Tag: expectations

Delegation

Every department head, manager, director, or CEO experiences workload pressures. Sometimes my wife, Alison, would arrive at the office with a sandwich to keep me going while I worked late. The uninvited advice on workload various people gave me was: delegate more. They made it sound so easy.

Those advice-givers were well-meaning, and delegation is certainly good management practice. But those who said ‘delegate more’ had little knowledge of my work situation, were almost never leaders themselves, and spoke as if delegation is a simple and effortless way to offload work. In fact, delegation is neither simple nor effortless.

In what follows I’ll describe obstacles to delegation, but also suggest ways in which it can be done effectively.

First, you can delegate only to people who are available and suitable. I’ll explain why I use these two terms one at a time.

The availability issue is at its most obvious if we picture someone running a one-person business. That boss can’t delegate because there’s no-one to give the work to! They could out-source some tasks, which is often a good idea but only when the work can be done equally well by someone outside the business. Most work, though, requires in-house knowledge, and that can’t be delegated to non-existent colleagues.

And even when there are colleagues we can’t assume anyone is available. Let’s imagine Josh started his business alone, but now employs six others because the there’s plenty work. Josh’s phone rings constantly, electronic orders pour in, the despatch team keeps shipping out products. It’s all good; the business is flourishing. But it’s not all good. Josh is exhausted, and, like him, his team often work late to meet demand. Then someone, seeing how tired Josh is, whispers in his ear: ‘You should delegate more’. Really? Who can he give his work to? There is no-one in his six-person team who’s employed full-time but has only a part-time workload. Josh would love to delegate, but there is simply no-one available who has spare capacity. (Should Josh hire more staff? Ideally that’s exactly what he should do, but for many small businesses payroll costs are their most expensive overhead, and employing even one more person would eradicate his profit and jeopardise the company’s viability.)

Suitability is the other essential for delegation. Let’s imagine that Jerry – who has a small construction company – also has six employees. Jerry’s team do excellent work, so previous customers generate new clients by word of mouth recommendations. Every new client, though, means a site visit followed by preparing and sending a cost estimate, and, when the estimate is accepted, every job involves background work such as securing building approvals, scheduling the work, ordering materials, and hiring specialist equipment. And of course records must be kept, which must be made ready for tax payments and audit. Jerry handles all that. Why doesn’t he delegate some of it to one of his six colleagues? They’re fine workers, but they’re builders and none has the skills necessary for preparing estimates, accounting for finances on spreadsheets, or any of the other background work Jerry does. They’re highly skilled at what they do, but not at all skilled at what he does. Even if one or more was available, they wouldn’t be suitable. And, no matter the size of business, the suitability issue is always relevant for delegation.

These two problems – availability and suitability – are real. I know of the demoralisation that followed when a boss dumped his work onto a colleague who was already over-worked. Within six months the overloaded employee was an ex-employee of that company. And I know of the consequences when work was given to someone untrained and therefore unable to handle the task. They didn’t resign, but the work was done poorly. The employee was blamed for doing a bad job, but the blame really belonged with the unfair and unwise delegator.

One – almost amusing – final comment on the availability and suitability matter. I’ve read accounts from management gurus who’ve discovered real competence and authority at the top of a company – except not right at the top. The Personal Assistant (Executive Assistant) to the Chief Executive managed her boss’s calendar, decided which meetings he’d attend, controlled staff access to him, selected the business papers he would read, wrote his speeches, and drafted important documents for the Board. The management gurus remarked that you wondered who was really running the company. Almost always the boss was male, and the assistant female, but she had the greater knowledge and expertise. Management culture is changing – albeit slowly – and hopefully such competent assistants will increasingly become the CEOs.

