The Key Element to the Delegation Process
Lots to do before actually delegating
Do you want to know one of the reasons that teachers at all levels make you do presentations in front of the class? It creates deeper comprehension and retention of the subject matter. If I test you (multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc.), you can get by with a cursory or superficial knowledge. When you have to present it - which means explain it and answer questions - you develop a deeper connection with the material.
What does that have to do with the delegation process?
Keep reading and you will find out.
Presentations and Expectations
Without getting all wonky, as I said, presentations make you understand the material better. You think of what to say, realize it isn’t clear, then adjust. You come up with examples to show people and you dig deeper into the content with the idea of making it understandable. (FYI - you don’t realize this is what you are doing, but you are. Isn’t the mind wonderful?)
In other words, to be able to tell someone something, you have to know and be sure of it in your mind first. This is where it connects with expectations.
Most managers I coach say that the hardest part of setting expectations is explaining it to others so they get the intended result. Without doubt, they explain what they want, get something that may or may not be close to what they want, and then wonder why the person didn’t do it right.
TL; DR - the reason most expectations aren’t met isn’t because of the talent of the individual, it is because the manager didn’t take the time to really figure out exactly what they wanted - and didn’t want.
Be Clear on What You Want (In Your Mind)
It sounds like common sense to say “know what you want”, but managers often skip this step. It leads to confusion and mistakes. The best way to demonstrate this is with an example.
Malik is a manager for the Learning and Development group and needs some information for a report he is giving to senior management. Amanda is an expert at the system that has all the information Malik needs so he delegates the gathering of the information to her. He tells her that he needs course completion data, including who started but abandoned the course, for the current year. Amanda says “no problem”.
As Amanda starts to gather the information, she starts to have questions. Did Malik want simply total numbers or did he want the information broken out by state or district? Did he want the information simply as a total or as a total with a breakdown by month? Would it be better as a table or a chart? She wondered if he realized that last month a bunch of mandatory training had been released, but the due date isn’t for another 45 days, so there would be an unusually high number of courses not completed in the last month. Did he want her to just email this data over or send it in an Excel file?
As you can see, the delegated task presented more questions - which is normal. Unfortunately, because of how Malik presented the task, no context was given and Amanda was left confused about a lot of things. She might have been able to make some quality decisions if she had more context about Malik’s intentions.
How Could Malik Delegated More Effectively
Malik should have mentioned exactly what he wanted to describe using the data. He could have said “I want to show them the impact of our internal social media campaign on course starts and completions”. With this Amanda could connect the course data with the the timing of the campaigns to show if it had any impact.
Malik should have told her the format. He could have said “this will be a presentation for the group, so format the data as a chart and put it on a blank PowerPoint slide so I can add it and format it to match the rest of the presentation. I’d prefer it be 1 slide, but feel free to make it 2 if the information warrants.”
Malik could have been more specific on the audience. Saying it was senior leaders is somewhat helpful, but if he actually listed names it would have provided Amanda with more context. For example, Amanda may have experience working with some of them and had insight on what type of information is most persuasive. This would have helped her not only find the data, but maybe write a few notes to Malik that would help him during the presentation.
Malik could have been more focused on the intent of his message. For example, if he told Amanda that he was hoping to show how the team’s promotion efforts in social media were impacting development goals so he could ask for more resources, she might have positioned the data differently to help with that message.
There are plenty of other examples, but you get the idea.
The Real Problem
The real problem isn’t that Malik didn’t communicate these things to Amanda - it is that he probably didn’t think them through before he even delegated the task. He probably had a general idea of what he wanted to say, but not how he would use the data.
Malik taking a few extra minutes to think through the task completely would have made a world of difference in how he delegated it.
But….
It is important to acknowledge that Malik shouldn’t be expected to have every little detail thought out and understood in his mind. That would lead to analysis paralysis. However, being clear on what he wants (which implies that he also knows what he doesn’t want and doesn’t have to communicate it) makes a huge difference.
Even better, if he would have said to Amanda, “I’m presenting to the senior leaders and want to show how our social media campaigns are increasing course usage, what type of information can you pull out of the system that will help me?” Here he is not only delegating, but calling on her expertise to give him information he might not even know is in the system. Imagine if Amanda said “Oh, you know we have a way to track how the person accessed the course, so I can show you people who got there by clicking on the link in social media.” Game changer.
Conclusion
Most managers tend to delegate in a “drive-by”. They pop their head in someone’s office and say “can you get me….” Frustrating for the employee and ineffective.
Focus on knowing what you want and then communicating all the key variables around it. It takes a bit more time, but it helps ensure you get the information you need and want and it benefits the employee who can succeed in a task and start to learn through casual means how you think and work.