Are you a victim of upward delegation? – Focal Point Business Coaching Blanchardstown
Have you ever experienced extreme time pressures?
Have you ever experienced the pressure of a workload that just never seems to end?
Have you ever felt that you spend an in ordinate amount of your time doing other people’s work?
Is this avoidable? Are you a victim of upward delegation? A pervasive problem that creeps in to your weekly work routine unnoticed and can end up consuming your time and energy.
Here’s how it happened for me.
When I was managing my first team I wanted to be seen as a good boss. Someone who was genuinely interested in his team’s progression. Someone who took time to help the team and individuals develop, someone who valued training.
Over a period of about a year a strange phenomenon occurred. I suddenly realised that the very tasks I should have been delegating were ending up on my work schedules. How? Simple. Upward delegation.
Here’s one example.
As part of the teams bonus schemes our company had what they called MBO’s (Management by Objectives). This consisted of both hard and soft measures. The hard measures were sales performance, you hit the numbers you got paid. The soft measures would relate to preparing for example a report, a plan, a strategy document. These became my Achilles heel.
Essentially what happened was that the team one by one approached me and said that they needed help with the plans and strategy documents. I was more than willing to do this.
Through a very simple practice of asking me what to do and then asking me what it should look like, they actually persuaded me to practically do the projects for them, or in real terms most of them.
This trap was one I fell in to easily to be honest as I thought I was doing a great job supporting them.
The process has a habit of morphing itself in to a serious problem for managers as their subordinates happily ask for assistance and then are more than happy to see an eager manager step in and complete the job for them.
This was what happened to me, until I literally blew my top one evening with myself. I was working in the office until 8pm doing work that wasn’t even mine to do. I was stressed out and frustrated. I did have an epiphany though. I suddenly realised that I was the only one to blame, and that I had let my team become habitual upward delegators.
This was not only damaging to me and eroding my time, it was counterproductive to the team. I was not training and managing them I was in effect teaching them to rely on my to get their work done.
I can tell you that the next day I set about changing my whole approach to engagement. It was instantly rewarding for me and to the team. Once I realised that I needed to clearly articulate what was needed in writing, then sit down and go through the project requirements and get feedback, they could then get on and do the tasks. All I needed to do was to ensure that I was kept updated on progress, and be available when there was a genuine real need for me to be available. Otherwise I got on to doing what I was paid to do, manage a team.
Working as a business coach I see the effect of this constantly. There are a host of solutions to this and ultimately this is a learnable skill and one that can be dealt with relatively easily with discipline.
Ask yourself this question now.
How much of your day is spent doing other people’s work?
How many interruptions do you get daily from others looking for answers to questions they could answer themselves?
How many people this week will ask for you to make their decisions for them?
If this is a problem for you then, firstly recognise it as I did and then commit to tackling this issue head on.
Take a blank piece of paper, and draw a line down the middle of the page. On the top left write
Key tasks of an entrepreneur/business owner weekly
Actual tasks I’m doing weekly.
Then ask yourself honestly. How many of the tasks I’m actually doing are as a result of upward delegation?
Now start today to rectify this. The benefits to you and your business and your team will be enormous. It was for me.
If you are having issues like this or are looking to improve your business results talk to me. I’ll be happy to meet up for a hour and discuss solutions.
Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.
