Lesson Seven: The Balancing Act of Delegation

Reams have been written - and countless electrons harassed - about delegation.  Here is the simple, most immediately effective, non-philosophical version.

Successful delegation requires only two features:

- Responsibility and authority must exist in equal measure.

- The ultimate responsibility still belongs to the supervisor.

The second feature is easy.  The first, not so at all.  Or rather, it's easy, but doesn't appear so.  Here are the six levels of delegation, with the best, of course, coming  last.

1.  The boss requests information, then evaluates, decides, and assigns action.  Most unskilled supervisors get stuck here and never move further.

"What's the problem?  Okay, we'll fix it this way.  George, do this; Mary, do that; Sanjay, do this other thing."


2. The boss requests information and suggestions, then evaluates, decides and assigns action.


"What's the problem?  Any ideas about how to solve it?  Okay, George...."

3.  The Boss defines objectives and limitations.  All agree on implementation.

"What's the problem?  Here is the solution we need and here are the limits.  Can we do this?  How?  Okay, George..."

 4.  Boss defines objectives and limitations, studies and agrees to suggestions.  Employees implement.

"What's the problem?  Here is the solution we need and here are the limits.  What can we do to get there?  Great.  Let's try that."


5.  Boss defines objectives and limitations.  Employees evaluate, decide, act and report afterwards.

"What's the problem?  Here are our objectives and here are our limits.  Let me know how it goes."


6.   (IDEAL) Boss and employees together define objectives.  Employees evaluate, decide, act.

"What are our objectives?  Do we all agree?  Great.  Go for it.  Let me know if you need my help."


Here is an example of bad delegation:

"What are all those people doing outside?  Get rid of them!"
A little later:
"Why don't we have any customers in here?  You sent them away?  What?!  You were supposed to figure out how to get them in and take care of them!"


And good delegation:
"So we agree that we are essentially a customer service organization.  Are we serving our customers in the best ways?  Can we define the word "best" and apply it?  Great.  Let me know what I can do to help.  I look forward to hearing what you decide and how it's working."

Lesson Six: Kick-Ass Meetings

 Yes, we know.  You hate meetings.  Everyone hates meetings.  And why do we hate them?  Because most meetings use more time than they provide useful information.

But they don't have to do that.  A well-run meeting should not last longer than 30 minutes, preferably less.  Impossible?  Not at all.

To run a meeting well sends a powerful message:  I value your time as much as my own.  It also gives no time for droning...

... or napping.

There are four kinds of meetings you might chair:

- Regularly scheduled staff meetings with your own work team/group, to bring everyone up to date and cross-fertilize

- Meetings with your own team to solve a specific problem

- Meetings with peers, to share information and/or make decisions that reach beyond your immediate group

- Meetings with outsiders, usually to acquire or pass on information

All of these benefit from a rapid pace.  Unless the topic is extremely controversial, any meeting of any number of participants should be completed, all relevant information exchanged, any need for further information determined and the collection of the information assigned to a member or members, and any necessary decisions made, in less than 30 minutes.

How can I do that?

- Know exactly what you want to get out of the meeting

- Announce the purpose of the meeting immediately.  If several topics will be addressed, circulate or post an agenda in advance.  Follow it exactly (no adding, rearranging or skipping).  This will assure that those who must speak on a specific topic will be anxious and ready.

- Make a verbal commitment to a specific length of time, and stick to it.  A clock should be visible to everyone.

- Allow only topics or information that are relevant to the topic or of interest to all present.

- Use ‘urgent’ body language and a quick pace of speech.

- Stay with each speaker:  keep eye contact all the time he/she is speaking, use facial expressions, gestures and brisk nodding to show that you are with him, and expect him to finish quickly.

- Cut off the long-winded politely:  be ruthless with time but courteous with people.

What if –

- Someone comes late?

Continue the meeting.  Do not fill in latecomers:  that only punishes those who came on time.  If the missed information is important to the latecomer, fill him in after the meeting is over, or suggest that someone else do so.

Do not call attention to those who come late.  Smile to welcome them, but do not stop talking, or stop whoever else is talking.

Always start exactly on time.  Once you have established a reputation for doing that, your members will be on time and will be grateful.  They will participate much more willingly, more fully and more often.

- Someone changes the subject?

