Technique: Setup for Successful Delegation

You can’t do everything by yourself. The time will come when you’ll need to delegate managerial or technical tasks to other people. (Don’t think of it as shirking your duties; you’re providing opportunities to others).

To determine whether a situation is amenable to delegation, begin by asking yourself the questions shown in Figure 10, ​Delegation checklist​.

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Figure 10. Delegation checklist

Guidelines

• Choose your delegatee wisely. Select someone who wants to take on more responsibility and who has identified areas of career development where this work would fit. Don’t select someone who is not interested in the work you want to delegate.

• Articulate your expectations about the work: what’s acceptable and when you need it.

• Clarify any unacceptable solutions.

• Define interim milestones. If you’ve delegated a decision, recognize that a decision has at least two parts: generating alternatives and choosing an alternative. Clarify what part(s) you are delegating, and be explicit if you really want a checkpoint between the two parts.