One of my great managers (I was fortunate to have a few of them) had an interesting method that took me awhile to fully appreciate. During some discussions, she would interject and ask, “what problem are we trying to solve?” It was frustrating at first because we had been talking about solutions for a while at that point. Her question seemed to be a step backwards.
I soon realized that she was asking because she saw that we were losing our place. The discussion was providing some great solutions, but not solutions to the problem we were trying to solve. It always got us back on track. I recognized that she was taking us backwards, because we were headed down the wrong path.
I think of her often when managers tell me they are struggling with deciding what to delegate. I ask them “what problem are you trying to solve?” As they answer, they discover that the question is what to delegate, it is why you would delegate anything in the first place.
Why Does a Manager Delegate?
When I ask this question, the answer is always something along the lines of “to free up more of my time to do other things”. The implication is that the manager should be doing the most important tasks and giving away less important things to the team.
If that were true, the answer to what to delegate is simple: anything that frees up the manager’s time.
Average and bad managers delegate for that reason. Great Managers delegate for 2 other, more important, reasons:
Resource allocation - being a responsible steward of the organization’s resources.
Development - helping employees prepare for their “next role”.
Resource Allocation
Every task can be broken down to a dollar amount. Most of us don’t do this because it isn’t necessary. The formula is simple:
(Time to complete X hourly rate) + Cost of equipment = Cost of task
Note: For most tasks, the equipment is so insignificant it doesn’t count. For example, if a task is done online, we don’t add in the computer time, internet costs, etc. We just ignore this.
For example, if I make $50/hour and it takes me 1.5 hours to complete a task, the cost of the task is $75.
Hence, if someone on my team makes $30/hour and can do the task is 1.5 hours, the cost of the task is $45.
If I do the task, I am essentially paying $30 more ($75 - $45) than I have to. To be a responsible steward of the organization’s resources, I should assign it to a team member.
Things are rarely this simple and other factors need to be considered: does the person on my team have the time or will they have to work overtime (in which case the amount of difference in pay when included in the stress levels makes the tradeoff not worth it), does the person have the skill to do it in the same time as me, is this something that they may not have access to or is confidential in nature, etc.
Resource Allocation and The Learning Curve
Here is where I usually get pushback from managers. It is something along the lines of this:
It isn’t an apples to apples cost comparison. First, I’ve done that task so many times, which is why it only takes me 1.5 hours. If someone else did it, it would take 2 hours, plus the time I would take to train them. So it would cost so much more than if I do it myself!
First thing I say is - you are correct, IF this is a one-time task. But if you do it regularly (say weekly), then you could delegate it weekly to someone. Now your cost needs to be looked at over a longer period of time, for example, 1 year.
If you did the task and it cost $75/task and you did it every week of the year (52 weeks), that is $3,900/year for that task. When you delegate, you have to estimate the learning curve:
If you can do it in 1.5 hours, it will take the new person a bit of time to get from 2 hours to 1.5. Let’s assume that is 8 weeks. In reality, the time will slowly go down from 2 hours to 1.5 hours, but for simplicity sake, we will calculate the 8 weeks at the 2 hours.
Your training time could be included, but that wouldn’t be the full 1.5 hours. Assume it would be 1 hour the first week, 0.5 hours the second week, and 0.25 hours the third week. Your training costs come out to $87.50)
The tally adds up to ($30 X 2 X 8) + ($30 X 1.5 X 44) + $87.50 = $480 + $1,980 + $87.50 = $2,547.50.
Over the course of a year, even figuring in the training effort, delegating this one task saves $1,352.50 ($3,900 - $2,547.50).
Caution
You will not be doing these types of calculations for every task. You’ll spend all your time figuring this out and all cost savings of delegation will be gone. I did this to provide a concrete example of the savings to prove it to the skeptics.
Development
The second reason you delegate a task is to create development opportunities for your team. This is best thought of as knowing what next role an individual has in mind and providing opportunities to learn the skills needed to be successful in that next role.
It requires that you know what the desired next role for your employee is and also that you know the skills that are necessary for that role. Provided you are working with your employee on a development plan, this isn’t that difficult.
For example, an employee on your team (Tina) has said she really wants to move up to be a manager. You can have her help with some managerial tasks (provided they do not create confidentiality issues) - for example, maybe she can help with reviewing the budget and P&L statements. Another task to delegate might be attendance at a few manager meetings - this gives her exposure to what the meetings are like and also helps her get her name out there.
Conclusion
When you change the question from “what to delegate” to “why do I delegate”, you notice that the answer becomes clearer. The actual task to be delegated is decided based on the benefits of the delegation. Plus, it still provides the benefit of freeing up the manager to deal with more important tasks (like managing people and focusing on ensuring the right things are getting done).