By: Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
(In last article, we knew about prioritisation according to your own energy levels. From today onwards, in some of the next articles, we will know about the power and steps in delegation.)
Decide what to delegate
Last step of prioritising is to use positive discrimination in deciding, whether any particular task is to be done by yourself, or to be delegated to anybody else, or to be outsourced.
When we hear the word ‘delegation’, the first connotations, which come to our mind, are ‘authority’ or ‘bossism’. This is because from childhood, at the level of our sub-conscious mind, we are used to take this word ‘delegation’ as a mean of managerial control, where a person, having authority over other persons, delegates the work to them. However, the fact is otherwise. For using delegation, you don’t have to be a boss or you don’t need to have the authority over others. As I am highlighting time and again, the time management is self-management and the ultimate goal of effective time management is to gain control over your time utilisation patterns, so as to have choices as to which activities need your personal attention, and which activities or works can be delegated to somebody else, whether at workplace or at home.
There are lots of things, you are doing right now. Have you ever wondered how many of those things actually do not require your personal attention or time? If you analyse, you will find that either some of those have been wrongly delegated to you by your boss, or some of those, you should have delegated to somebody else.
At your workplace, you face two types of challenges. One is that you are already over busy; and second is that if you are good at work, your bosses want you to do more and more, even apart from your regular work. This increases your work pressure and results in stress.
Remember, the ability to get the things done by others is a prime quality of successful people. You should identify which works should be given direct attention by you and which works can be done by your subordinates or may be outsourced. Your productivity is sum total of the productivity of your team and you should learn, which works you have to delegate. I would suggest that whatever you can delegate to any other person, either for free or on payment, you should delegate to save your time and much needed energy.
Whatever you can delegate to any other person, either for free or on payment, you should delegate to save your time and much needed energy.
Delegation helps you in two ways. It not only reduces your work, so as to make you free to focus your attention on more productive works, it also develops the skills of your team. This means that the next time, if a similar type of work comes, you can easily delegate it with better degree of confidence in your team.
What to delegate?
Before deciding what to delegate, you should ask certain questions to yourself:-
- Is there somebody else, who has the desired expertise to do the work? If he is not having the necessary expertise, can he be bettered by training or your guidance?
- Is the task of recurring nature? If it is so, it would be better to groom somebody with training or regular guidance.
- Do you have enough time so that you can wait for the project to be completed by somebody else? Do you have enough time to correct the deficiencies, if the task is not performed well?
- Can you afford the delay or there are severe consequences of delay in finishing the project?
- If anybody is not available in your organisation for a particular task, would it be better to find a person outside your organisation and outsource his services.
You have to be careful, if you are delegating some task to a particular person, is there any need to lessen his earlier responsibilities?
(In the next article, I will discuss about to whom you can delegate. I believe that you are enjoying the journey towards the future of your dreams with me. If yes, please stay tuned. Happy G.O.P.T.A.)
Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Creator & copyright holder of the concept G.O.P.T.A.© is an Author, Certified NLP Lifestyle Trainer, Strategic Interventionist, Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker ( http://bit.ly/Signature-Workshops-Sanjay-Kumar-Agarwal ) and recipient of Honorary Doctorate of Excellence (Management) by prestigious Young Scientist University, California, USA. He is Founder of ‘Read, Learn & Earn Movement’ and is popularly known among his fans & followers across the globe as ‘Time and Goal Guru’.
