1Identifying The Work You Should Delegate

According to the Business Strategist Jenny Blake, choosing the right tasks to delegate plays a massive role in your ability to leverage the assistance of others.

There are two types of work you should delegate:

1. Work that is critical and doesn’t require your expertise.
2. Work that a subordinate would benefit from doing.

Work that is critical and doesn’t require your expertise

As a leader, your time and mental energy are incredibly valuable. You are wasting time and money by doing tasks that can be done by someone else.

Here are some examples:

• Scheduling meetings
• Managing databases
• Filing expense reports
• Making travel arrangements
• Collecting prospect research

All these little tasks add up and take your time and energy away from strategic work.

If you don’t have an in-house assistant, consider hiring a part-time virtual assistant through a managed service. The process is simple; just attend a couple of meetings to explain your procedures and preferences. Afterward, your account manager will keep your assistant trained and ready to tackle any tasks you send their way.

Work that a subordinate would benefit from doing

Delegation is one of the most effective ways to empower junior employees to take on greater responsibility. When you’re overloaded with tasks, consider whether any of your employees have the skills to be successful at it. Assigning employees portions of your work lets you test their abilities.

Here are some examples of tasks you can give to junior employees:

• Creating slides for an upcoming presentation
• Drafting a report
• Making preparations for a client meeting
• Outlining project proposals

Keep in mind that delegating stretch assignments often require a time investment from you because your employees may have questions or make mistakes. However, it is still worth delegating these types of tasks because you’re still saving some time and, as your team develops new skills, you’ll be able to pass on more complex tasks.

2Strategically Choose Who You Delegate To

One of the most damaging mistakes leaders make when delegating tasks is giving them to the wrong people. Research shows that it is critical for you to carefully consider the skills and abilities of individuals before you delegate to them.

The amount of thought you need to invest varies based on the complexity of the task. Generally, though, you should carefully consider tasks the first time you delegate them and, if possible, repeatedly give them to the same employee(s).

Follow these steps to determine who you should delegate to:

1. Develop a rough list of knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) that are needed to complete your tasks. HR uses KSAOS to select the right people for jobs and so should you. You don’t have to create a document or anything formal like that – a mental list will help you understand what your tasks require.

2. Identify which employees have those skills. Once you have your list, think about which employees are the best fit. Your goal is to find a couple of individuals who have the right skills and are at an appropriate job level for the task. To do this, you may have to assign tasks to individuals outside of your team. Delegating administrative work to subordinates who are responsible for strategic projects is distracting and may be insulting.

Important: One of the skills you’re looking for must be reliability. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where an urgent task is due and the person you delegated it to didn’t complete it, leaving you scrambling at the last minute to get it done.

3. Determine which employees have the availability. Once you’ve identified the skills needed and found a couple of employees who that skill set, assign your work to the individual who has the most availability. If you face challenges on an ongoing basis with everyone in your organization being too busy to support one another, consider hiring support staff.

3Delegate Assignments With Zero Confusion

When delegating, remember that your employees can’t read your mind. Visionary leaders, in particular, tend to have specific ideas of what they’re looking for and can make the mistake of assuming their employees share their understanding.

Failing to explain your expectations leads to mistakes and can be detrimental to employee morale. Another Gallup report found that when employees lack a clear sense of direction, they’re likely to become dissatisfied since they don’t know if they’re on the right track.

When you delegate, don’t assume the person knows what you’re talking about unless you’ve already developed a delegation process for passing off that type of task.

To avoid confusion, delegate tasks via written messages that include the following:

• An explanation of the deliverables you expect from them
• Details about how you want it delivered (if applicable)
• Deadline
• Any other preferences you have

The clearer you are in this message, the easier it will be for your team members to complete the tasks you give them.

Here are a few examples on how to send a clear message.

Scheduling a meeting

Hi Maria,

Can you schedule a 90 minute lunch meeting with John Smith (john@example.com) sometime next week? I want to meet somewhere in Downtown Portland. John is a vegetarian so please find a restaurant with options for him.

Thank you,

Emily

Filing an expense report

Hi Andy,

I attached all the receipts from my recent trip to New York. Can you file all them into our expense management system and produce an itemized report that I can give to my supervisor?

