How to delegate effectively

BUSINESS BITS
Romelda Ascutia

Asking an employee to screen your calls or inventory company supplies is not delegating. Delegating is not about giving away simple and easy tasks; it's about assigning meaty or challenging jobs. No wonder, then, that some entrepreneurs find delegation hard as it implies trust, responsibility, and empowerment--all leading to some loss of control and decision-making powers. What if the employee should mess things up?

But learning the art of letting go is a must, and simply because you can?t do everything yourself. Effective delegation allows you to trim your to-do list and to focus on your real priorities (planning, organizing, goal setting and creative thinking) while challenging and empowering your employees without your having to relinquish total control. The key to getting results is in knowing how to delegate properly. Here's how:

Decide what responsibilities to delegate. The rule of thumb when delegating is to encourage initiative and get the work done to keep your business running in your absence. Marife Fuentes learned to rely on two assistants to manage her party-favor boutique after she won approval to operate another business. "Kung hindi ako magtitiwala sa kanila (If i will not trust them), I wouldn't be able to concentrate on my [canteen] business," she says. What she does to get a handle on things is to drop by the boutique once a day and to text and call to keep in touch.

Decide whom to delegate to. Liza Almonte, owner of ProQuest Publishing Inc., publisher of PortCalls, a shipping and freight-forwarding newspaper, attributes most delegating failures to choosing the wrong people. You make a big mistake when you assign something beyond an employee's ability to do or would make his or her workload too much to handle. Still, it behooves you to train everyone on your team for bigger responsibilities. Delegating tasks to only those people you feel you can depend on will create resentment among those you pass over.

Communicate the responsibility. Explain exactly what you want done, when and how you want it done, and what outcome you expect. And explain exactly what authority you will be delegating and the resources and support that go with it. Just as important, inform your other staff that you have put someone in charge of a particular task and that you expect their full cooperation.

Agree on standards, expectations and consequences. Be as detailed and specific when discussing the outcome you expect. (Almonte lays down weekly sales quotas and tasks her sales manager to submit comprehensive group and individual sales reports at the end of each week.) As well, relay the consequences of an employee's good or bad performance. (In this regard, you may offer incentives, bonuses or a promotion to good performers and an admonition to underachievers in private.)

Review progress from time to time. This does not mean breathing down your subordinates' necks or spoon-feeding them with possible solutions when they run into trouble. Instead, agree on specific dates to meet to discuss project milestones and solicit suggestions to solve problems. Lolita Serapio, a business manager with Sara Lee Direct Selling's Novaliches Branch, meets with her sales agents regularly to review their performance and plot strategies that would help them meet their target.

Delegating is difficult and often risky, but it's much better that doing all the work and facing burnout and killing off initiatives, new ideas, and fresh perspectives that are the lifeblood of a thriving enterprise.