Do You Delegate or Dump?

You may have heard some time management experts recommending “Do it, Delegate it, or Dump it”. That's great advice for managing your time wisely as things come up during your work day. But when it comes to the delegation part of this advice, do you delegate or dump on your employees?

If you delegate tasks correctly, it will help free your time to work on the more important duties you have as a business owner. But if you simply dump the tasks on your employees without giving any direction or guidance on how you'd like it done, you're setting yourself up for disappointment – not to mention you're setting your employees up for failure. Especially if you're holding them accountable for issues when they fail. How would you feel if someone dumped a task on you, didn't give you any guidance on their expectations, and then held you responsible when it didn't work out? That's a perfect example of being a “bad boss”.

Dumping = abdication. Delegating effectively will grow your business.

Example of Delegating vs Dumping

In the early years of running our cleaning business, Steve and I spent a lot of time walking through all the buildings at the end of the night, ensuring the cleaning was done to our standards. Even though I hated being out late at night walking through empty buildings, I hated getting that phone call the next morning from an unhappy client even more.  

Eventually we hired a supervisor that could take over this task so I could get out of the field and focus on my role in the company. At this point, Steve shared the responsibility with the supervisor. But we discovered that the client phone calls we received were from the buildings our supervisor was responsible for. Were the walk-through's not getting done? If they were, why weren't the issues taken care of?

This was a lesson in dumping the task on the supervisor without proper guidance. I mean, how hard is it to walk through the building, checking to make sure everything on the specifications list was done? It's certainly not rocket science. Once you know a building, you learn what to look for.

The Mistake I Made When Delegating

When turning over this responsibility to the supervisor, I spent a night or two walking through buildings with him pointing out things that needed attention. Simple, right?

Delegation means giving up some control, but I took it to the other extreme – I abdicated control. Once I got it off my plate, I gave complete responsibility to the supervisor, held him accountable, yet didn't give much guidance on how the building should look after it was cleaned.

I quickly realized my error when the phone calls came in, so I went to work figuring out where I went wrong. Since Steve was so good at seeing a building through the customer's eyes, I realized that I was coming at it from the wrong perspective. Instead of looking for what was missed, I should have been paying attention to how the building looked after it was cleaned, as I mentioned above. What's the difference? Quality Control.

How I Fixed My “Dumping” Mistake

Instead of having the supervisor use a specifications list to walk through the building, I created a Quality Control list that explained everything that Steve looked for when walking through a building. So instead of checking off that the entryway had been cleaned, I drilled down more to the specific appearance of the entryway. I re-framed it to state:

• Entryway is free of soil, cobwebs and dust.
• Doorway glass and frame is free of soil, cobwebs and fingerprints.
• Mats have been vacuumed and are free of loose soil
• Etc.

When I re-framed it in this way, the supervisor had more guidance on how to look at the building from the client's point of view. This was important for his success so he always made sure the appearance matched client expectations.

This approach also made it easier for him to talk to the cleaning technician when improvements were necessary. He could come at the conversation from a more positive point of view. Instead of rattling off a list of everything the employee missed, he could walk through the areas pointing out those tasks that are important to the client, such as water spots on the bottom of the mirrors in the restroom. When the client sees these, it feels like the restroom wasn't even cleaned because we didn't pay attention to detail. It became a perfect training opportunity rather than a rant on everything the employee did wrong. There are no winners in that situation.

Delegation does mean giving responsibility of the task to your employee, but it doesn't mean handing over all the control. You still need to maintain overall control by following up with the employee, giving added direction and offering praise.

Dumping isn't going to help alleviate your workload, it's just going to add more stress to your day. Effective delegation takes more time, but in the long run it's worth it because your employees will more fully understand what's expected and just how to accomplish the goal. So make a commitment to spend your time teaching and guiding, and over time you'll have freed up more time for those important projects that will move your business forward in a big way.

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• A.C.E. It!™: How to Solve Tough Workplace Problems

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• Analyzing Poor Performers

• Assertiveness without Aggressiveness

• Lead By Example Video Series

• Leaders Quick Tip Series

• Manager and Friend: The Right Balance

• Managing Employees Video Series

• Changing the Culture of Your Organization

• Coaching Series (Coaching Others to a Higher Performance)

• Conflict Management Video Series

• Creating Accountability

• Dealing with Angry People Video Series

• Delivering Feedback - Fixing Performance Problems

• Developing B-Players into Top Performers

• Developing Your Leadership Style

• Disagreements at Work Video Series

• Emerging Leaders Video Series

• First Time Manager: Understanding a Manager's Role

• Productivity Through Praise

• Progressive Discipline

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