5 Myths That Block Effective Delegation in Business Video Lecture | Be a Leader: Leadership Development Course - Management

let's talk about the common myths of
poor delegation and how you can overcome
them your most valuable resources are
the human resources entrusted to you to
get the job done they're far more
valuable than computers or office space
excellent managers are those who are
capable of eliciting the highest quality
performance from the people they manage
now your job as a manager is to get the
maximum return on the company's
investment in people as much as 85% of
the operating budget of any organization
is invested in salaries and benefits the
question is are you getting the maximum
return out of those people delegation is
one of the very best ways to do this the
average person works at about 50 to 60
percent of capacity that means that half
of their capacity is not being tapped in
the average organization an excellent
organization is where people are using
more and more of their potential ability
to achieve the goals of the organization
now your job is a manager's to grow
people you are entrusted with the
responsibility of taking care of your
people and developing them because only
people can be made to increase in value
a computer depreciates and becomes
obsolete people can actually grow in
value depending on how they are managed
and utilized use delegating to challenge
your people and cause them to stretch
and become more valuable now delegation
is the method it is how you develop
people the way you delegate determines
whether they grow and expand their
capabilities or whether they contract
most important of all is how it helps
you to fulfill your personal potential
the wonderful thing is that your
potential as a manager or executive is
virtually unlimited except by your
ability to unleash the talents and
abilities of others by delegating and
supervising effectively now you have two
choices in the world of work when
something has been assigned to you and
you are accountable to a higher
authority you can either do it yourself
or get someone else to do it your
ability to get somebody else to do it
more than anything else is going to
determine your career track your rate of
promotion your pay your status your
position your prestige and your success
as a manager often managers do not
delegate because of certain myths that
they hold that may or may not be true
these are mental blocks of the
individual manager some of these you are
aware of and some of them you are
unconscious of wherever you see a poor
delegator you will probably see one of
these myths at work the number one myth
is that there's not enough time
sometimes people are so busy and swamped
that they think they don't have enough
time to sit down and explain the job to
someone else they just want to get on
with it or they may delegate the job to
another person but they don't take
enough time to walk them through it they
say do this and have it done by
such-and-such a time and consider that
to be delegation in reality this is not
delegation but abdication remember
there's always enough time there's an
old saying that there's never enough
time to do it right but there's always
enough time to do it over again in
poorly managed organizations or work
units there always seems to be enough
time to do it over and correct the
mistakes and misunderstandings from the
first time so eliminate that myth
remember that taking the time to
delegate well is the most effective
investment of your time that you can
engage in sometimes it will increase
your productivity by five and ten times
now we often have the tendency to think
that the staff person is not competent
enough to be delegated to very often
managers underestimate the ability of
their people but the only way that you
can test how capable people are is to
give them more to do than they've done
before and allow them the latitude to
make mistakes and to learn from those
mistakes people will surprise you
amazingly enough your staff probably
have competences that you have never
discovered and if you learn to tap into
their capabilities not only will they
get more full
filmin but you'll get a lot more done
which will help your career another myth
is that if you want it done right you
have to do it yourself this idea carried
to its logical conclusion guarantees
failure in management this myth will
hold you back in management and condemns
you to continually operating rather than
managing the biggest reason for failure
in the executive suite and management is
the inability to move from doing the job
to managing the job the natural tendency
is to fall back into your comfort zone
and start doing it rather than
delegating it your job remember is to
manage and not to operate that's why
you're a manager in the first place the
next myth is that people will think
you're not on top of your job if you got
somebody else doing it the opposite is
true
often executives or managers are very
greedy they want people to think that
they're on top of the job and know
what's going on all the time today you
can never know what's going on
everywhere all the time but you can
always have access to the people who do
know the final myth is that because you
are particularly good at something you
should do it yourself the rule with
regard to this is fairly simple whatever
you have mastered and can now do easily
delegate it and get on to something else
