Saturday, November 01, 2014
How to Decide What to Delegate
Tuts+ Business Tutorial: The answer is to delegate more effectively, so that you can spend less time on minutiae and more time on strategic decisions. But that’s not always as easy as it sounds. You may need to hire extra staff, meaning more expense. And if you don’t do it right, you can end up creating problems for yourself and your business. There are some key tasks, for example, that you just shouldn’t delegate.
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I know this article pertains to the larger picture of delegating jobs within a business or larger organization, but I definitely relate most to this to my time spent on evening crew here at CMU. Pretty much every evening I see both good and bad examples of team delegation (or lack thereof). Some leaders strongly dislike delegation of tasks, and micromanage every project of the evening. Some leaders over delegate or delegate without full explanation, which leads to the article's aforementioned "boomerang effect". I think the take away for me is that the ideal working style is somewhere in the middle, just as this article talks about. Delegation prevents you from being swamped with menial work, but over delegation doesn't really help either.
There truly is a fine line to be walked when identifying tasks to delegate or not, and as a manager early in his career, I can tell you that it’s a challenging one to walk sometimes. Ben makes a good point about the work that happens on productions here, sometimes the crew head does a fine job of distributing tasks (and with the appropriate amount of information), and at other times they either don’t delegate enough, or too much. And I’ve been on both ends of that more than once, as a delegator and delegate. In fact, this article couldn’t have been posted at a better time for me as I prepare to take over the Project Manager position for Carnegie Scenic. I have fair amount of delegating to do by default, between assigning labor and other resources to certain projects in the shop, or assigning detailers to projects in the office to draft and budget the projects for the shop. But that’s just a small amount of the tasks that need doing in order to keep things moving. Materials need to be order, meetings need to be had, labor needs to be tracked…and all too various degrees. As the author points out, not all of that do I need or necessarily want to source out, or can’t for that matter. However if I appropriately identify the things I can, then it could make my job significantly easier, and the machine could operate much more efficiently that way.
This does not directly have to do with theatre, but as a stage manager these ideas are very helpful. Delegating is a huge part of stage management because there is a lot to be done and it cannot only be done by the stage manager. At my high school I was not the best at delegating because I did not trust the crew that was not as experienced as I was. If I wanted something done right, I just did it myself. That was not always the most effective thing to do because it took me away from other tasks that were more important. You need to be able to trust the people you work with and let them do some of the work for you. Having an assistant stage manager for the first time helped me become better at delegating tasks.
Trust in employees is a key theme in this article. I think its important to trust your staff to be able to handle the tasks given to them. You hired them for a reason, after all, so why shouldn't you trust them? It's easy to believe that doing a job yourself will get it done correctly, but that sets a precedent that you don't trust your employees to perform competently. It also wastes both their time and yours.
I often struggle with knowing what to delegate, and I feel that this article has really cleared up the majority of my confusion.
Delegation is way, way harder than it seems, especially when you are very invested in the work you are doing. I think delegation has been my biggest struggle with my stage management assignment this semester. It is difficult, as a leader, to find the line between delegating too much, not giving enough instructions, giving TOO many instructions, etc. In the end, I have learned that in order to complete a task, as a manager it is necessary to delegate, and the biggest key to delegation is trust. In PPM, Molly told us how she always tells her ASMs from the start that they have her trust, and it is their job to keep it that way. I think that is a good mentality to approach when you know you will need to be delegating a fair amount to your assistants and the other people working for you.
Delegation is usually never an easy task. What to delegate? Who to trust? How much to check on people and verify their work? There is no easy or simple answer to this. However, this article does help answer some of those questions and assists in this decision making process. As Joe says, delegation is a fine line, too much or too little and there can be catastrophic results. Ok, so it usually isn't that bad, it really just results in wasted/inefficiently used time and/or unhappy and angry people.
