A few months ago, I introduced you to Matt Perman.  He is an author and productivity expert who has taught me much over the last year.

After highlighting some of his scheduling insights (perhaps some of you remember the discussion of the ringing effect), I promised to circle back and cover a couple more of his most insightful ideas.

Today, we’ll consider the topic of delegation, and how most of us need to change our paradigm on this important time management tool.  Like the ringing effect, ineffectively delegating will make our time management problems worse, not better.

Reducing Your Workload

Here is a simple fact of life: There will always be more work than you can possibly get done.  To deal with this problem, time-management systems typically have a component for reducing the workload and focusing on the tasks that are most important.

The two most common strategies for reducing workload are deferring and delegating.   Deferring a task empowers us to prioritize our work and focus energy on the highest return activities.  The key to effective deferment is a good system for organizing, prioritizing, and executing tasks.

Delegation involves assigning a task to someone else on the team.   If done correctly, delegation is the most impactful way to reduce workload and grow the effectiveness of your whole team.  Problem is…most of us do it wrong.

Learning to Delegate

Peter Drucker once said:

As usually presented, delegation makes little sense.  If it means that somebody else ought to do part of ‘my work,’ it is wrong.  One is paid for doing one’s own work.  And if it implies, as the usual sermon does, that the laziest manager is the best manager, it is not only nonsense; it is immoral.

Is Drucker suggesting delegation is an inappropriate tool for an effective manager? Of course not – he often talks about the usefulness of delegation in his management books.  His point is that most of us get it wrong and hinder our productivity in the process.

The Pitfall of Gopher Delegation

How do we get delegation wrong?  Most of use what Perman calls “gopher delegation.”

In gopher delegation, you hand people specific tasks as the need arises and are closely involved in supervising how they do them.  The other person does not utilize much independent judgment and initiative, but is operating in a ‘wait until told’ context….the responsibilities for the results and the methods lies with you, not them.

This approach is flawed because it doesn’t require the other person to use their wisdom, judgment, or insight.  Managing this process (assigning, checking, correcting, etc.) often becomes more time consuming than just doing it ourselves.  It’s also disrespectful towards those on our team.

The Usefulness of Stewardship Delegation

Perman offers an alternative to gopher delegation that is much more effective in the long run.

Stewardship delegation has the aim of not just getting tasks done, but of building others up through the accomplishment of tasks.  Stewardship delegation delegates an area of responsibility and allows the individual to determine their own methods for accomplishing the tasks.  The focus is on achieving the intended results, now how they are done.

I’m sure you see the value in the second approach.  We all want to be effective leaders who value our teammates, but how do you execute stewardship delegation?

I’ll cover this topic on the next WorkPuzzle.  Specifically, we’ll discuss the five components of effective delegation and provide you some tools you can start utilizing right away.

*Note:  Be advised that Perman’s book is written from a Christian worldview.  His approach of addressing productivity may not be for everyone and may even be offensive to some people.  If you’re sensitive to this issue, don’t buy the book.  If you still want to learn about this topic but want to skip all the “philosophy stuff,” start reading at Part 4 of his book (page 189 and beyond) and skip Part 7 (stop reading at page 295).  The 100 pages between these marks are very tactical with little philosophy mixed in.

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