Second, delegation without supervision or accountability is particularly dangerous. One department leader told me: ‘I’ve given out tasks to my staff, and I don’t want to know anything more about the things they’re now handling’. Gently I informed him that was not an acceptable approach to delegation. Why not? After all, isn’t delegation about letting go of work to others? It is, but what you can’t delegate is your responsibility for what’s done. You’re responsible to ensure the project goes in the right direction. You’re responsible for the standard of work being satisfactory. And you’re responsible that the deadline is met, for the conclusions reached, and so on. Hence my department head – not the staff working under him – was accountable for all these things, and a completely hands-off approach was an invitation to chaos. Delegation of work is good, but delegation has limits.

Third, here are four further guidelines for good practice with delegation.

Clear expectations    No-one should be given a task without clarity on key points like these:

  1. What exactly do you want done?
  2. When is the work due?
  3. Do I show you this work when complete, or do you want to see drafts at earlier stages?
  4. What is the budget for this?
  5. What extra resources or support will be available to me?
  6. Are there special factors, such as keeping this work confidential?

And even:

7. What work would you like me to stop doing in order to take on this new task?

As a boss, I learned to be clear on all these things, and especially numbers 3 and 7. With 3, I discovered that staff liked to surprise me by submitting what they considered a finished product. Sometimes they virtually said, ‘Don’t ask me to change anything now!’ To prevent that I found I had to be crystal clear from the beginning that I wanted to know the direction their work was going long before they finished. With number 7, I realised that at the outset I had to discuss with my staff member what work they could set aside in order to do the new thing. Perhaps there were no existing tasks the employee could completely postpone, in which case there were only three options: a) get another person to take on the employee’s existing work; b) scale back the timetable for the new work; c) delegate to someone else whose existing work could wait.

Sensible and sensitive supervision    I’ve touched on supervision earlier, so here my emphasis is on the words ‘sensible and sensitive’. Sensible supervision means constructive support as they do the work. What it’s not is doing the work for your colleague. If you have to do the thinking, the research, the calculations (or similar tasks) then you’ve not delegated to the right person (or you, the boss, don’t understand delegation). Sensitive supervision is knowing when to check on progress and how to comment on progress. It’s finding the right stages or time intervals for updates – never repeatedly looking over your colleague’s shoulder, and never being too busy to give them time.

Having a reserve plan    If the delegated work is ‘mission critical’ – a task the company must have done – then the boss needs a plan in case the person handling the work falls sick or leaves. Since this is essential work, it can’t be abandoned, so either it can be passed to another staff member or the boss must take it on. In an emergency, either of those options requires a clear idea of what’s already done and what’s still to be done. The wise boss already knows that, and the perfect boss has kept a record. If the person who was handling the work has taken seriously ill or left the company, that record may be the only guide to what’s still to be done by whoever picks up the project.

Your delegation is someone else’s preparation    I got two reactions from colleagues when I delegated work to them. Some disliked it, either because they felt busy enough already or because they didn’t welcome unfamiliar work. Other colleagues jumped at the chance, even if their workload increased. They enjoyed the challenge and the new work would broaden their experience. After all, their hopes of a more senior position might depend on the importance and extent of their previous work. A foolish and weak leader is threatened by preparing those under him for leadership. Perhaps they’ll perform better than their boss. A wise and strong leader actively mentors colleagues, develops their careers, and trusts them with responsibility. That’s good for both the employee and for the company.

I’ll leave this post on delegation at this point. But I’ll return to the subject in the next post when I’ll describe the odd but not uncommon phenomenon of delegation in reverse.

How to become better

During my high school years I excelled at English and History. I was mediocre at French and German, and downright awful at Maths. Every subject mattered, so it was obvious what subject I needed to study most. But I didn’t. My effort went into what I enjoyed which was English and History, and I became even better at them. Maths? I disliked it, did as little as I could, and it never improved.

Likewise, I know golfers who are good at driving, but poor at getting their ball out of bunkers. What do they practise? They go to the range and work on their driving. What they’re already good at, they do all the more. What they’re bad at – bunker play – they neglect almost entirely.

There’s a principle at work, and it applies across a range of subjects from education to careers, and into relationships, sports, and hobbies. We practise what we like and neglect what we dislike.

Hence we don’t get better.

I believe it’s important to get better. A simple life goal is to fulfil our potential. That means being the best we can be, and never settling for mediocre or worse.

