Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience, and it doesnāt preclude the necessity to train and develop people so that their competency can rise to the level of that trust. I am convinced that if stewardship delegation is done correctly, both parties will benefit and ultimately much more work will get done in much less time. I believe that a family that is well organized, whose time has been spent effectively delegating on a one-on-one basis, can organize the work so that everyone can do everything in about an hour a day. But that takes the internal capacity to want to manage, not just to produce. The focus is on effectiveness, not efficiency.
Related Quotes
Iāve seen labor management disputes where people spend tremendous amounts of time and energy trying to create legislation that would force people to act as though the foundation of trust were really there.
Many people refuse to delegate to other people because they feel it takes too much time and effort and they could do the job better themselves. But effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is. Transferring responsibility to other skilled and trained people enables you to give your energies to other high-leverage activities. Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations. The late J. C. Penney was quoted as saying that the wisest decision he ever made was to ālet goā after realizing that he couldnāt do it all by himself any longer. That decision, made long ago, enabled the development and growth of hundreds of stores and thousands of people.
Stewardship delegation involves clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas.
DESIRED RESULTS. Create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results, not methods. Spend time. Be patient. Visualize the desired result. Have the person see it, describe it, make out a quality statement of what the results will look like, and by when they will be accomplished.
GUIDELINES. Identify the parameters within which the individual should operate. These should be as few as possible to avoid methods delegation, but should include any formidable restrictionsā¦
If you know the failure paths of the job, identify them. Be honest and openātell a person where the quicksand is and where the wild animals are. You donāt want to have to reinvent the wheel every day. Let people learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others. Point out the potential failure paths, what not to do, but donāt tell them what to do. Keep the responsibility for results with themāto do whatever is necessary within the guidelines.
RESOURCES. Identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational resources the person can draw on to accomplish the desired results.
ACCOUNTABILITY. Set up the standards of performance that will be used in evaluating the results and the specific times when reporting and evaluation will take place.
CONSEQUENCES. Specify what will happen, both good and bad, as a result of the evaluation. This could include such things as financial rewards, psychic rewards, different job assignments, and natural consequences tied into the overall mission of an organization.
The principles involved in stewardship delegation are correct and applicable to any kind of person or situation. With immature people, you specify fewer desired results and more guidelines, identify more resources, conduct more frequent accountability interviews, and apply more immediate consequences. With more mature people, you have more challenging desired results, fewer guidelines, less frequent accountability, and less measurable but more discernable criteria. Effective delegation is perhaps the best indicator of effective management simply because it is so basic to both personal and organizational growth.
Dag Hammarskjold, past Secretary-General of the United Nations, once made a profound, far-reaching statement: āIt is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.ā I take that to mean that I could devote eight, ten, or twelve hours a day, five, six, or seven days a week to the thousands of people and projects āout thereā and still not have a deep, meaningful relationship with my own spouse, with my own teenage son, with my closest working associate. And it would take more nobility of characterāmore humility, courage, and strengthāto rebuild that one relationship than it would to continue putting in all those hours for all those people and causes. In twenty-five years of consulting with organizations, I have been impressed over and over again by the power of that statement. Many of the problems in organizations stem from relationship difficulties at the very topābetween two partners in a professional firm, between the owner and the president of a company, between the president and an executive vice-president. It truly takes more nobility of character to confront and resolve those issues than it does to continue to diligently work for the many projects and people āout there.