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Time Management
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Deadlines help firm up prioritization. When you delegate, always
set deadlines, including intermediary status review dates.
Entertain input from the person you delegate to. If you empow-
er the person in the process, by sharing responsibility from the
start, you’ll reinforce his or her motivation.
8. Establish a reporting method. To leave vague the reporting
methods for intermediary and final deadlines is dangerous. Must
feedback be written? Oral? Lengthy? Summarized? Articulate
your expectations to the person you delegate to. Doing so will
ensure professional, responsible, and orderly feedback. An
added advantage: if written, the report can be easily shared with
others.
9. Encourage questions. At the end of your explanation,
encourage the person to ask any questions that may be still
unvoiced. If none are forthcoming, do a comprehension check;
have the person summarize the assignment as he or she under-
stands it. You’ll almost certainly need to clarify some details.
You may even wish to “walk” the person through the task. This
is a powerful, hands-on method for testing his or her compre-
hension of the job. Now is also the time to offer trade-offs if you
get the it’s-not-my-job reaction. Finally, summarize steps 4
through 9 in a brief, written memo to the person and, if appro-
priate, send a copy to your boss.

Providing Resources
When you delegate a task, you need to make sure the per-
son has everything necessary to perform the task:
• Sufficient authority to make necessary decisions. If a certain amount of
autonomy saves you time, a reasonable level of autonomy will save
time for the person you’re delegating to. Also, if the person needs
to come to you for decisions, how much effort and time are you
saving by delegating?
• Access to all resources necessary for the task. The person should not
have to ask for access, one item at a time.That’s a waste of time,
for both of you, and not smart delegation.