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Navigating the Territory: Good Ideas for Leading in Complex Environments
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Volume 1, Number 3
October, 2009
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 Greetings! This issue of Navigating the Territory: Good Ideas for Leading in Complex Environments focuses primarily on the theme of delegation. It's a perfect topic for the beginning of the holiday season, where there is always more to do than time to do it and where you must rely on other people to get things done. There's a short piece on the questions you might want to ask yourself before initiating the delegation conversation. A review of an excellent article entitled "Who's Got the Monkey?" And some information I picked up from a recent conference on coaching in medicine and leadership.
For back issues of this newsletter, you can find them in the archives:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs076/1102561682356/archive/1102700377250.html
If you have a challenge or a solution that you'd like to share with others, please contact me for inclusion in an upcoming issue. Thanks for your interest and support.
Deborah |
Effective Delegation Starts with Being Clear Yourself
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by Deborah Reidy
There are so many useful guidelines on how to delegate: give the whole task to one person, clearly specify preferred results, get regular progress reports...any Supervisory 101 course is full of great guidance on delegation. And yet delegation continues to be a big challenge for many people in leadership positions, even seasoned leaders.
Most of what I've learned about effective delegation focuses on the interaction between the leader and the person being delegated to. And yet the work starts in the mind of the leader as he or she clarifies some key questions:
- What exactly am I delegating? Is it a task, a set of tasks or a whole project?
- What will success look like? Am I able to communicate that clearly at the outset or will I "know it when I see it"?
- Why am I delegating this? What are the payoffs and the benefits to me, to the other person and to the whole organization in the short and long term?
- What are my non-negotiables? Process? Results? Deadline?
- Who am I delegating this to? Is this the best person for the assignment, in terms of motivation and ability to do the job?
- Which of my personal characteristics have the potential to impede effective delegation? Am I a perfectionist? Do I feel threatened when others succeed? Do I tend to be rigid and inflexible?
Having clarity oneself before initiating the delegation conversation can go a long way toward increasing the likelihood of success and yet it's a step that is often assumed rather than made explicit. I had a coaching client who was frustrated that her staff did not take initiative to complete tasks in the workplace. When I asked her what she wanted them to do, she seemed puzzled and then said, "I'm not clear what I want them to do. I just want them to know what to do for themselves." Although this is very human (how many people wish their partner or their children would "just know" what needs to be done without being told?) it rarely produces the result we're aiming for. Taking the time to think through your answers to some of these questions before you have the delegation conversation increases the likelihood that there will be a positive outcome.
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Article Review
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Who's Got the Monkey?
by William Oncken, Jr. & Donald L. Wass, Harvard Business Review, November-December, 1999
Review by Deborah Reidy
| This article was originally published in the Harvard Business Review in 1974 and was reissued in 1999 as a HBR Classic. It ought to be required reading for anyone in a leadership role. I gave it to my husband to read and before he even finished the article, he was implementing its ideas. Synopsis: For managers to function effectively, they need to find a way to carve out discretionary time in their workday and week. The approach proposed by the authors is to reduce the time managers spend handling subordinates' problems by refusing to accept responsibility for a subordinate's problem or action item.
Review: Using the analogy of having a monkey on your back, the authors review a number of common supervisory scenarios where the manager inadvertently takes responsibility for a subordinate's problem or job (accepts the "monkey on their back.") The examples feel so familiar and the analysis so humorously on-target that the reader finds herself wincing appreciatively as she sees herself in the examples. The article concludes with a section entitled "The Care and Feeding of Monkey" which outlines 5 highly actionable rules for assigning and managing responsibility. Highly recommended!
Takeaway idea: "To maintain the leverage you need to do your job, you need to establish strict guidelines about accepting and handling responsibilities that arise from subordinates."
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| What We're Up To
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I recently attended an excellent conference on "coaching in medicine and leadership" co-sponsored by Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital. It brought together over 500 people interested in the intersection of positive psychology, coaching, well-being and health. There was also an emphasis on strengthening the empirical and theoretical underpinnings of coaching. I left the conference with several books, two inch-thick volumes of proceedings (one for each day!), lots of good ideas and quotes. Although I have not yet integrated these fully, I find myself thinking about and referring to various ideas that came up during the conference. Here are a few:
- According to a recent (September, 2009) article in the Journal of Positive Psychology, executive "coaching enhanced goal attainment, increased resilience and workplace well-being and reduced depression and stress (Grant, Curtayne and Burton). Of course, those of us who are coaches already know this anecdotally, but this study was a randomized controlled study by perhaps the most well-known researcher on the outcomes of coaching, Anthony Grant.
- Positive psychology=examination of the conditions and processes that contribute to flourishing and optimal performance (Gable & Haidt, 2005). Coaching as subset of positive psychology. "The key=how can we create conditions and processes to contribute to our client's flourishing and optimal performance?"
- 60 business strategy teams explore the ideal ratio of positivity and negativity. They find the ideal ratio is 3:1. Highest profitability, customer satisfaction, performance reviews. People with optimal positivity ratios are more successful in relationships, finances, health. You can be too positive (above 11:1 just as rigid and poor functioning as 2:1).
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| Upcoming Events
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Virtual Training Events
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Throughout the year, I will be offering free 60-minute Virtual Training Events (teleconferences) linked to the themes in this newsletter.
October 15, 2009, 3 to 4 pm ET
Partnering for Productivity & Positivity
For more information and to register, click on this link:
Reidy Partnering Event
November 19, 2009, 9 to 10 am ET
How to Delegate and Get the Results You Want
For more information and to register, click on this link:
Reidy Delegation Event
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Reidy Associates offers customized solutions that enable leaders
and their organizations to succeed in complex and uncertain environments.
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