A Five-Step Delegation Framework That Will Make You Jump For Joy
We've all been there. We say, "I might as well do it myself," or "It takes too long to train then, I can do it quicker."
When you delegate, you're going to invest some time, but the time you regain on the backend of delegation is enormous.
Micromanaging isn't delegating. Nor is abdicating.
I've done both. Each has caused me frustration. Anger. Annoyance.
Just imagine how my team felt?
To delegate effectively, think of it as a marathon. You follow a training plan, you start slow, get warmed up, build momentum, and run the race.
Delegating is the same way, but I have yet to perfect it.
I still struggle with what Jocko Willink calls the Dichotomy of micromanaging and hands-off leadership, yet delegation is critical to successful leadership.
Here's a simple five-step delegation framework you can use to help build your team and regain time.
It’s helped me tremendously as a leader.
Step 1: record a video of you performing the task.
The easiest way to delegate a task is to record you doing the job.
Written procedures that start as a rough draft are often confusing.
You'll write the procedure and forget an essential step since you have the curse of knowledge.
When you record a video, you get to complete the task as you usually would, and two, you get to show someone else how to do it, visually and verbally.
Word of caution — don't make the video and ten-minute snooze fest. Make it easy to watch and follow.
I've likely made several of my team members fall asleep, watching my how to use this technology videos. Try to avoid the drudgery as much as possible.
Once you've recorded the video, save it in your business SOP system, or keep it in the cloud somewhere.
The technology you use to record the video is secondary. There's plenty of options.
Determine how you'll record the video and store it so you can share them with your team.
Step 2: handoff the task.
The next step is to give your task a new co-owner.
We'll call them the delegatee.
As you handoff the task, it's essential you communicate your expectations.
"Hi Janet, I need these invoices added into Quickbooks, so we have accurate records of paying our vendors. Here's a quick video of how to do it from start to finish. Please let me know if you have any issues with executing this task, and once all invoices are added into the Quickbooks register. Does this make sense?
The delegatee now owns the completion of the task. They'll watch the video and perform the task.
As they work on the task, they'll report back the status of task completion and any possible issues they may have encountered.
As you hand off the task, just remember, you still own the result.
They're just completing the task.
You still own the due date. You still own the results it creates for your company priorities. You're still in charge of the task.
Step 3: handoff the decisions and processes.
Over time, the delegates will become comfortable and proficient at completing the task.
Now's the time to handoff decisions that are made while performing the task as well as optimizing, updating, and delegating processes to achieve the desired result.
The delegate is now the person to replace the video you created in step one, with her own video.
She now owns this task and has the opportunity to create a proper Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
Step 4: handoff the responsibility for results.
Just because the delegatee is the owner of the task doesn't mean she's responsible for the results it produces in achieving your KPIs.
In this step, she takes over full responsibility for the results, and KPIs reflected on the team's dashboard.
An example would be if you delegated the processing of customer service emails.
Now, she owns all customer service emails and is responsible for how it impacts her team's KPIs.
Some example KPIs are:
Email response rate.
Net promoter score.
Time to ticket resolution.
Average time spent with the customer.
Step 5: responsibility for the larger outcome to the company.
The last step to delegation is when your delegatee takes on critical tasks that impact the companies most important goals.
It's likely no longer a simple task, yet, a detailed operating procedure with multiple stakeholders.
For our customer service email example, she oversees the management and resolution of all customer service tickets, impacting client satisfaction, and return rates.
She went from delegatee to task owner in a mere five steps.
Delegating doesn't need to be as hard as it seems.
The first step is the most important. Get clear on the task and give your team a video to follow.
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