Piling work upon an already overloaded, but willing colleague, or compelling a reluctant employee unfamiliar with the work, would defeat the purpose of delegating work – which is to have things done better and quicker by appropriate distribution of tasks. Delegation helps to overcome limitations in output, and is expected to improve both quantitative and qualitative productivity, not diminish them.
Reluctance to Delegate: Sometimes ‘you’ may be the major barrier in getting ‘your’ work done properly and in time. Most perfectionists and workaholics are reluctant to delegate because of bitter experiences. Many a time delegated work is received back below expected standards, and the person who delegated the work has to do things all over by himself or herself. Many experts in the workspace avoid delegation, because of perceived risks.
However, most refuse to admit that those ‘bitter experiences’ are not attributable to the practice of ‘delegation’ but a personal mistake of choosing the wrong person to delegate work to. Refusing to admit that it is ‘you’ who have made wrong choices in the past while delegating work, and holding on to the notion that ‘delegation is risky,’ is a major and common barrier to productivity. Reluctance to delegate is illogical, reluctance to delegate to just any one available is logical.
The Advantages of Delegating Work: Delegating work means the involvement of greater number of people in a work process and increasing the number of people familiar with a particular kind of work. Delegation lays the foundation of building teams and team management is impossible without proper delegation. So delegation increases the skills and knowledge of those who are around you and allows you to test the mettle of your colleagues in particular kinds of work. Not everyone would be equally adept at each kind of work that would be on the table, but ineptness in a particular kind of work does not make a person unworthy, for he/she might be brilliant in some other types of work. It’s not words, or lectures, but actual task delegation that reveals the human resources structure of any group.
Who would be the Right Choice for Delegating Work? This is where all those ‘bitter experiences’ with delegating work comes from – the wrong choice of a person. When you seek to delegate work, you need to be sure of the knowledge, skills, attitude, time and resources of a person or team and be doubly sure that the required abilities to get the work done are present.
While delegating, it is insufficient to be sure only of the knowledge and skills of the person or team receiving the work, one also has to make sure that adequate resources including sufficient time is available. Many a time responsibilities and priorities are required to be reshuffled to allow the responsible parties succeed in meeting benchmarks for the delegated work.
This is where most people who delegate make errors. First, you need to be sure that work is being delegated to the right person with adequate skills and knowledge, and then you need to make sure that the concerned person has sufficient resources including time to deliver upon his/her responsibilities. If it is you who make things difficult, or fail to make things easier, then blaming delegation for ‘bitter experiences’ would just handicap your prospects, not improve them.
