PAPERmaking! g FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY ® Volume 9, Number 2, 2023
Pip Decks community's delegation tips Kevin D says "Don't over delegate to your best team member. Over time, they may begin to resent doing the lion's share for the same pay." If you do find someone is consistently picking up extra work, you either need to examine if they have got additional time you could put to use, or if you should be giving them a pay rise! Will C mentioned that just asking who wants to take on the task is probably the first sensible step, with the option to rotate additional tasks between team members if no one volunteers. Abdul mentions alignment and skills (read on for more on that) and says "How will you measure the outcome (not output)?" - a reminder to define what outcomes you want to see, rather than rigidly specifying deliverables/output. And Barry F shared a great article about delegation models, including leadership and task delegation approaches. If you want to refine how you delegate tasks, there are some great workshop tactics that could help. You could try running a Skills market to find out what skills (hidden or otherwise) people in your team have, and what they want to practise or learn. Roles and responsibilities is also great for helping your team share what they work on so that you all understand what each other do - and why. Finally, Who, what, when is another way to clearly set out who is responsible for the actions that come our of a workshop or meeting. Clearly define the outcome Make sure your employee knows exactly what deliverables are expected of them. Give as much free rein as you can in terms of how it gets done - who knows, they may find a new, better way to do it - but set boundaries in terms of what absolutely must be achieved. That helps them to plan, and to know how to achieve success. It will also help if you let them know how and when they need to share updates with you, and what to do if they need some help. Work out how you’ll check in with them along the way, so that they don’t see your questions as a lack of trust or desire to control what they’re doing, but you also g et the information you need. Share resources and authority as needed You’ll have built up an arsenal of tools and tricks to help you get things done. Offer some pointers to your teammates to ensure they have the benefit of everything you know. You might not realise how valuable this is to them - and if they succeed, so do you! Top tip: depending on the task you're delegating, there might be a suitable Workshop Tactic to help them on their way. While you're at it, make sure that they have the authority to do whatever needs to be done. Then make sure that they know it! And of course, inform anyone else in the business who might need to know. Give feedback and credit Once the task is done there are lots of ways you can help your teammate feel a sense of pride in their achievement. Try the following:
Offer your thanks
x x x
Ask them how they think it went Provide constructive feedback
x Let them know the impact their contribution has made x Give credit when talking to others about the task
And if they did a good job, ask them if they’d like to do similar tasks in future. Keep a note of this work for your performance review process, use it in pay-rise negotiations and remember it when you are considering
opportunities for their development. Final thoughts on delegating tasks
So now you know how to choose the right tasks to delegate, how to brief them to the right person and what to do once the task has been completed. The only thing left to do is get some of those tasks off of your to-do list... and onto someone else's!
Article 11 – Delegation
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