Update Your Delegation Skills - 5 Proven Strategies that Win You Time
Posted: Thursday, January 24, 2008
by Paula Eder
The Timefinder Expert
Time management becomes stress management as you improve morale with those you work with. Were you taught delegation skills that foster resentment? Take this simple quiz to find out. These 5 Delegating Power Principles can transform your personal effectiveness and build capacity amongst your coworkers.
Power up your team-building skills:
• Explore how your methods match up with traditional and new delegating practices.
• Learn how the 5 Delegating Power Principles optimize the use of your time and others' time as well.
Delegating Quiz
When I delegate, I generally:
1. (T F) Assign the tasks to those who don't look busy.
2. (T F) Grant more authority to accomplish the goals only as they furnish results.
3. (T F) Provide detailed instructions how to move forward, based on my personal experience.
4. (T F) Check in often and unannounced to ensure they are proceeding the right way.
5. (T F) Warn them that future assignments depend upon their not making mistakes, to stimulate their incentive.
If you have answered "True" to the preceding questions, you have learned well from prior generations of taskmasters. But your results may fall short of the mark. All too often, this traditional approach generates frustration and gobbles up time, because it fails to take into consideration 5 important principles:
5 Delegating Power Principles
1. Always respect the variety in people's aptitudes . The more fully you appreciate the diversity of talents, the more likely you are to handpick the person whose strengths match your job at hand.
2. Confer the responsibility to meet a goal with the full power needed to bring about the desired result from the onset . Encourage the person to notify you if they need more authority or support of any kind to get the task completed.
3. What works well for you may not work well for others. Provide your delegates with the freedom to find their own way . Present tasks in terms of goals to achieve, not methods to follow. Always encourage your assistants to call upon their own strengths and creativity to meet your objective.
4. Different people thrive under different levels of supervision. Try cooperatively working out a system of checking in with one another. When you invest time in constructive, consensual review, you will enjoy rich dividends. You and your colleagues will find this much more enjoyable and productive than old-style hovering!
5. By allowing room for mistakes, you allow room for new discoveries . You encourage your support system to do its best when you support some experimenting. When you extend latitude and good will, your assistants will respond with increased confidence, cooperation and loyalty.
What is your next step to find more time?
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