Master These 3 Easy Steps to Delegate Work That Empowers Employees

"That's ok. I'll do it."

If you utter these 5 words as a manager, you've lost.

And let's be honest, we've all said them before.

Why do I think these are the 5 most dangerous words you can use?

• "That's ok." Actually, it's not. You wouldn't be stepping in if it was done well. So you're not being clear with your expectations nor holding them accountable.

• "I'll" Unless this sentence ends with "give you some coaching" or "provide you guidance," you're no longer managing. You're doing.

• "Do it." You're back to being the bottleneck. Worse, no one is learning. There is no compounding. It was a chance to get better, and you interrupted the cycle.

But there's a reason it is so easy for these words to fly out of our mouths, and that reason is fear. Fear of failure. Fear of inefficiency. Fear of obsolescence. I covered all the fears holding you back in this thread if you missed it.

Stare at each of those fears, and you'll realize two things:

1. There is some small nugget of truth behind most of those fears

2. The risk that fear poses is smaller than the benefit of empowering your team

In short, if you're not prioritizing and delegating work, you're not really managing.

But even leaders who see past the fear still struggle to delegate. If you read past the first two lines, that's probably you. But I promise you, there's a simple path.

Choose the Right Work

Part of the reason delegating gets a bad rap is that centuries of managers have done it for the wrong reason. They take the work they don't want to do and get it in the hands of anyone paid less than them who'll take it.

Managers today, your job is to make that type of work simply go away. And then focus on getting meaningful work into the hands of the people most capable of doing it excellently.

Let's start with a framework many of us are familiar with: The Eisenhower Matrix.

The punchline of this framework (as originally written) is you want to delegate everything that's Urgent, but Not Important. Better than nothing, but this will not get you far.

Instead, I've taken the (not-so-humble) liberty of updating the matrix.

I've found through time that these shifts are subtle but unlocking. Especially in a world where we can delegate to people or computers.  

Urgent/Important - I added the "For Now" because you should only do this to figure out Why it's urgent. Once you know Why, you can adjust your system to anticipate it, thereby dropping the urgency. You've basically converted it into...

Important/Not Urgent - This is actually your sweet spot of modern delegation. You're empowering them with real work supported by systems and technology that make it predictable. And the lack of urgency gives you the latitude to provide feedback and coach instead of taking the work back.

Urgent/Not Important - No matter how systematic and disciplined your team is, these will show up. And yes, you should absolutely delegate them. But, do so with the full expectation of making this work shrink or disappear - automation, process improvement, etc. Delegating this higher-order goal encourages more ownership than the task alone would command.

Not Urgent/Not Important - This seems obvious, and yet, if we all paused and stared hard at what we're doing or what our people are doing, we'd find waste. I recommend a once-a-month "cleanup" day where you find ways to delete what's crept in. It'll help you build trust with your team and unlock their capacity to take on more impactful goals.

Tap the Best Person

With the right work identified, you need the ideal person to assume responsibility.

Here's a hint: if you're selecting the person by title alone, you're missing the point. Titles are static, but your people - and your business - are dynamic. A little extra consideration can produce outsized results.

Here's a comparison of myself and another executive based on the free personality assessment offered by PrinciplesYou that underscores the point:

As you can see, despite similar backgrounds, we have wildly divergent thinking styles. You can give us the same work, and we'll attack it differently. And I'll probably have a few extra typos.

Here's a waterfall of 5 questions to easily identify the right person:

1. Are they already doing part of the work? If someone already has part of a process, give them responsibility for the whole thing. They feel more ownership, and you reduce your switching costs. This is the easiest place to start.

2. Does this activity draw upon their superpower? We all like to win. The easiest way to win is to play games you're good at. This has an even greater benefit if this is work that you struggle with.

3. Will this use a skillset we agree they need to develop? If you're actively maintaining a development plan for each person on your team (you should btw) then supporting them in taking on a new piece of work that supports their stretch is a wise investment.

4. Can they bring a fresh perspective? Work has a tendency to go through bursts of inspiration and then plateau. We all have activities we used to bring energy to that now languish. Appeal to their desire to make things better.

5. Is it a necessary test? Unfortunately, not everyone can do every job sufficiently. As leaders, we are responsible for getting an accurate and fair read of each person and making tough calls. Sometimes you need to delegate a fresh project to get that read. Do it, and be upfront about Why.

These simple questions will cover 98% of the work you need to delegate.

Don't get hung up on the last 2%. Some work stinks, can't be automated, and needs to be done by someone else. And that's ok.

If you typically operate based on the above, you'll have built the trust to weather the occasional truth that "this work is a grind, but I need you to do it."

Putting It Together

Once you've got the right person doing the right work, your job doesn't end.

Delegating does not end with transferring work.

Done well, you coach them into transferring responsibility.

As they use that responsibility to show good judgment, you're now transferring authority.

Finally - and this is the real goal - you want them to demonstrate mastery and ingenuity. That's when you reach the summit. That's when you've transferred ownership. 

This is how you delegate for development. And how your grind becomes their growth.

Build the Right Team

On October 5th, we kick off the 12th cohort of the MGMT Accelerator. Eight 90-minute modules over four weeks.

One of the biggest value drivers? The community.

Every cohort has said it was worth at least 10x what they paid, and the most recent one said it was worth 28x.

Did I mention 80% of the leaders who joined us got reimbursed by their companies? 

Enroll soon. Space is limited.

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