Prepare to Delegate
Why is this important?
People feel most involved and engaged when they have challenging work and the right level of support to get the job done with the right quality.
Creating stretch opportunities for less experienced team members will also help them develop quicker and more effectively.
What does it look like?
- Define the responsibility you want to delegate
- Break the responsibility into its main elements
- Define the level of autonomy needed for each element
Have the delegation conversation
- Briefly introduce the areas of responsibility and why you are delegating to this Person
- Discuss and agree on the responsibility
- Discuss and agree on the level of autonomy for each element
- Discuss and agree on the support needed for each element
Commit
- Ask the other person to summarize the task at hand
- Set benchmarks and timelines
Provide support
- Keep your commitments
- Provide timely, balanced feedback
- Work to increase autonomy
After the conversation, reflect on:
- Were you able to reach an agreement on the discrete tasks, and the level of autonomy for each of those tasks?
- What was difficult about the conversation?
- What will you do differently next time?
How can you take action?
- Identify an area of work to delegate to a less experienced team member.
- Follow the steps outlined above to prepare for, then have, the delegation conversation.
- After the conversation, reflect on
- Were you able to reach an agreement on the discrete tasks, and the level of autonomy for each of those tasks?
- What was difficult about the conversation?
- What will you do differently next time?
Rate Your Confidence in Delegate & Degree of Autonomy
Less < 1 ————5———— 10 > More
Together with the delegate, break the delegated responsibility into “chunks“, then plot each part of this graph according to the appropriate degree of Autonomy.
More autonomy for a particular piece requires less direct support, less autonomy requires more direct support.