Thanks,

Emily

Identifying who you should reach out to at an event

Hi Sara,

I attached the attendee list for my upcoming conference. Can you review the list and do the following:

• Remove anyone who is already in my CRM
• Highlight in green anyone who works for a financial services or VC firm
• Highlight in yellow anyone who works for a software development company

Thank you,

Emily

The more clear and concise your messages are, the less likely it is for there to be miscommunications when you delegate tasks.

Important: Subordinates may not have the same authority and access to resources to complete the work as you do. Consider if there are any types of special permissions you need to give your employees so they are fully empowered to get the task done.

Permissions include:

• Giving them access to online tools
• Messaging anyone who may block them from completing your task
• Granting them the authority to make any necessary decisions on your behalf
• Sending them any relevant materials may help them do the task more accurately

Let your subordinate know the fastest way to reach you if they run into a roadblock.

4Monitor Progress Periodically

If you’re delegating tasks on an ongoing basis or delegating projects that take a few days to complete, check in on your team to ensure they’re on the right track. Monitoring your subordinates’ progress lets you catch and resolve misunderstandings before they create conflicts and, if you offer positive feedback, can boost their morale.

Studies show that employees who receive frequent feedback are less stressed, happier and more confident. This is likely because feedback lets people know if they are on the right track which minimizes their fear of failure.

When you delegate, set up brief sync meetings at intervals that are appropriate for your project’s timeline. If you’re assigning small tasks like scheduling and expense reporting on an ongoing basis, aim to catch up weekly to quickly address any concerns, comments, etc.

Inevitably, some miscommunications will go unnoticed and mistakes will be made. Rather than getting frustrated and deciding to complete the task on your own, offer constructive criticism. Addressing issues will make delegation easier for you and your team moving forward.

Here are some tips for giving constructive criticism:

Focus on the error, not the person.

The more objective your feedback, the more likely the individual will accept it because they don’t feel like you are personally attacking them.

Use a neutral tone and facial expression.

Don’t give feedback until you can do so calmly. If you make your frustration visible, most people will naturally react defensively or withdraw – even if your words aren’t accusatory.

Provide action steps for improvement.

If your team member made a mistake because they didn’t understand how to perform an aspect of their job, don’t end your meeting with them until you’re confident they know what to do moving forward. If you have time, coach them on how to develop the solution. However, if you’re in a hurry, explicitly state what you expect from them.

The more you delegate tasks, the less often you’ll have to check in because you’ll develop a natural rhythm and understanding with the individuals you pass off tasks to.

5Create Processes For Ongoing Tasks

If you frequently delegate specific tasks, document processes for completing them. A lot of leaders make the mistake of assuming that if they tell a person to do something once, that person will memorize how to do it.

While that is sometimes the case, you have to remember that subordinates are often juggling tasks for multiple people and may have difficulty remembering your specific preferences. Writing down your needs makes it easy for employees to get the job done right every time.

There are two easy ways to create ongoing processes.

1. Write a list of instructions that includes notes about your preferences.

Clarify them based on the questions asked. This option is great for short, step-by-step tasks and/or when you delegate most of your tasks to someone who learns best via written communication.

Examples of tasks that work well for this include:

• Scheduling meetings
• Creating standard reports
• Making event arrangements

2. Create a video of yourself doing the task and explaining your reasoning as you move through each action.

Create the video live with the person you plan to delegate to most often. This gives them an opportunity to ask questions and have the answers recorded. This option is excellent for tasks that are visual and that shift depending on context.

Examples of tasks that work well for this include:

• Keeping a database clean and up-to-date
• Uploading and editing content on websites
• Performing a function in a new software

Once you document processes, you can quickly assign tasks without explanation. If your go-to person is unavailable, processes make it easy to delegate to other individuals.

Here at Quickskill, we take care of this process on a daily basis with our clients. As a provider of managed virtual assistant services, our entire business centers on delegation. When we onboard new clients, our first step is documenting processes for the tasks they want to delegate to their assistants. Learning our client’s preferences regarding how they like tasks completed is key to making our service easy to use. Our clients can send routine tasks any time and know they’ll be completed correctly since their assistant has a guide they can refer to.