How to decide what to delegate?

Once you have decided that you are ready to take a leap of faith and start delegating some of your responsibilities to your subordinates; next step is to find out what you want to delegate. You also want to read the chapter titled “How to decide the priority of a given task and where to spend your time?” before moving on to the items detailed in this chapter.

Step 1 - Create a list of tasks you do

To begin with, do an observation exercise for the next two weeks; observe and note down your tasks you do on a day to day basis. Two weeks should be good enough to create a comprehensive list of items which you do and from this list we will find tasks to delegate. Depending on job profile these two weeks can be too much time for some people while for some people they might need more time to create a complete list of tasks they do, therefore people can lengthen and shorten this observable duration as per their needs. Once we have compiled the list, our goal should be to delegate as much as possible and the ideal situation would be to delegate everything.

Step 2 - A Negative Delegation List

Although our goal is to delegate as much as possible, there are times when we can not do that which basically means we have a negative delegation list. Before we decide which tasks to delegate, let’s remove some items beforehand from our list because we can not (or not allowed to ) delegate them and therefore these should not be considered eligible for delegation.

1. Tasks require skills which are unique to you and also you do not have any resources who can be trained.
2. Tasks which are sensitive and there is a need to maintain a certain degree of secrecy.
3. Tasks for which you do not have authority to delegate further.
4. Tasks for which there are special company policies and regulations which forbids delegation.
5. Tasks which are core of your business like budgeting, strategic planning, sales forecasting, negotiation with vendors etc.
6. Tasks which involve hiring, performance evaluation and firing of your direct subordinates and team members. These are sensitive work items and it is better if these are not delegated.
7. Tasks which are urgent and therefore do not allow you to invest in training of subordinates because of time constraints.
8. If someone else has delegated a task to you with an expectation that you personally will handle that and you need to take permission before you delegate it further.

Step 3 - Delegating routine tasks

Now since we have identified tasks which we can not delegate, let’s revisit our remaining task list. In this list, we will find there are some tasks which are of recurring nature which we need to do on a regular interval like daily, weekly or monthly etc. The good thing about these tasks is that since they are recurring ones, we can spend time in creating instructions which someone can follow, we can invest our energy in training people to do these tasks. Additionally, even if the tasks are difficult, people generally get better with time because they get to do it regularly.

This should be a logical first step, especially when we are just starting to learn delegation skills. Although we need to keep in mind that we should start with only low to medium priority tasks first which do not require our unique skills and abilities; and we are not worried about quality of delivery and consequences of failure. Once we get comfortable with delegating these small tasks and we have confidence in our abilities to get these done through other people, we can move on to the next complex tasks.

Step 4 - Delegating pieces of your complex responsibilities

We have delegated tasks which are repetitive and easy to perform and those do not require our unique skills and abilities, but what about the more complex tasks which we want to delegate which are heavily dependent on us? For example, we might be handling recruitment of new team members and we do not think anyone in our team is ready to interview and judge a candidate to a fair degree of certainty. We might be managing a large project and no one is ready yet to step in our shoes.

In these kinds of cases we need to break down our process into smaller parts and need to check which part of the process needs our personal attention and which parts other individuals can do. When there are parts on which other individuals can do work same as you or in some cases better than you, these parts can be delegated. For example, our hiring task may include following steps

1. Sourcing candidates for interviews
2. Initial telephonic screening
3. Scheduling interviews
4. Conducting one on one interviews
5. Offer letter formalities
6. Joining, onboarding and training formalities

Out of these steps, conducting one on one interviews can be our core skill because other people in the team are not ready for this, but rest of the steps can be delegated with help of some training material or little guidance. In a nutshell, when tasks are complex, instead of giving the full task to our subordinate, giving pieces of it, is a next logical step in our delegation process.

Step 5 - Delegating to train subordinates in your unique skills

The last step in our delegation process is when we have to delegate responsibilities which require our unique skills and experience. When no one in our team is equipped with our skill set, the only solution to move forward is to train our people, coach them how things are done and guide them how to manage different scenarios. For example, in the last step we established in the hiring task that no one in the team can do interviews because they do not have much experience. To handle such cases, we can take our subordinates in interviews with us and while we conduct the interview they can observe first, and as they get experienced they can start contributing. Eventually, with enough experience we might delegate them this task as well when we build confidence in their abilities.

When not to delegate

As valuable as delegation can be, there are times where it’s simply not advisable. The following list presents when it’s better to not delegate but rather keep the project for yourself:

1. The task has not been fully thought through. If you aren’t able to explain the task and its goals in concrete terms, then you have more work to do before handing it off to someone else to accomplish.
2. The project must be done in a specific way. In some situations, such as an intricate project that you developed and possess intimate knowledge of, delegation may create more problems than benefits.
3. It takes more time for explain what to do than to just do it yourself. This assumes that this is a one-off project that just needs to be done and taken off the list. A recurring project or one that will provide opportunity for meaningful subordinate development should not be included in this list.
4. When you really enjoy doing it. There’s nothing wrong with doing some things that can be taken over by others but still provide you with a positive burst of motivation or excitement, such as greeting students and parents in carpool. But learn to limit these so that you can ensure that you’re still doing the work that you really need to be doing.
5. You are the best person for the job. If it’s something you know well and can add real value to, do it yourself.
6. You could learn from making the decision yourself. This one is tricky. On the one hand, the best learning comes from doing, so we shouldn’t shortchange our own development by letting others take our place. Of course, this could be true for most anything. Wise leaders learn to determine the true value-add of new learning and weigh it again other considerations.