I found this article to be extremely useful, especially since I find myself struggling to figuring out how to split up tasks. Often times I'll fall into the mindset that if I don't do it myself then it won't get done right which is really dangerous to do in the workspace. I've started to try to separate myself from the individual tasks and focus on the final project as a whole. It's definitely a delicate balance which is hard to perfect and get down just right.
I think this article breaks down delegation into two main parts. When is it acceptable to delegate and what should you delegate. Being a manager who works on multiple projects at a time, you delegate because you won't get all the work done, or you won't get the work done well. The key to successful delegation I feel is communication and clear expectations. You need to be able to explain what you want someone to do, and what your expectations of their work are. Managing expectations is something that employers do often in their roles as leaders, But applying that same skill to delegation can be fairly tricky. Micro managing is obnoxious and often is an a point of contention with employees that lead to poor working relationships and product. Finally checking and following through with delegation is the extra 10% that can go a long way. With that check point and follow up you build relationships with your employees as well as make future delegation easier.
I think that this "I'm the owner, I need to take on everything" attitude is emerging as a result of the economic depression back in 2008. Everyone lost their jobs, so they opened up a small business to still have a cash flow. And if they own their small business, they're going to do everything they can to make sure that their company is successful so that they don't ever have to go back to that feeling of massive job loss ever again. So it completely does not surprise me that a majority of business owners feel overwhelmed. However, that doesn't stop the fact that there are still only 24 hours in a day, so being in this position forces you to think about and use time in a different way. I found this article incredibly useful in explaining how to do just that. I also like this because it's an absolutely valuable life skill to have, and can be practiced by anyone, entrepreneur, business owner, or student.
We discussed delegating in a few of my classes recently, from both the stage and production manager’s standpoint. As a production manager, the aspects of delegating to be focused on are hiring or picking the right people for the job, and establishing an effective “checking-in” system in order to monitor your people without being overbearing. For example, a production manager is not likely to decide which tasks the costume shop manager will do and how they will accomplish them, but they can establish that person’s responsibilities maintain a close communication and continually make sure that they are the right person for the position. A stage manager, on the other hand, will be delegating very specific tasks and duties to their assistant stage manager, by figuring out what is most valuable for each of them to do based on skills, experience and working relationship. Delegating well is an extremely valuable skill, as long as it’s applied in a flexible way that evolves with the job and the team members, adapting to each project’s specific circumstances.
As a stage manager, this article gave me some really great tips on how to go about delegating jobs in the workplace. Although the article wasn't direct in referring to theatre as a whole- the examples provided were very helpful and can be applied to most any job in the theatre. Referring to Sam's Comment on this topic- I previously worked in much of the same way. If something had to be done I did it to ensure that it would be done correctly. Now I know that I just have to trust others to know what they're doing.
Ah, delegation. I have such a love/hate relationship with delegating tasks. As a perfectionist, I live in a constant state of fear during group projects. I worry to the point of annoying those I work with about anything my hands don't touch. But on the other hand, I will be the first to admit that in the past I have assigned other people some of the more unpleasant tasks that have fallen under my purview in the name of "delegation". It makes for a handy, justifiable scapegoat. That said, delegation, contrary to what one may believe, is - in my experience - provides a valuable cohesive element in any team environment. Delegation is a matter of trust and responsibility, and these two concepts are, at the end of the day, what truly makes any team or project successful.
Great article. I'm not good at delegating. It's an ego thing and it's something I'm working to change. I have a hard time trusting other people to put as much into a project as I would. It's not that I think I necessarily think I could do it better, but I know I will put as much energy as I possibly can into it, and I can't know that about anyone else. I'm working on a drafting project for The Wiz right now that is going to take a fair amount of detailing work which I would like to delegate, at least partially. This is a built-in delegation in many design and engineering offices in the industry. Once a project has been conceptualized and modeled, it gets handed off to one or more people to put on paper. This allows for parallel work flows, and also helps find design problems before the project hits the floor, because someone else has to try to understand the design intent in order to plate it. I bring this up as an illustration in how delegation can not only improve productivity, but can also improve the product itself.
