By: Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
(In last article, we knew about what to delegate and when. Today we will know about whom to delegate.)
To whom you can delegate?
NOIDA: The first answer, which comes to mind, is obviously to those, whom you supervise. But this is only one part of delegation, known as downward delegation. This downward delegation is backed with authority and the other person has no other choice but to obey your orders of delegation.
There are other forms of delegation too. You can delegate the works to your colleagues also, who are more or less at equal rank, as of yours. This is called lateral delegation. This delegation is either in the form of request or a mutual arrangement. Sometimes you request your colleague to do some work for you, as he is good for doing this work. Sometimes, two or three of the colleagues take benefit of strengths of each other and share the works according to their skills. This is also a form of delegation, called lateral delegation.
Please remember, you have to be careful while deciding, whom to delegate. You cannot delegate drafting of a marketing strategy to your secretary, who is under your command but knows nothing about marketing. You cannot delegate this task to your data entry operator, who is also under your command and is very good at typing but knows nothing about marketing. For real output, you have to delegate the task to the person who can do it, with quality and in the time-frame decided by you. Finding right person for the job to be delegated should be your priority, otherwise you will not get the results. And if you don’t already have a right person available with you, you have only three choices left – either do it yourself, or hire somebody to do so, or outsource the work.
The first thumb rule should be that the delegation should be done to the person, whose cost is least to the organisation and who is capable to do the job. A boss is paid higher than an employee. If a job can be done by an employee but is done by his higher officer, it is the waste of the money of the organisation. Delegation to the cheapest possible level will have many benefits. The lowest level is closest to the work environment and is habitual of doing voluminous work. They can be trained to perform any particular type of work. One more benefit is that the lowest level of team member is a cheapest resource available in your organisation. Another benefit is that you will have another level of supervisor in between you and the person, to whom the work has been delegated and even the intermediate level supervision work may also be delegated to these supervisors.
Outsourcing may also be a method for delegation of work. We can hire services of a professional firm specializing in a job, who can do the work for us. This has two benefits – specialisation and economies of expenses, as we have to pay only for the job, which is cheaper than using our regular employee, who is higher paid employee. Temporary part time workers are cheaper source for doing work and are easy to find out, as these days, there are various means to locate the agencies specialising in any particular type of service.
The tasks, which cost you more to do yourself than by anybody else, are not only wasting your time but are also diminishing your overall value to the organisation. If you are business owner, it will cost you directly. If you are an employee, your employer expects maximum returns on your time, as by hiring you, he has bought your time for maximising his own profitability.
You must be wondering what tasks you can delegate or outsource to maximise your value to start with. You can start from small day to day works, like answering telephone calls, checking emails, proofreading the final letters, fixing appointments and maintaining records of appointments. There may be various types of works, you may find beneficial to delegate. Remember the thumb rule; your time is more precious than your employees. If you can save your time by delegating any work to a cheaper source, whether an employee or outsourced person, it is a smart decision, as it saves your precious time for providing the attention to the areas, which you could not and should not delegate.
(In the next article, I will discuss about why people do not 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’.
