A Simple Framework for Delegation that Aligns People – Behind the Scenes
Delegating the right way is a constant challenge. I see leaders that try to support their people in the delegation that believe they have to give the step-by-step to ensure clarity. This may be the case for new employees or new areas that an employee is asked to get involved. However, step-by-step delegation is rarely the best way to delegate. Proper delegate is about painting a clear outcome for the project. This is a shift for many people, but share with your employee the goal you want with this delegation. Give them a vivid view of the vision you see for this project — what it will look like when done. You also want to share why you are delegating this work to them — share with them their skill set or mindset that made you select them. You also want to give the purpose of doing this project. When you delegate the purpose, you allow the person to see how this task or project fits into the growth plans. Delegating outcomes is better than delegating step-by-step.
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Behind the Scenes: The Transcript
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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
[0:00]
Delegation the right way? Well, you, as a owner, founder of a fast growing company, you have to manage chaos, which means you have to direct people and delegate the right way. One of the things that gets in the way of this whole concept of delegating and empowering people is you want to be as supportive as possible. So you over give. What I mean by that is you want to give them everything they need to complete the project so that you’re removing the roadblocks and so that they can get it done. Because you want it to be done. You want it to be done, right, you want it to be done quickly. And so you want to support them as much as possible. But here’s the thing, when you have incredible people in your team, and you trust them, you actually empower them to figure out their own way. So delegating the right way is not about step by step. But a simple framework for delegation will give you clarity on both sides, I’m going to use a tool that I share with my clients called the delegation planner.
[1:00]
Now inside this tool, you may think it’s a little too rigid, but I will ask you to just lean in just a little bit, because one of the big problems with delegation is we’re not clear enough. Or we try to oversimplify and focus on things that actually hurt the process. And so I want to help you be a strong leader. And inside this tool, you will get exactly what you need. And you can actually download a template of it, and use it for your own team, I’m going to give it to you absolutely for free, because I want to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your leadership and out of your people.
[1:32]
So here we go. Let’s go through the delegation planner, here, I’ve got a few notes in front of me. So I may look down a little bit, but I want you to understand that there’s two main pieces to delegating the right way, you want to make sure that the outcome is set clearly in the beginning, because the outcome really is the most important piece. What will this look like when we’re done. And we’re gonna break through a few pieces of that. And then we’re going to also look at part two of this, which is the plan, which is about how it will get done. Inside this video, I’m going to describe to you know what I mean by these two pieces. And really when you should use both of them together, and when you should just use the outcome piece. So here we go.
[2:13]
Let’s dive into this tool. I’ll throw up some screenshots, so that you can be on the same page with me. But the delegation planner is just a way to get aligned with the person you’re delegating with. The most important piece, in my opinion, is the outcome. And so that is the first part of this, you want to make sure that you and whoever you’re delegating, understand the outcomes that are necessary, but also the context around why this is even a project why you’re delegating to this person. And so the first part of this is getting clear about the problems and the triggers of those problems, the true cause of that. And inside this framework that I’m showing you on the page, you will see this first section, and it could be listed out there. There’s also a place to put why or the purpose of this project. Because you want to make sure that people understand the full context of this, you don’t want to just, you know, give them this and say I do it because I said do it. You want to have a context to why and why it matters to our goals or why it matters to your team or why it matters to them. at a personal level, you want to also be able to list who is impacted by this. And that really will give you guys a chance to list the names of people or teams or customers that are impacted by this project. And that is important because it adds some some importance to why we’re getting this done. Other people are counting on it. And then in the vision outcome section, it is really what the future will look like when this project is done. And I also put in here for this piece, you want to include the success criteria, this success criteria will just be how we’re going to measure our success. Let me give you an example of something in my own team that we’ve been looking at as it relates to this podcast.
[3:56]
Well, we want to grow the listenership Well, someone on my team will actually be the owner of this project. And I’m not giving them a step by step plan. In fact, I’m so busy with what I’m doing. And it’s really kind of outside of my zone of genius to come up with a social media plan step by step. So what I’m painting a picture for is what is the outcome we’re looking to create out of this, this project, right? What is it we really want, and we’re going to talk about who’s impacted, which is the audience, of course, also my production team, and other people that they’ll get listed in there. But we also want to make sure that we know the why of this project. We put a lot of time and care into the content we create for you. And so we want to make sure that that is front and center. But the success criteria is a little bit harder to define in a project like this and that is okay. But we want to make sure that we’re increasing the downloads of the podcast from week to week. We’re going to measure that and specific way, so we’ll be able to put them into this delegation planner to describe what it looks like. And this is all in the outcome section the first half.