This article says it was only posted 6 days ago, but I’m almost positive we’ve had one just like it on the Green Pages before.
I really like the idea of tracking my time, to see what percentage of time I spend working on different projects. I would be that the pie chart that would come out of it is much different than the pie chart I think it would be.
I think the key point in this article is to focus on things that move your business forward, and delegate all the other things that go with, along, and beside that goal. The difficulty is, and this article barely glazes over this, that sometimes it’s faster to do something yourself than to delegate that particular task to somebody else.
This article walks a nice line between being too general to be useful and too specific to read. Breaking it down into things you should delegate and things that you shouldn't is super critical to having a successful operation and an ongoing positive relationship with employees. From what I have seen, the biggest reason managers don't delegate is because they don't know how to effectively coach an assistant or employee without doing the work itself. These managers usually read an article, or self-help book and try to delegate by giving someone a list of things they are now responsible for, but not working with them to determine the appropriate outcomes for those tasks. This leads to the manager and employee feeling frustrated and the manager not delegating anything else in the future. Transforming yourself from a micro-manager to a successful delegator is a process, one that takes several iterations to achieve the right balance.
Yes, it is important to know what and when to delegate when you are an entrepreneur, which is not easy, it an go other delegate too low or too high, and this articles said a lot about hiring good people to help you with your work. However, in reality, it's not always easy. It's not always easy. Many times you think you've searched and screened and interviewed and picked someone you think they're good and they they can still disappointed you. Apart from giving clear instructions to people, it's a mental thing if you give them trust from the beginning, but to tell the truth, I always do that and sometimes it ends up putting more pressure on your employees (or assistant) because it set up the bar for them that they cannot fall, and they ended up don't want to ask you questions because they thought you have a high expectation on them, and to me, that's when it caused a boomerang effects. For me, I think the company owner and have all the employees doing everything but the most important part is that the owner has to ALWAYS MONITOR your employees work. It's also the owner jobs to final check their employers work no matter how awesome your workers are. Of course you will not know everything but you have to make sure that the whole picture and the end results is correct. That, to me, is the way of delegation.
This article goes back to one of my favorites articles. This is to play to your crews strengths. If you know someone is not that organized than it is probably not a good idea to give them the task to organize gels. The second you stop doing this than in some ways the work does suffer. That being said, in an educational setting this presents us with a very unique learning opportunity. This is to challenge students to try things outside their comfort zones in an effort to make them more well-rounded artists. This then creates the challenge for the crew head for when one should play to their crew's strength and when they should create educational opportunities. This is a fine line that is always changing.
Like Ben, it is easy for me to relate this post back to my time spent on crews here at CMU. I have had some amazing job leads, who were able to properly distribute work without being overbearing or too vague, but I have also had some job leads who either tried to hand hold me through an entire process or have just given me tools and walked away. I think it is a hard to always make the right decision regarding how much is too much or too little responsibility for a team member, but I think giving instructions (detailed when needed) and then walking away is the best choice. If you are an open enough job lead then overwhelmed crew members will feel comfortable coming back to you when lost and you won't have to worry about losing control of that job or being too over bearing.
I really enjoyed the tips in this article because they are applicable across a wide range of leadership roles. Anyone in a position of leadership should know how to effectively delegate tasks to those who work for them, especially on large crews when many things need to be accomplished in a short period of time. The first step of setting priorities I think is something that many leaders do without thinking about it, but I think that mapping it out the way the article described could be really beneficial to increasing efficiency in the workplace. I found step 4 to also be really important because delegating is one thing, but delegating effectively is entirely different. If you don't pick the correct people to do a job or you don't trust someone to do a job, it doesn't increase your efficiency and really slows you down, which the article stressed a lot. The people you delegate tasks to are just as important to keep track of as the tasks themselves.
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