you should not be working on tasks that
are simple and routine for you again the
natural tendency is to fall into the
habit of doing the jobs that we enjoy
and keeping them for ourselves instead
delegate the easy things and get on to
tasks that require greater complexity
and greater involvement tasks that are
more challenging the starting point of
delegation like the starting point in
all successful management is hard
thinking about the job think through
exactly what has to be done most of the
problems in management come from action
without thinking as a matter of fact
almost all failure comes from action
before thinking think through the job
with clarity there's an old saying that
estate
in time saves nine the time that you
spend sitting down itemizing the work
and thinking through what has to be done
and when and to what level of quality is
the starting point of effective
delegation often people delegate first
or hand out tasks first and then think
through the job afterwards the second
consideration is your approach how are
you approaching it and could there be a
better way when I go into a company as a
management consultant I find that the
most important contribution that I can
make is to help people ask the right
questions I help them to engage in a
questioning process so that they can
challenge their most cherished
assumptions we start off with thinking
through where they are going where
they're starting from how they are doing
it now and could there be a better way
to be your own management consultant you
have to do the same thing how are you
approaching each task a good point that
comes to mind continually is should it
be done internally in the first place
maybe it would be cheaper as a starting
point to have it done by someone else
and having someone else in your office
simply coordinated we call this
outsourcing make a list of everything
that has to be done in the completion of
a task or the achievement of an
objective what are all the different
tasks that have to be done to create a
job remember that every minute spent in
planning saves 10 to 12 minutes in
execution the biggest single payoff
you'll ever get as a manager comes from
planning and all planning begins with a
paper and pen and making lists of what
has to be done and how lastly be sure
that you match the activities to the
people and the skills that they possess
this is a mental tool that you can use
to be more effective in your delegating
efforts each person and each work unit
made up of individuals can be viewed as
a factory a factory has certain inputs
raw materials resources time money
equipment inside the factory certain
activities are performed the result of
these activities is specific outputs or
what you might call
results the productivity of the factory
is judged solely on the basis of the
quality and quantity of its results not
on its activities so when you think of
your unit or department or company or
your area of responsibility think of it
in terms of a factory then ask yourself
what results are we supposed to produce
why do we exist what have you been hired
to accomplish then when you look at each
person in your organization think of
them also as a factory they have
resources available to them they have
activities that they do and they have
outputs that they accomplish they are on
the payroll to get results a critical
part of delegation is to think through
the results that you're trying to
accomplish and keep people's attention
focused on these results one of the
hallmarks of all successful managers and
all effective people is an intense
result orientation one of the hallmarks
of ineffective people is that they focus
on activities rather than on
accomplishments you can increase your
overall outputs by utilizing your time
and resources more effectively this is
called managerial leverage this is a
very important concept which comes from
Andy Grove one of the founders of Intel
Corporation he says there are certain
things that you can do that can multiply
your output or or that of your area of
responsibility the manager's job is to
do the things that give him or her the
maximum leverage for instance buying a
computer or buying a copier rather than
sending your work out these are
decisions that can give you tremendous
leverage and delegation is a way to get
leverage as well delegation enables you
to multiply your outputs when you
instruct or teach or show a person what
to do they can then do the job for you
which will double or triple your total
output however managerial leverage works
in Reverse as well imagine that an
average employee working at an average
speed and can produce 10 units of work
per day as a manager you can either
multiply or divide the
amount suppose that this person is
working at half speed with effective
delegation you can multiply that ten by
maybe a factor of 1.5 you may get those
units up to 15 per day however with
ineffective or fuzzy or vague delegation
you may drop that number to eight or
even five because of confusion they will
waste time and spin their wheels a key
question you have to ask yourself is are
you a multiplication sign in your work
environment or are you a division sign
do people produce more as a result of
working with you and with others around
you or do they produce less as a result
of the ineffectiveness of your
delegation whatever it is your ability
to delegate effectively and well largely
determines your success as a manager