[5:10]
Now, the second piece to this is really the the plan behind this. Now you may thinking that I’m contradicting myself that, you know, everyone creates the plan for the delegation. But here’s the real piece, I want you to focus in on here. With some people, you will need to give them more support on the planning part. But for most people, people that are experienced people that you trust people that you want to empower people that have certain skill sets that are necessary for you to be able to ask to do this, hopefully, we’ll be able to come up with a plan themselves. Now, what this tool does do is allow you to go over the big thing, see if they have any questions. And I’m going to walk us through that in just a second. But the idea is for them to fill out the part of the plan defining the plan. And so when once they understand what the outcome is, they can go and create the plan for you to review. Now, you may not want to review it, you may just give this to them and say go for it. But with complex things, you may want to say hey, create your plan and come back.
[6:12]
Let’s talk about it. So that we make sure that we’re both in alignment and remove any obstacles in front of me that I can. And and that’s the kind of conversation that you want to be having when you delegate the right way. So just the pieces of the the plan side are what are the big pieces of this project. And you just want to have them document what are how did they see this, the big pieces that need to be done like the data set that we’re going to be looking at using and analyzing the different tools that we’re using all of the pieces, this is not about the order in which they’re going to do it, that’ll be a little bit later. But the big pieces are just allow them to put them out there, if you were doing a whiteboard session on this, you would be able to map out the big pieces of the project, then you want to be able to go into who support or buy into we need, if you want to make sure that they really understand who else is is involved in this who need to collaborate with, then there’ll be able to list names on this section of it. There’s also deadlines, any deadlines that are necessary, you know, this is going to be done by certain date, this is going to be done by a trade show or whatever it is out in the future, make sure everyone is aware of the deadlines. And you can kind of reverse engineer that. And that really does help you guys get on the same page.
[7:33]
Once those things are done, you want to be able to go into the first three steps, who is the owner of the first three steps, when will it be completed, but really describing those first three steps, because the most important piece of this is once the plan is documented, is to get started. So that is what we’re talking about here. And then any risk associated to this project need to be identified, they’re identified early, that will really help them but then also the date next to the review progress. When will we review this next?
[8:05]
Now, this tool is in Google documents. And so if you want to get a template of it, I’m going to give it to you just go to gene Hammett comm Ford slash delegation. And you can actually download this absolutely for free, I will ask for your email address, because I want to be able to communicate with you and see how things are going. But it is absolutely free for you just go to genehammett.com/delegation, the delegation planner is something that you can use as a printout. Or you can actually use this as a way to collaborate online, you could actually have this and I use this with my team, where we actually share this link back and forth. And we’re able to stay on the same page. And we’re able to update in real time. And you can actually customize this if there’s certain things that you feel like I’ve left out, but I want to back up for a second here because what’s really cool about this planner is most of the time when we delegate, it’s done a little haphazardly. It’s done and kind of in a broken fashion. And what I mean by that is we share different pieces with different people, but based on their skill set, and their understanding of this project or the area. And I get the fact that that’s common. But here’s what I want you to really think about. Leadership is a lot about communication. In fact, you want to have explicit communication, which is really impossible to misunderstand. And so I created the delegation planner, which your template is at genehammett.com/delegation. If so that you can actually get on the same page with your people. You can focus on the outcomes and the all the context around the beginning of that, and then you can let them create the plan.
[9:45]
That’s what I suggest as soon as they can. You feel like they’re ready for that they create the plan because those that create the plan, own the plan. They own the obstacles in their way they owned all the challenges that come up. They own the goals, but those Given the plan, we’ll come back to you and say, well, what’s next, this didn’t work. And they will look for your input on this. But I want you to, to use the delegation planner to actually get someone to own the project in front of them. All of this I share with you because after years of coaching, founder CEOs to move from just someone who manages the work to being the leader, you can take tools like this and frameworks and share them across the company, you can modify them, you can get on the same page, but I will urge you explicit communication is impossible to misunderstand. And so when you delegate the right way, simple projects will go really easily through this project tool. But more complex projects will take more time. But it’s also worth it because you get on the same page, you’re able to avoid some of the things that come up. And the sections inside here are just pieces that I’ve used with my team now will tell you that there’s a kind of a definition of some of these things.
[11:01]
So if you may get stuck, they can actually go through that and look at it. But I share all this with you because I want to make sure that you have the tools in front of you to be the best leader you can be. If you use this delegation planner, the right way, you will be able to define outcomes so that your team can be on the same page with you. And that’s all they need, they will be able to create a plan for you, they will be able to review that plan if necessary. And it will be able to execute from that plan just based on this tool. from the get go.
[11:34]
Now, all this I share with you because I want to help you be the strongest leader you can be so that you can be the visionary for your business. This is what I do I help people remove roadblocks help them really step into their own leadership. And if you want to check out some of the other tools we have, just check out Gene hammett.com. There’s lots of tools that we can put on there for you. But if you want this one, just go to Gene hammett.com forward slash delegation. That’s my piece today. When you think of growth and you think of leadership, make sure you think of Growth Think Tank, as always lead with courage. We’ll see you next time.
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
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