At the first opportunity, thank him and return to the topic of the meeting.

How can I –

- Cut off a member who talks too long (after the point, if any, is made) without being discourteous?

The human voice abhors a vacuum.  If you allow silence after someone finishes speaking, he will continue speaking without adding anything substantial to what he already said.  So as soon as the speaker ends a sentence, immediately thank him, and go on to the next person.

- Cut off a participant (or a group of participants) whose topic is irrelevant to most people at the meeting?

Congratulations for noticing!  As soon as the speaker reaches a punctuation point, thank him for his thoughts and suggest that the smaller group, or the two of you, continue this discussion after the meeting when it won’t hold up the others.

If he/she persists, follow the tactics advised by the HBR: 

- Encourage brevity in the meetings I attend but do not chair?

Practice the same alert body language as if you were chairperson:

- sit forward, watch each speaker intently

- When it’s your turn, speak quickly and concisely, only including items that pertain to the topic of the meeting and are (or should be) of interest to everyone present

- complete your report or idea in as few words as necessary, then state clearly that you have nothing more

-If you have nothing to report, say so and stop

Lesson Five: Vonnegut Was Right. Mostly. Maybe.

The American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, famously wrote, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

We all have experienced the rightness of the first half of this sentence, if not the last:  taking a deep, quaking breath, then striding in and making a kiss-ass presentation as if we had all the confidence in the world, for example, when we actually feel as if we're on stage giving the performance of a lifetime.  Walking through a room packed with suits while wearing Gap jeans and a polo shirt, and exuding such presence that the suits get out of the way.  A million other examples.

From the other side, though, there are times - not just times, but whole swatches of our lives - in which we absolutely believe we are a certain way when in fact we are not.

Can this affect more than our eventual self-esteem if we ever get a clue?  You bet it can.

Remember the guy you worked for one summer, who was all laughing and hearty and back-slapping and 'how's the little wife doing, and the kids' but who had, at full volume, berated one employee over a broken screwdriver, summarily fired another as he ran in the door late from having delivered his child to school when the bus broke down, and always believed the first version he heard of any complaint - especially from his two or three pet employees - and would never accept a word from the other side?  And yet this man truly saw himself as a good guy and a great boss.  Your view, and that of all the other workers, except for the pets, was radically different.

Harold, a supervisor in a baking shop, was once approached by Isabel, a long-time worker, who - quietly and hesitantly - told him she had found a position in the office and would be moving upstairs in two weeks.  Harold, who liked this employee very much, opened his mouth to say something joking and hearty like "Abandoning us for the big time!" or "Tired of flour in your shoes?" or something of that sort, but happened to notice the other workers, all standing nearby watching with worried, even frightened faces.  Good for Harold - he stopped the words before they came, did a rapid mental check of himself, really looked at all those faces, and especially Isabel's, and said instead, quietly and with real feeling, "That's great news, Isabel.  We'll miss you, but you'll do a terrific job upstairs.  Congratulations."

The entire staff let out a huge sigh.  Isabel hugged Harold, and then Harold was left alone with his thoughts, which were many and disturbing.

"How come they don't know I like them?"  Harold thought.  "Why don't they know that I want to see them promoted?  What's wrong with those people, anyway?"

But then Harold did a very smart, very difficult, thing.  He looked not at his employees but at himself and thought, "If I were Isabel, why would I have been so worried about telling me this?  If I were one of the other workers, why would I have feared for her?"  And finally, "What is it actually like to work for me?  If I weren't me, would I like myself as a boss?  Would I trust me?  Would I do my best for me?"

He went into his little office and closed the door, and thought.  Then he found this, a list of things that 'good' bosses believe, and 'bad' ones don't.

This entire list seemed written for him alone, from the first item which says, "I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me" to the final, devastating,"Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it."

I would like to say that Harold came out of that office a changed man.  Perhaps he did.  But what about the rest of us?  And what about Vonnegut?  What about the precious, time-honored rule of "kiss up, kick down?"

Harold suspects that Kurt was right, and was wrong.  After all, you in jeans and a polo in the room full of suits is real, and it's all in how you present yourself to that room.  The backslapping, ranting jerk, on the other hand, saw his own reality far differently than anyone else did.

Maybe there is no easy reconciliation between these thoughts.  But that's why they pay you the big bucks, isn't it?