USE YOUR VISION, STRATEGY AND TACTICS TO DELEGATE EFFECTIVELY

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our vision, strategies and key tactics provide a basic framework for decision making and therefore enable you to delegate to your staff. Fully informed employees are easier to empower and are more effective. As you control information flow, you should use it to guide your teams to the outcomes you seek.

Set a common definition of success.

Success can take a number of forms and look different to each team member; this can cause confusion and confusion is not a good ingredient in the delegation recipe. So you need to be clear about how all of the pieces fit together. Most employees operate at a tactical level (tasks) so you want them to have a clear framework for their choices. The clearer the definitions the better the result. For example you may want to emphasize profit targets, customer satisfaction, customer acquisition, productivity, market share or employee satisfaction as key measures of success. Each requires a different focus and will produce different behaviors. Make sure you can articulate what it means to your company as it will provide a basic framework for decision making, delegation and empowerment.

Give direction.

This may sound like the antithesis of delegation but in fact delegation and direction need to peacefully co-exist. Some situations, like a crisis, can call for an immediate action. If necessary, you can tell folks to just do it, provided that you explain why. You may have access to information they don’t and this will help them understand and get better. Good delegation skills allow for directives in the right circumstances. It’s about balance.

Engender participation whenever appropriate.

Get all of your employees in the game early and often by seeking their input on key decisions. This will increase the capabilities of your teams, allow you take on more complex tasks than you could do by yourself and help promote growth and all of the benefit of a vigorously healthy organization. The balance is entirely based on situations and will require some agility from you. If you’ve created the correct framework for understanding, utilize direction sparingly, and promote engagement at all levels, you will optimize the IQ of your organization.