It took some time for me to realize I had been in the business of delegation for well over a decade; sharing my secretary with others to save costs led to a small business that was established in 2001 not just surviving, but still going strong well into its second decade. Every visit to that office reinforces the relief that business owners and department managers must or would feel when they hear those words, ‘Leave it with me, I'll sort it out for you.’ It makes my heart dance. Even more so when the person being delegated to loves the prospect of helping out by doing work they love.
There is a hugely pleasant feeling that accompanies successful delegation but it is most definitely a habit and, for some people, it's a bit like developing the habit of exercise or going to the gym. It takes effort to break the barrier of not delegating and doing it for oneself. Overcome that barrier and the upside worms its way into the psyche, which makes it addictive because the benefits are so evident.
I focus a lot on time being the biggest benefit of delegation, with the proviso that what you do with it is the ergo benefit(s). However, as delegation always works laterally, it is possible to collaborate and redistribute work according to who is good at, or loves, doing certain things, so it can also mean that you get to do more of what you're great at and presumably love doing most.
In addition, it means that you're surrounded by people who are doing the stuff that you're not good at, and we know that that is a winning strategy. Always get someone who is better than you to do stuff for you: it means a better job gets done – if ever there was a no-brainer, how much encouragement do you need?
Either way, delegation means you get to fill more of your time with stuff you want to do, as opposed to being overwhelmed with things you don't like doing so much, which therefore take longer to do and longer to mentally move away from once done, and in doing so cost even more time. That's a mouthful, but it's true.
This book is intended to get the message out there that sharing, or in other words delegating downwards, upwards and sideways, is good for us individually, as a family, as a team, as a small business, as a department, as a big business and thus as an economy. I don't think we do it enough, I don't think we're taught how to do it or that it is a good thing to do and I'm hoping this book, the accompanying online programme and the available workshops help to change that.
Good luck. Delegate and grow.
Part One
INTRODUCING DELEGATION
1
THE DEFINITION OF DELEGATION
Most people walk around with knowledge of many words and probably wouldn't feel a need to look them up in a dictionary. I only looked up the verb ‘delegate’ myself for the sake of clarity at the beginning of a workshop I was about to deliver. I almost didn't recognize the word from its definition. In fact, I realized that the word's meaning had changed and that it was time to revisit the notion of delegation with a fresh pair of eyes, to revisit this often ignored – though always expected – skill of a manager.
The strict definition as written in the Oxford English Dictionary is:
To delegate vb the act of transferring or handing over work to another person usually more junior than oneself.
This was probably highly appropriate and factually correct during the fifties, sixties and maybe even seventies, when a secretary was often the equivalent of an ‘office wife’, the ‘boss’ was more-often called by title and surname and subordinates by their first or surname only. Management status was cherished and the notion of rank still fresh from the post-war era. The eighties perpetuated the notion of delegation as a one-way process, the sometimes-aggressive dumping of often less attractive tasks to a junior.
The characteristic excess and status-led attitude of the yuppie years gave way to a much more sensitive and somewhat politically-correct era which led to a far greater consideration of managerial relationships and the dynamics of emotional intelligence being applied in the workplace.
In addition, during this time, essentially from the nineties onwards, we have seen an explosion in technological advancement. Though the eighties was the beginning of the mobile phone era, the nineties saw the rise of email and electronic communication, and thereafter and through the noughties, we have seen the rise of social networking sites and more latterly the (largely worldwide) addition of smartphones.
Smartphones have to a great extent imprisoned us in a world of infomania, whereby the phone has become a constant companion, less a phone for many and more a device that makes unqualified demands on our time. As a consequence it is a huge distraction, often dragging highly-paid and highly-qualified professionals and business people into a time-wasting mire of deletion and (often over-zealous, ill-considered) speedy responses. Of course, emails, social media and the Internet are hugely valuable too, but their impact on delegation, in the strict sense of the word, has been dramatic.
Think back to the archetypal image of a secretary who, for the sake of stereotypical accuracy, we will say was female. Her role was to take down dictation, type up letters and memos (remember them?), often she would draft replies to letters and memos herself, in her boss's style for him to edit and/or sign. For him, his communication schedule was controlled and limited: the post came in and was prioritized for his attention by his secretary. Communiqués requiring urgent attention were pushed under his nose, with or without suggested replies. He studied them, decided how to act, dictated or directed a responsive action to his secretary (reply, meeting, delegation to another or ignore) and got on with other things until she had something to report. Note then that he was not constantly checking for replies or in fact able to directly communicate quickly or instigate prolonged, often instant, discussion on a matter.
Clearly this scenario rarely exists today, but its historic place in our, actually quite recent view, of delegation remains true. Fast forward even to the nineties and I would argue that secretaries were far more likely to be in charge of the email inbox, responding on behalf of their managers, deleting, prioritizing, replying and taking action where appropriate, precisely as a result of the legacy of a life and role prior to the emergence of electronic communication.
My point here is not to make or even attempt to make a social study on the impact that the digital age has had on our lives and economy. Far from it: merely, I seek to illustrate that roles have changed in recent times as a result of these advances and with it our certainty and our relationship with skills such as delegation.
If I may stray briefly from the management skill that is delegation, let us expand the notion that the social digital age has blurred the lines for many of us and that adaptation is vital to maintain quality leadership in our businesses and successful businesses as a result. Our lives are now indelibly published online, see the enlightening short talk by Juan Enriquez.1 They can be researched by employers assessing potential and in-post employees and vice versa. Managers can no longer maintain a professional distance from their colleagues, team and managers, unless they entirely shun the social media world and, even then, they have limited control over what others may post about them, pictures and all. This changes the game. Managerial leadership now has to be managed in the context of an extended professional landscape. Everyone can have a deeper knowledge of anyone else's personal or past professional life, all at the push of a button. Suddenly we are all ‘famous’. If, once again, we take the strict definition of the word,2 then without qualification of the elements ‘known’ and ‘many’ we all have the potential to fall into the category of famous, and so we have