QUARTERLY BEAT / DECEMBER 2023 ///
/// QUARTERLY BEAT / DECEMBER 2023
BETTER FOR YOU, BETTER FOR YOUR TEAM The Art of Delegation: LEARN TO LET GO…AND GROW!
allocating a specific time in the week/month to do (e.g. sorting out work schedules, work to-do-lists, sorting who takes holiday shifts, etc.). Allocate one time in the week/month to touch this job and not just when anyone asks you. • Tasks that need to be done but don’t need your job title/experience: things I can delegate (e.g., work schedules). Do they really need a clinician to run the spreadsheet? • Tasks that are currently being done but can be ditched. These might be nice to haves, they may also be things that have historically taken place, but the team or the practice have moved on and yet the task hasn’t been stopped. Once you have your list, consider what 2 things from your delegation column will have the biggest impact on you (either in the amount of time it will release or the reduction in stress it will provide) and who in your team (or outsourced) could do this for you. What conversations do you need to plan and get booked in? What will delegating this task give you?
do more of. It might surprise you! Taking team members’ preferences into consideration at an early stage in delegating roles increases the chance they will be engaged and on board with the task. Understanding different personality types can also help you consider what sorts of tasks might be better suited to different people – but avoid assuming you know what makes people tick, remember to have that conversation! Even though I can hear you shouting at this blog, ’I haven’t got time to do this’…. I’d encourage you to give it a go. If you are snowed under right now, doing more of the same is unlikely to make a difference, so give this a whirl instead, what have you got to lose? Start that tasks diary today, identify the things you can ditch and the things you can delegate. Think about who will I delegate to, what am I asking them to do and when do I need it by. I promise you, it can reduce your sense of overwhelm, enable you, as a team, to get it all done, and give you back that feeling of having time to do what you need to do. Let me know how you get on!
DR. CAROLYNE CROWE FRCVS, VDS Training VETgirl
Need a reminder on delegation? Dr. Carolyn Crowe, FRCVS VDS Training reviews the importance of delegation, what holds people back from delegating, and how to make sure the right task is delegated to the right person in the right time! If you missed Dr. Carolyn Crowe on December 5, 2023 entitled The Art of Delegation: Better for You, Better for Your Team, read the highlights below!
LEADERSHIP WEBINAR
Write your answer down and keep it by you as you go through the process as this is likely to keep you motivated when it feels too hard or challenging. Another way to approach this is to ask your team members what they want to
WATCH FULL WEBINAR
ARE YOU GOOD AT DELEGATING TASKS? WHAT STOPS YOU, DO YOU KNOW? DO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING THOUGHTS RESONATE WITH YOU? • I’m too busy to think about who I could get to do the job. • I literally don’t have time to think about what I need to delegate; I just get on with it myself. • I will only delegate something if I really trust someone. • I feel like I’m failing and admitting defeat if I have to ask for help. • I want to stay in control of my cases, I don’t want to have to deal with other people’s opinions on the case, so it’s easier to just get my head down and do it myself. • It’s quicker, less messy and done better if I do it myself. • When I delegate it never gets done on time, or it gets done wrong Delegation is a key skill for all team members regardless of your role, but we aren’t born good delegators it’s something we need to work on and develop as a skill. Many of us can perform many roles and tasks but, and it’s a big but, to be effective and perform consistently at a high level we can’t take on all tasks and roles all of the time. There is a limit to our working memory and contrary to popular belief, our brains aren’t designed well for multi-tasking. Doing more, doing it all, isn’t an answer! And this is where the old adage of “working smarter and not harder” comes in. Take a moment and pause, look around at your team, what skills and expertise do
you have around you? Who do you work with? How can you work together to get the work done?
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Effective delegation saves time and helps develop team members, helping them build intrinsic motivation by increasing their autonomy and sense of mastery. It’s easy to feel that delegation is ‘putting on’ other people, when in fact, it can build their sense of self-efficacy; the belief they can have a real impact. Done well, delegation increases trust across the team and can improve team engagement. Do you know what you need or would like to delegate? A good exercise to work through is to keep a diary of the things you are asked or need to do, the tasks you get involved in, and what takes your time over a 2–4-week period. I imagine you will start to see the repetition and routine tasks after a week or so but extending it to the full month will hopefully pick up the monthly jobs as well. Once you have that list (and it’s likely to be a big list!) you can start filtering the tasks. Take another piece of paper and create four columns: • Tasks only I can do (these are the jobs that can only be done by you/your role - not those that have historically been done by you but those that require your qualifications and or authority) • Tasks that need to be done at some point but not immediately – things I can defer: these are routine or regular jobs that if we aren’t careful end up being picked up and put back down again rather than
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