Sep 27, 2013

Many of the first-time managers and the first-time manager of managers (MoMs) in my team have struggled on the key question of how much to delegate ? And after delegation, what ? Many of these first-time managers and MoMs have been star solo performers earlier, and have to learn the art of delegation, while going through withdrawal symptoms of transforming themselves from star producers to managers.

But good managers know that after delegating tasks to one’s team members, one has to review the deliverables with the team members, and at the end remain accountable for the quality of deliverables. That’s what makes management such a tough task – especially for people who have been super individual producers themselves in the past. Doing something yourself is not so tough, but asking others to do the work, and then ensure that the work turns out to be of good quality requires :

• clear guidelines while delegating,
• optimal level of monitoring while work is being done, and
• then finally, robust review of the deliverable.

I think of Managers being of 4 types, depending on how much they delegate and how well they Review. These 4 types of Managers form the four quadrants of a 2×2 Matrix, the Delegation-Review Matrix.

1. Delegate a lot, and review very well – The Optimal Manager
2. Delegate a lot, but do not review the deliverable too thoroughly – The Merry Monarch
3. Don’t delegate too much, but over-review the deliverables, to whatever extent delegated – The Control Freak
4. Don’t delegate too much, and do not review the deliverables, to whatever extent delegated in the first instance – The Wrong Promotion.

The Optimal Manager knows that she cannot do all the tasks on her own in the time available, or meet the revenue targets for her team by her own. Hence, she has to share the tasks and targets with her team members. And she further knows that the team members may not move in the right direction unless they are given clear directions and boundary conditions for the tasks. And finally, that it is prudent to review the deliverables from the team members, and suggesting / making changes before sending out north-wards to stakeholders – super-bosses, customers, media, share-holders. The deliverables could be tasks in staff function roles or revenue / revenue pipe-lines in line functions. The final accountability of Quality of the Deliverable remains with the Manager, not with the team member – this is the core fact to be understood by each Manager; coupled with the fact that a team can collectively do much more than the manager can do herself.

Good reviewing includes doing macro-sanity checks on the deliverable :

• whether results are as per original hypothesis / Plan,
• totals are in the expected range…and
• the results do not violate boundary conditions of the size of the relevant Universe;

as well as packaging :

• whether the message is communicated succinctly & clearly,
• whether external stake-holders will understand the deliverable well.

The Merry Monarch knows that he has to share work with team members, and sometimes is also a bit loathe to doing things on his own. When the tasks are completed and sent back to him, he forwards the same north-wards with a 1-2 line smart summary on top. Some Merry Monarchs have great team members and possibly deliver super stuff, which gives the Manager the luxury to keep on forwarding upwards. But if all team members were super-men, all of them might have moved upwards. There will be one bad day when one star member makes a faux pas. Enough to have your goose cooked. Some Monarchs think that they are supposed to be looking at the big picture, and shouldn’t bother themselves with niggling details on the deliverables. But they fail to understand that big visions are delivered ultimately through small tasks!

The Control Freak is usually very intelligent and has been a star solo performer in her earlier life – can do most of the tasks herself better than any of her team members. She works twelve hours a day, makes lists of tasks to do each day and passes on category B and C tasks to her team members. When the team members complete the tasks assigned to them, the Manager goes through the deliverable with a fine tooth-comb and starts refining the output herself – changes the structure of the assignment if required, re-orders the sequence and corrects the typos. In a sales environment, the Manager lands up at the calls of the team member, however small they are, and helps the team member close the deal. In many such cases, the team member might have closed the deal himself. But the Manager is happy by increasing the size of the deal or getting another reference smartly from the client. This is the Control Freak (CF) of a manager – delegates little, and interferes a lot with the execution of the delegated tasks. Team members do not grow too well under such Managers. Team members do not own the final deliverable, since they are going to be double-guessed or corrected anyways by the CF. The CF, much to her surprise, is counselled in a few years for failing team performance, high stress levels in her team and low morale. The CF quits and gets another job, based on her super-solo past. When she is about to be fired in the second Managerial job also, she realises that she needs to change her style and becomes more of the Optimal Manager.

Worse is the fourth type, who is not aware of how to delegate, which tasks to delegate and delegates just to keep the team members busy. Some very high level tasks get delegated to seemingly intelligent team members. After delegation, the Manager adds his own name to the task and sends it northwards. In Review Meetings, he takes his team members along who present their own parts, with the Manager packaging the entire thing. Questions are also asked to the team members directly, who answer them well. Such Managers might live in an imaginary world, where they think that they are pulling the team along with them, allowing each team member to grow. In reality, the team members many times, do not have the entire picture because the delegation has been haphazard. The smart team members get noticed and move ahead. The ones which need attention suffer. This manager should not have been made the manager at all – he is The Wrong Promotion! So, what type of a Manager are you ? Everyone may strive to be the Optimal Manager, but would realistically, lie somewhere in between two of the types, hopefully, one of them being the Optimal Manager. One needs to exhibit art in delegating, and diligence in reviewing, and then one’s journey towards becoming the Optimal Manager will be complete.