GUIDELINE 1

HELP YOUR MANAGER DELEGATE EFFECTIVELY

With every assignment, ask up front for a concrete goal (a clear statement of the tangible results expected of you), a specific deadline, and all the related guidelines and parameters. Talk with your manager about the details of the assignment until you understand exactly where your responsibility begins and ends. Give that information back to your manager, stating it clearly, and then restate it to double-check your understanding.

Use the following tool

to help your boss delegate.

This tool will help you and your manager successfully work through the delegation process.

Insist on specific deadlines, no matter how small or how large the goal of the assignment. If the result is too minuscule to justify a deadline, then your manager is not delegating enough responsibility. If the result is too large to fit a realistic deadline, then it is not sufficiently concrete. By insisting on clear deadlines, you will force your manager to clarify the assignment in question.

Once you have ownership of a concrete goal, a specific deadline, and all of the guidelines and parameters, use the assignment as your proving ground: Deliver and go the extra mile.

The following worksheet

will help you create a plan of action.

Complete this worksheet by employing some of the selfmanagement techniques you learned in Chapter 3.

The worksheet is also an aid to delegation, for it can highlight any weaknesses in the set goal, overall deadline, and guidelines and parameters.