Page 176 - Becoming a Successful Manager

Delegating Effectively and Empowering Employees to Take Risks 167

• Stating opinions
• Giving gifts of criticism to you and fellow employees
• Asking thoughtful questions
• Offering recommendations
• Make sure your invitations for comments are sincere. Don’t
tarnish them by making employees feel sorry they opened
their mouths. Don’t reject any criticism without fi rst giving
it ample thought.
• Thank them for their contributions. Use the listening and
questioning techniques from previous chapters to make this
a true dialogue between you and your employees.
• Respond to requests and reasonable favors in a way that
doesn’t make employees regret having asked you.
• Do whatever you can to gain your employees’ trust.

Please note that this chapter advocates taking reasonable risks.
Remember Larry and his daughter? If the car had been heading for
a cliff, he would have inserted himself into the situation immedi-
ately, because that would have been a risk with dire consequences.
Intervention would have been necessary in that case, but it cer-
tainly wasn’t necessary just because she was going to miss an exit.
Allow your employees to try new things, while being watchful
for inappropriate risks. Encourage employees to work with you, not
just for you, by sharing your perceptions of what has to be done and
then letting them select a plan of action. Although you may know
one way to accomplish the task, it may not be the only or best way.
Delegation itself is a simple process. Everyone involved must
have the same goal—and it’s up to you as the manager to articulate
the goal so that everyone has it straight—set up checkpoints, and
give employees the green light to pursue the assigned project. All
of this requires open and positive dialogue, and that means talk-
ing, listening, and responding appropriately to others.