Case Study #32: This Is Not How You Delegate

Prioritize and support.

Delegation is a skill.

Sadly, quite a neglected one. People assume you know how to do it.

Erg.

I’ve seen so many times that projects failed because of poor delegation.

This happened in one of the teams I was coaching.

Jen was a manager of a team of 10 people. She was an experienced professional, but rather new in management.

She thought it was all about empowering others. Give them space to be creative, proactive, and engaged. People love freedom. Jen was trying to be hand-off and give her team opportunities for growth.

One time Beck came to her and said: “I want to help with training new people.” Jen noted it, and when they had a new colleague, she came back to Beck and said:

“Beck, great we have a newcomer. Can you take care of his training, please?”

Beck didn’t want to say no or ask questions because she would look stupid. So she stook the task without knowing exactly what to do.

After a month, the newcomer had made no progress with his training. His chargeability and usefulness to the team were almost zero.

What did Jen do wrong? How would you approach it better?

---

Assuming interest equals skills

When you give someone a task they do for the first time, don’t assume they know how to do it, not even when they take it voluntarily.

Showing interests does not equal skills.

How often have you seen newly promoted managers who had no idea how to manage their teams? Shouldn’t they know it after X years in the company?

False assumptions, my dear friend.

Jen was a hands-off manager. She was eager to give her team opportunities. Yet, it does not work that easily.

What your teammates need is both opportunities to grow and your support. They need resources. They need training. They need your (or someone’s) guidance.

They need you.

Ask someone to train a new person on what you do, but if they haven’t done it, even when you know your job ups and downs, you might fail.

Beck was very good. But she wasn’t good at training others. Yet.

Jen didn’t ask her if she was comfortable with the task. She did not help her create a play, or explain some basic logic of how adults learned.

Why? Because Beck wanted to do it. She was set up to fail. Jen failed her. It was her responsibility to make sure Beck could do the job.

This is a classic black hole of delegation.

---

Delegation has different stages