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Good Delegation = Greater Productivity

Years ago I came across an amazing piece of data from the Productivity Management Institute:

1 hour of uninterrupted work time = 7 hours of interrupted work.

And you know what? The data hasn’t improved. In this world of constant communication via text, emails, phone calls and “drop in” visitors, it has become increasingly difficult to concentrate.

What does this have to do with effective delegation?

When details are not delegated clearly at the front end of a task or project, then the person or team working on it has to interrupt their concentration to seek out clarification. Therefore, a task or project that might take only an hour of uninterrupted effort could easily turn into a seven-hour job. It doesn’t take an efficiency expert to understand the impact on productivity and the cost in terms of labor, money and stress.

The question I want you to continually ponder is:

Why is it we don’t have time to plan in detail at the beginning but we ALWAYS have time to fix things when they’re done incorrectly?

(Adding more unproductive time to the equation.)

 Whenever I mention the name of my workshop, How to Get Others to WILLINGLY Do What Needs to Be Done, I inevitably hear, “Wow. I need that!” or, “My team could sure use that!” If either of these matches your reaction, then give me a call today. Allow me to come in and work with the leaders in your organization to improve productivity by teaching them how to delegate skillfully.

What could you do with the time gained?

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How to Find Out What Employees Want

There are numerous white papers, books, magazine articles, blogs and survey results about how to find out what employees want. I’m not sure why when the answer is so simple:

ASK THEM!

You may say, “Silver, we HAVE asked them! We’ve done company-wide surveys, we’ve hired consultants to come in and assess what’s needed. Why, we even hired a psychic to read their minds!”

Okay, I made that last one up but you get my drift.

Gypsy fortune-teller uses a crystal ball to foretell the future

Here’s the problem. Your employees are not of one mind; they are individuals. Figuring out what they want as a group is like asking me, “Silver, what do women want?” Heck, I don’t know. I only know what I want. I’m not the spokesperson for my gender!

If you want to know what your employees want you have to ask them—one at a time! That’s what leadership is–knowing each team member—what motivates them, what their capabilities are and what they want. Many managers know more about their capital equipment than the individuals who operate these very same machines. They could tell you in great detail how to maintain the equipment and what might cause it to fail. But they couldn’t tell you what might cause their Lead Operator to leave for another job.

If you’re not meeting with your team members on an individual basis at least quarterly, you run the risk of losing them. Even if they don’t quit, their productivity will not be what it could be. I don’t care how many years a person has been on the job or how jaded they’ve become, knowing their direct supervisor is paying attention will pay dividends far beyond the time spent in one-on-one meetings.

Put down that survey. Stop reading that leadership book. Instead, start asking questions that show you’re interested. Listen closely.

Inside each of us is a person who wants to believe that what s/he does every day matters to someone. Be the kind of leader that says, in your words and in action, “It matters to me.”

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Goal: Get Better at Delegating

Is getting better at delegation one of your primary goals? If not, I encourage you to consider making it a priority, even if you are not are paid to be a leader.

As organizational hierarchies continue to flatten, career growth is going to depend on your ability to inspire others to act. If we’re honest, that’s what true leadership is anyhow. Getting someone to perform merely because you sign their paycheck is the more difficult and often painful way to do things. Getting others to take action because they want to—that’s the sweet spot of leadership.

Think of those in your organization who have this gift:

  1. Maybe it’s the receptionist who manages to get people to take calls even when it’s “not their job.”
  2. Or how about that guy who somehow convinced you to participate in the last community event?
  3. Or the supervisor who rallies managers, all senior to her, to donate their own and/or their staff’s time to help out with a big project?

What these individuals have in common is the ability to get others to WILLINGLY do what needs to be done. How do they do it? I’m guessing they use many of the principles of Socratic Delegation.

Based on a form of teaching created by the Greek philosopher Socrates, The Socratic Delegation Process is also backed up by a whole lot of psychology. This includes the desire to (1) be of service, (2) solve problems, and (3) control how they do things.

Here’s how it works: when you need others to do something, instead of telling them how to perform the task, clearly delineate the results you need, then ask, “What are some ways to get this done?”

  1. My guess is the previously mentioned receptionist gets co-workers to take calls by saying something like, “I need your help. Our customer Bob Jones is on Line 2 and he has some questions. His rep is Dave but he’s not here and Mr. Jones says it’s important. I don’t have the knowledge but I know you do. Can you help me figure out how to handle this?” (It becomes quicker and easier for the person she’s turned to for help to take the call himself or find someone who can.)
  2. Maybe the guy who convinces others to help with community events knows the skills and expertise of others within the organization. When he needs that expertise on the project, he turns to the right person, lays out the problem and asks, “What are some ways we could get this done?” (Before he knows what hit him, the problem-solver sees that no one else could do it as well as he can and is determinedly working on the event.)
  3. And that supervisor who somehow pulls off delegating upward? My guess is she uses another version of the technique—she calls on the wisdom of managers with more experience than she, lays out the challenges of completing the very important company project and asks them to help her brainstorm solutions. (Once they see that she does not have the manpower necessary to complete the task successfully, it’s incumbent upon them to help her find the solution, which turns out to be that they and their teams pitch in to get the job done.)

