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I was wondering how you can promote delegation between directs and my skips. I going into a situation in which my directs have spents many years in a pattern of centralized decision making, which resulted in little to no delegation to their directs. This is obvious based on the long hours in the office by my soon to be directs, and the shorter hours spent across the board by their directs. Their directs have also stated that they feel un-empowered to make decisions or effect change/direction.

I had considered delegating to them the task of delegating :) but I do not see that being effective as this has been tried in the past. I am looking for a method to strongly encourage delegation to their directs. I have even considered doing direct delegation to my skips, but feel that this would only undermine my directs authority.

Ideas?

Thanks in advance
David

Mark's picture
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David-

My favorite question of the night! Have been waiting for this one for a while.

You encourage THEIR delegating by giving them a pile of work to do which is more important than their pile.. and BELIEVE ME, they'll get it.

Said differently: use this opportunity to do the big important things you've been putting off - the stuff that will really make the difference. Then, delegate what you're doing now to them.

Don't couch it as teaching them a lesson, but rather as simply intelligent prioritization of work, and development for them. This is the nature of ALL work - what used to be done by bosses is now done a level down. Economists call this productivity improvement (same work, lower cost).

Simply delegate to them.

I do this all the time with clients. It works.

Mark