Effective Delegation

The job of a manager is to get work done through the efforts of
others, in line with the direction of the firm. Managers always remain
accountable for the results, but often is it not feasible or desirable
for managers to do all the work themselves. In a sense the manager has a
role as an “air traffic controller”, connecting people with tasks that
they are both capable of doing and that moves the organisations towards
its goals.

Delegation serves a number of purposes including:

• Promotion of succession planning through giving others
  opportunities to manage aspects of delivery.

• Enabling more effective resources to focus on achieving specific
  ends.

• Enabling managers to achieve a wider set of
  deliverables.

• Enabling the effective use of organisational resources.

• Creating scope for more responsibility of the manager through an
  effective team.

• Teaching critical thinking, effective judgement and
  accountability to individuals, thus allowing them to express in their
  chosen mediums.

• Involving employees that are closer to the coalface in
  decision-making.

• Decreasing decision making time and increasing the speed of
  execution.

To make it practical it is possible to think of management in terms
of 4 specific delegation levels.

• Accountable: Must achieve the final result.

• Responsible: Must do the work for a specific
  responsibility.

• Stakeholder: Is a key participant in terms of decision
  making.

• Informed: Is informed of the final result.

To effectively delegate a task you need to critically analyse which
different role players are involved at different levels and whether they
fulfil any of these specific roles.

You would then indicate who is accountable (must usually be one
person or group), who is responsible, who are stakeholders and who is
just informed of the outcome of the process.

The same person may carry more than one role and it is quite often
the case that a person is both accountable and responsible for a task or
result. Usually subject matter experts, or “political” contacts may
become involved as stakeholders and the informed is usually superiors or
downstream process owners.

For many people there is a critical flaw in the delegation of
authority type of framework and this is primarily through not
understanding that delegation of authority is about transferring
authority to another person. By transferring authority, you are also
transferring the role and responsibility for its achievement to that
person. It does not mean that you are creating a long chain of sign-offs
and the CEO needs to take accountability for every decision. The CEO is
accountable for the profitability of an organisation or in the case of
government for the achievement of a mandate. To achieve this goal they
put in place a capable team to achieve this goal and support and
coordinate the functioning of this team to achieve the end result. Each
of these team members is accountable to the CEO and each of these teams
accountable to their manager. Ultimately this then creates a framework
in which each person carries his or her own accountability and
responsibilities clearly and the end goal is achieved.

Take the case of a dysfunctional organisation in relation to expense
management – which is quite typical in many organisations. Lets take the
case in which a CEO signs off every expense. In a functional
organisation the CEO would sign-off a budget and expenses will be
managed in line with the budget. Anyone that does not respect the budget
will be dismissed and someone put in place that does. This creates a
functional devolution of power, authority and the enablement of business
process that operate autonomously. If there are deviations in the budget
either from a top down or bottom up level then this is dealt with in a
specific process that may require additional approval from a higher
level such as the CEO. This type of structure enables process efficiency
and for CEO’s to focus on strategy to achieve profitability – while
people understand that expenses gets managed in relation to a budget. It
may be a simplistic set of circumstances described – but it highlights
that effective processes are enabled through devolution of power.

When you give someone else a task you are assigning authority to that
person and the scope and limit of that authority should be made clear.
If they do however act within the limits of that authority – this must
be respected. This is

An increasingly important idea in delegation is the parity principle.
The parity principle states that neither the manager nor subordinate
should be held responsible for things that is beyond their control or
influence. While it is tempting to use this principle to say that “that
was out of my control” – we must read it as a call to effectively
transfer control. If you give a person a task – you must transfer
control for all the variables that are involved in the delivery of that
task, or else you should not be surprised if their delivery is dependent
on variables not controlled and they do not achieve the task.

Another key point is that to give authority is to expect results.
Authority is not a reminder service – it is a call to action that
requires the participant to act and to enable others to achieve the
same.

Effective delegation starts when some basics are in place:

1. Explain why you are delegating. A person accepting a task must
   understand the bigger picture and context of what is being
   proposed.

2. Set clear expections. A clear description of the outcome or
   deliverable expected is very critical.

3. Give relevant guidance. You should be clear on what is expected
   as an outcome and provide any specific guidance on the process and any
   resources that may be useful in the process.

4. Clearly define the standards and goals. Setting a goal requires
   clarity on what level or quality is expected to be achieved.

5. Ensure clarification of authority and responsibility and that is
   clear where the scope starts and ends.

6. Involve the person in defining the scope and limits of the task.
   Maybe the person that you are delegating to is open to taking on more or
   less of the task than expected.

7. Request the completion of the task.

8. Set a timeframe for completion that is realistic.

9. Provide assistance with overcoming road-blocks. Often there are
   things that stand in the way of achieving specific outcomes. If this is
   the case it is the task of the manager to assist in overcoming
   these.

10. Provide feedback. The manager must highlight both positive and
    negative aspects of the progress with the task and look at constructive
    ways to move the task forward.

11. Always agree on the way forward.

Conclusion

There is a lot more to making delegation work properly but this short
guideline should put you on the right path in terms of realising that
delegation requires a lot of hard work and clear management of
expectations at every turn. The benefit is that delegation allows
everyone to achieve more and enables organisations to move closer to
their goals at a more rapid pace.