WHY DO YOU GET EXHAUSTED BY DOING EVERYTHING YOURSELF?

I have a few young friends and this story, in particular, is about two of them.

One of my friends is named Swara. She works in a corporate office as an officer in the purchasing department. She has a very sweet 4-year old son.

Unfortunate as it is, Swara lost her husband in a road accident almost a year ago. In her family, apart from her son, she shoulders the responsibility of her parents-in-law who are in their mid-sixties. The majority of her time goes into being busy at work and the remainder of it she spends at home.

At work, Swara caters to the requirements of an important department of the company. It includes raw materials and bought out items. Her boss is very happy with her performance due to which she was recently promoted to the post of a senior officer.

She has been given four assistants. The youngest of the assistants is a progress chaser. The other two are officers.

When Swara is tremendously busy in her work, her assistants, including the two officers have comparatively less work. They usually read newspapers, text their Whatsapp friends and discuss local, national and even international politics. One of them watches movies on Netflix every day and another spends his evenings with his friends roaming the city.

Swara comes home and she is usually preoccupied in her household activities. On her way back home she buys vegetables, bread and other essential items. This also includes the purchase of medicines for her parents-in-law.

Another friend of mine named Raunak is a production manager in a manufacturing company. As a production manager, he has several people in his team. He has to oversee the working of men on machines and in the assembly sections. He also has more than a dozen officers and a few dozen staff personnel under him.

Though he has so many people to distribute the work amongst, Raunak still cannot come home before nine in the evening. He has a beautiful, soft-natured wife and two loving children.

When he arrives at home, his daughter is fast asleep and his son is awake just to say “Good night” to his tired father. Raunak usually hurriedly skims the morning newspaper and goes to bed. A rough paper pad and a pencil are always kept beside his pillow to note down urgent and important things to be attended the next day at work.

Though both of them are workaholics, nowadays they have realized that this is not the life they were looking for. During my Sunday meetings with them, our topic of discussion is usually centred around their work and busy schedules. In the recent past, twice they broke down in front of me under the pressure. They are very good human beings and I was very sympathetic towards their situation.

I remembered my working days for different organizations. In the early years of my managerial career, the role of Vice President of a company has taught me an art of delegation.

What is delegation? It can be defined in many ways. Simply put, delegation means handing over, giving or assigning somebody a share of some of your work, tasks or responsibilities.

This is beneficial to a person who delegates and also to a person who accepts it.

The person, who delegates, normally a person in a managerial post, distributes their workload evenly amongst others. Through the division of tasks, he can focus on other more important aspects which are on high-level priority. He/she also gets more time to effectively manage his subordinates.

It is a known fact that managers of today have to bear the pressure of delivering maximum outputs with limited resources. The industry demands a one-minute answer to every problem, let it be as old as fifteen or more years.

A manager has to decide internally the task that they are going to delegate and assign to others.

“Always keep the big picture in mind when deciding which tasks to delegate to your team,” said Michael Parrella, CEO of iLoveKickboxing. “Tasks that require a large portion of your time can distract you from doing the things only you can do to grow your business.”

Michael Parrella believes that delegation is required for:

1. Routine and tedious tasks which don’t impact growth.

2. Tasks that test your patience and drain your passion. “As the visionary, it’s my job to stay passionate and drive the passion to my team,” Parrella said.

3. Tasks that can be done more efficiently by somebody else than you. No person can boast that he knows everything.

Before you delegate you too have to get prepared for yourself. Please take sufficient time to work out the exact picture you are expecting.

Then convey this information to the person whom you are delegating. Make sure to include clear information on the time, allocated budget etc. Also set your expectations for communications, mainly updates.

Ask the person whom you are delegating whether he/she has understood the task properly. This is important in avoiding failure at the later stage.

Either verbally or in writing obtain confirmation of commitment.

Cut off the chances of reverse delegating.

Ensure accountability. A person who accepts the responsibility of undertaking the tasks should be held accountable for its success and failure.

(Image src: google.com)

What should be avoided to delegate?

One should avoid very confidential and sensitive tasks for the obvious reasons that such tasks or matters should not be known to other unrelated persons. The utmost care has to be taken in such matters.

Secondly, the decisions which may have repercussions should strictly not be delegated.

Few other tasks to be avoided include:

★ Long-term planning

★ Mapping of your vision

★ Hiring or firing decisions

★ Performance review and evaluation

★ Felicitating your team member

What are the barriers in good delegation?

★ No or ill information of proper delegation

★ Prefers to do everything oneself

★ No trust on subordinate(s)

★ Cannot spare sufficient time to get prepared to delegate

★ Scared of losing one’s importance in the organization

★ To exhibit others one’s busy nature

Additional Benefits of delegation:

★ It helps to enhance skills, talents and knowledge of subordinates

★ Bestows the environment of mutual trust

★ Increase the morale of staff

★ Give opportunities to show one’s true potential which may be helpful in rising in the organization

So take a pause in your tremendously busy schedules. Plan for delegation and implement it successfully. Keep the remote in your hand. Guide your team members and march towards success.

Don’t burn yourself; rather earn a reputation of successful manager or a leader.