In all of the examples above, those who end up doing the tasks are not unhappy because, in each scenario, the solution was their idea. The receptionist didn’t ask the person to handle the call. The community events project manager only asked for some advice, as did the supervisor in the third scenario.

I can just hear some of your thoughts. “Isn’t that manipulation? (Gasp!) Yes and No. This is not manipulation in the negative sense of the word. It is simply tapping what people want to do anyhow: (1) help, (2) be an expert, and (3) have control over how they perform tasks.

If the person feels good about doing it, were they negatively manipulated? Of course not.

Remember the story of Tom Sawyer painting the fence? ……………….Exactly.

 

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The Hedonic Treadmill’s Impact on Employee Engagement

When people think about how to increase Employee Engagement in organizations, they often focus on more tangible things like perks and environment. The thought is that, if you provide your team with good benefits and a beautiful place to work that includes fun things to do in between projects, they will then become more engaged in the work. How wonderful if that were so. All any company would need do is invest in a few ping-pong tables or a weekly massage therapist and voila! Employee Engagement!

I strongly encourage any or all of it. Benefits like good health insurance and 401(k)s help you to attract and keep talent. Recreational outlets are a means to address the tension and stress that can be part of a productive work environment. However, the problem with solely providing benefits and environmental “perks” as a means of engagement is that people get used to them very quickly. It’s known as the “hedonic treadmill.”

Hedonic Treadmill – noun

The theory that humans continually adapt to bad and good circumstances and return to relative neutrality

Example: Lottery winners are the perfect example of the hedonic treadmill: within a year they generally return to their former level of happiness.

The Hedonic Treadmill recognizes that workers will quickly become used to the perks your organization so generously provides. Whether it’s great benefits or Freaky Fridays,” after awhile it becomes part of the “given” and the “expected” and they demand more. This is why you so often hear senior level executives lament, “It’s never enough for them.” (But these executives have their own version of The Hedonic Treadmill that often includes huge bonuses or better company cars.)

The Hedonic Treadmill inspires a strong argument for the three pillars of Employee Engagement that we advocate:

  • Socratic Delegation
  • Socratic Feedback, and
  • Laughter in the Workplace.

No matter the benefits, toys or fun events provided, what has the strongest impact on Employee Engagement is the relationship between them and their direct supervisor. And those relationships play out most often when delegation and feedback are happening. When a supervisor delegates in a way that implies the team member doesn’t know what s/he is doing, de-motivation occurs. Likewise, when feedback is given in a way that leaves scars, employees mentally and emotionally check out. They do the bare minimum or start looking for other jobs.

We include laughter in the Employee Engagement equation because, as Victor Borge once famously said, “Laughter is the shortest distance between people.” When you have a supervisor you can laugh with, your engagement in the work increases. After all, you cannot laugh with someone unless you like him, even just a little. That makes it difficult to defy that person when s/he assigns you work.

If you are actively trying to increase Employee Engagement, which is at record lows across our nation, I invite you to pivot from the “give them more perks” conversation and toward the Leadership conversation.

No one ever performed their job better because of health insurance or foosball but there is a history of solid research that employees are more productive for a direct supervisor who is an effective and likable leader.

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Good Delegation: Critical to Employee Engagement

The act of delegating is one of the most crucial times in the relationship between a leader and a member of his/her team. This conversation is rife with underlying nuances:

  • Are you a collaborative leader or a dictator?
  • Do you have confidence that your team member knows what s/he’s doing?
  • Do you trust this team member to get it done on time and as agreed?
  • Do you like or only tolerate each other?
  • Will this go smoothly or can you expect problems?

All of the above are many of the reasons I devoted my first employee engagement book, The Incredibly Useful Book of Delegation to this very topic. The delegation conversation, if done well, goes a long way toward resolving any or all of the nuances outlined above.

Socratic Delegation is a process that takes both the guesswork and the tension out of this conversation. It flips it from, “Let me tell you what to do and how to do it,” to “Here’s what needs to be done and when. Walk me through how you think we should do this.” Simple, yet very powerful.

Using the Socratic Delegation Process goes a long way toward increasing employee engagement. In the old style of delegating, the person most engaged in the planning conversation was the leader. He gave instructions while the team member listened and maybe took notes. Socratic Delegation flips this around and has the team member strategize about how to accomplish the task. That means s/he becomes engaged in a way that the old style rarely elicited.

But don’t believe me. Try it for yourself! Get your own copy of the Step-by-Step Delegation Process by clicking one of the links below and start having collaborative conversations with your team. I predict that, not only will they become more engaged but productivity and accuracy will increase.

For Project Managers: Step-by-Step Socratic Delegation for Project Managers

For Leaders with direct reportsSocratic Delegation Step-by-Step for Leaders

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