Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed with tasks and wondering which ones you should delegate?
Drawing from our 47 years of experience in management performance, I’m going to share with you the real untapped secret of uncommonly effective delegation.
The big problem is that there are some very common mistakes people make when they try to delegate their tasks.
So how do successful business owners and managers make the right choices about what to delegate and what not to? And once they’ve decided to delegate something, how do they do it in the right way?
What to Delegate
Choosing what to delegate is as crucial as the actual delegation process itself.
The true art in delegation starts with identifying the tasks that are suitable for it, and you need a high level of insight to be able to do that.
Repetitive tasks are of course a prime candidate for delegation, because outsourcing those can free up important time for strategic planning and critical decision-making.
Beyond that though, there are other reasons to delegate tasks. For example, tasks that provide a learning opportunity for team members can also be ideal. This can be a great way to foster growth and job satisfaction within your team.
Risk can also provide a good lens for choosing what to delegate. Tasks with lower stakes, where errors are not catastrophic, are good candidates for delegation. High risk tasks should probably stay within the managerial realm.
At the end, I’ll also reveal a powerful secret strategy for choosing what to delegate that hardly anyone is using. We’ll get to that very soon.
Now that we’ve looked at what to delegate, let’s explore the most common delegation mistakes that managers make, so that you can be sure to avoid them.
Common Delegation Mistakes
While delegation is often a powerful tool, it comes with a set of pitfalls that can seriously undermine its effectiveness. It’s crucial that managers remain aware of these possible mistakes.
Micro-Managing
This super-common delegation mistake revolves around the natural human propensity to not let go of things that we value.
This is one to be careful of, because not only does it defeat the purpose of delegation, but it can also stifle and de-motivate your team members.
Clarity
Giving clear instructions is actually a skill in itself. The best way to set yourself up for instant failure is to delegate without clear instructions.
This seems like an obvious one, but it’s also unfortunately very common.
Lack of Feedback
One of the places a lot of people slip up with delegation is in this area. Once a task is handed off, it can be tempting to forget about it..
This is the opposite problem to micro-management, but it’s just as damaging. A lot of managers fail to check in with their team members, meaning that they can be left missing the guidance and feedback they need to be able to do a good job.
Without constructive feedback, team members can’t learn and grow, and neither can your business.
Delegating to the Wrong Person
Matching the task to the right team member is absolutely vital. If there is a mismatch, not only do you not get the outcomes you want, but your team members can also quickly sink into a cycle of de-motivation.
Sometimes choosing the right person for the task is easy, but many times it isn’t. Luckily though, there is a hidden method for doing this with shocking accuracy.
So now, on to the real secret to how your delegation can be highly effective – drawn from 47 years of experience in management performance right here at Effective Intelligence.
The Real Secret of Delegation
The two aspects of super-effective delegation are as follows:
Firstly, you need to figure out which tasks to do yourself and which ones to delegate.
Secondly, with those tasks you are delegating, you need to figure out who is going to do each one.
The secret strategy for doing both of these things unbelievably successfully, is to truly, deeply understand how you and your team members think.
The best way to do this is with our proven tool, the Thinking-Intentions Profile. More than 150,000 people have used it to transform their understanding of their own thinking, which has enabled them to achieve incredible results in all areas of their work.
Once you understand your own Thinking-Intentions Profile, you can keep the tasks that require the type of thinking that you most prefer, and delegate out the tasks that require other types of thinking.
This will drastically improve your own productivity and enjoyment in what you do. But there’s more…
If you know the Thinking-Intentions Profiles of each of your team members, you’ll know exactly which tasks will fit each team member, and the productivity and happiness in your business as a whole will go through the roof.
If that sounds good to you, check out this link to discover your own Thinking-Intentions Profile today!
