Delegation is what you do when you give some of your work to somebody else. It's different from allocation, where you have a team of people with a number of joint roles, and you allocate activities to different people within that team. delegation is about giving some of your work. And therefore, ultimately, you retain responsibility for it. So when you delegate, you have to do it well. And there are four essential components to delegating well, and the first is matching.
Match the task to the person. Understand precisely what it is that you need, and then survey the people available to you understand their skills, their enthusiasm, their strengths, their weaknesses, understand their preferences, and understand their availability, and then choose tasks that will help the individual to develop to learn To demonstrate to them your trust. If you always give the best task to the same person that's just favoritism. And if you always give the worst tasks for the same person, well, that's bullying. For good effective delegation, you need to move the tasks around to various different people. That shows lots of people, you trust them, it develops the whole team.
And critically, it builds the greatest possible organizational resilience. More More people are able to do your work and fill in for you if you need to be away. The second important step is the briefing you need to brief well, to ensure that the person understands the role that you're giving them. There are four things that are always going to be crucial and the first it's a spell out to them clearly, what the background is to the task, the concept context of the task. That way, when unexpected things arise. They can figure it out for themselves, they're less likely to have to come and ask you questions, because they know stuff.
The second is to spell out the outcome or the objective that you're setting them. What does complete, finished, done? look like? You also need to be absolutely clear what authority you're giving them because this is part of your risk management. Are you giving them complete and utter or authority to do whatever it takes in your name? Or are you just giving them the minimum amounts or thority to do some thinking, always coming back and checking with you before actually taking any steps.
Somewhere on that spectrum, from total release of your authority to them to holding back all the slightest bit ever? Freedom. We'll make sure that if you get that right you'll Anything the risks are they don't make inappropriate mistakes. And the final essential is to always be clear about what the timescales are. Now, you might need to add one, two or three other things to your briefing. Where, for example, there is a fixed procedure to follow, perhaps you're dealing with a regulated activity, or you're dealing with a member of staff who has very little idea about how to do things properly or safely, you may need to set out item by item, the tasks you're expecting them to do.
Second, there may be some administration, some admin requirements that they need to follow. So let's make sure that they know those. And finally, if there are some resources that they'll need to call upon, maybe it's materials maybe it's assets or equipment they need. Maybe it's access to other people, advice, guidance, or even help spell that out for them too. Once you've done the second step, the briefing, the third step is critical. And it's where people often go wrong in delegation.
They don't secure, unambiguous commitment. In fact, what you want is three commitments. Firstly, you want to look the person who delegated to in the eye, the SEC, do you understand exactly what it is? I'm asking you? Do you have any further questions when they commit that they understand? The second question is to ask them if they have the knowledge, they have the skills and they have the time available to do what you're asking.
When they commit to that, the third one is the big one. look them in the eye and ask them if they will deliver the piece of work you're asking for by the deadline that you've said. Treat anything, anything at all that is other than an unambiguous Yes. As if it were an And check further. When you get your unambiguous Yes, then you can have about as much confidence as it is possible to have that they will work hard and diligently on your task. The fourth step is down to you to provide the monitoring that will give them the right level of support the right level of risk protection and you the right level of confidence.
Too much support will SAP them of their confidence it will indicate that you don't trust them for too little support and they will feel exposed any danger. And of course, the last step in that is to give them the recognition of the job well done when they completed it, to thank them to give them the praise and give them good quality feedback, which will help them to understand their performance and how they might improve it further in future if they need to, or if they don't need to improve their performance. Don't try and find some clever little criticism, just to show that you're cleverer than they are. Give them the praise, give them the thanks. And leave it at that. So four steps to good delegation, firstly matching the task to the person.
Secondly, a good briefing. Thirdly, gaining clear commitment from that person that they're going to do the job. And fourthly, providing them with the monitoring and support and guidance and feedback on the work that they're doing. delegation is a crucial part of being a successful manager is something that many new managers struggle with, but there's no reason now that you should