most efficiently and effectively meet their goals. Heidi can't be expected to clean a lot more machinery when she is forced to work with a pressure washer on its last legs. She needs the means to do the job properly.

Monitor progress. Delegation requires a comfortable balance between managing a task's every twist and turn and totally forgetting about a project. Setting up intermediate goals enables you to catch emerging problems early. Say you delegate Andy, who recently attended a phone etiquette workshop, to conduct a training session for all employees on Oct. 10. OK, so now set an intermediate deadline of Sept. 20 for Andy to complete an outline for the workshop. Then, if he fails to meet that deadline, you still have time to get him back on track.

Ensure your employees comprehend an assignment's goals by having them recite them back to you. Poor communication techniques foster morale-defeating finger-pointing when problems arise, as they invariably do. Eighty percent of any organization's problems are people problems and 80 percent of those problems are communication problems.

Ultimate responsibility. Effective delegation challenges you and your managers to start doing what they are supposed to do - achieving goals through people - but it does not negate a manager's ultimate responsibility. If something goes wrong, a manager by definition must ultimately take responsibility for the consequences.

But when things go well, you have an obligation to recognize everyone's contribution to the success of the project. Delegation is more than just an efficient way to get things done: it also offers you as a manager a means of rewarding and motivating employees with meaningful personal gratification.

Your team members learn as they earn and you free your time up to concentrate on your most critical managerial duties. And those who have taken on the responsibility and have done well, and have been recognized for that, will go home feeling pretty good about themselves. That's a form of income that's priceless.