I have four steps towards that goal of being better.

1. We must want to be better

Some of my school friends had lofty ambitions, therefore they studied, and moved on into careers in medical research, teaching, management. Others – equally clever – took jobs as farm or factory workers. We need farm or factory work – we all depend on it – but these school friends drifted into those roles because they were available locally and they didn’t want to prolong their education. They chose the easy way.

I could have done the same. No-one in my family had ever gone as far as the final year of their schooling, never mind continued on into higher education. And, actually, neither did I, at least not immediately. My parents had no lofty academic expectations for me, and the local youth employment adviser recommended I start work in a department store – ‘probably sweeping the floors at first’ he said – and maybe I’d work up to being a branch manager. Happily I didn’t follow his advice, but got interviewed for journalism with a national newspaper, and left home aged 16 to start working life in Edinburgh with The Scotsman.

I learned much in just a few years, including shorthand, typing, law, as well as journalistic skills, and did well. I was a trusted reporter. Then came a complete change of direction because I made a personal Christian commitment which soon led to believing God had a different calling for me: Christian ministry.  I didn’t have the academic qualifications for admission to university, so studied at night school and then spent a year at a further education college. After that almost all my twenties were used gaining more education.

So the story could go on, but the only point I want to make is that I didn’t want to settle for what was convenient or easy, but dedicated myself to what was better for my life.

Career paths are personal, and I’m not suggesting everyone should try to reach the top rung of a corporate ladder. But I am arguing against casually settling for the bottom rung. Reaching for the best isn’t only a principle for work life – it applies in relationships, or roles in churches or community groups, or hobbies or sports. It’s good to want to be the best we can be.

2. Be aware of expectations given to you from birth

My parents never imagined that I’d go to a university, or head up large organisations. But they did believe in hard work and improving yourself. My dad wanted to be an architect. But his parents made him leave school when he was 14 because he had to bring money into the household. He started work with the Post Office. They gave him a bicycle and sent him miles each day delivering telegrams. Eventually he progressed to delivering the regular mail. Then World War II took him away for almost seven years. Post war, he went back to the Post Office, but moved to the administration side, did well, and years later finished as Post Master in Burntisland, just across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh.

My dad believed you should be the best you can be, taking into account all the circumstances of your life. It was how he lived. I was given a good legacy.

I feel fortunate to have had those expectations passed on to me. From birth onwards all of us have ideas, goals, attitudes, and ethics bred into us. Parents are usually the main givers, but there are other influencers too.

Then comes a period in our lives when we mature in thought and purposes as well as our bodies. That’s a time when we consider who we are, what we believe, what we want, what we’re willing to give our lives for. We work out these things from the foundation already laid for us. I encourage people to ask, ‘What have I been brought up to think and desire and believe is right?’ And, ‘Is that what’s right for me now?’

The answers can be uncomfortable. For the first time, we may not agree with authority figures, including family. Or, for the first time, we have a different idea to others of what we should do with our lives. Discomfort easily turns into discouragement, and discouragement to settling for the easy road.

We can never make the most of our lives travelling that easy road. I advocate knowing where you’re starting from, defining where you want to go, and working hard to achieve what you believe in.

3. Get someone you trust to tell you how your life should improve

I used to ask interviewees to describe their strengths and weaknesses. The answers were rarely helpful. Then I changed the question to ‘How would someone who knows you well describe your strengths and weaknesses?’ Suddenly I got answers that meant something, including realistic admissions of shortcomings. All that had changed was getting the interviewee to think what someone else would say about them.

How much more powerful to actually ask a trusted friend to describe the areas in your life where you need to get better. They might refuse, not wishing to risk the friendship. But the best of friends will realise you want to know their answer, and they’ll care enough for you to tell the truth.

Most of my life has been lived in the UK, but eight years were spent in the USA. On the whole I found American colleagues and friends more open about their lives. They genuinely wanted to know how they could improve their work, their spiritual lives, their marriages, and so on. Perhaps Brits (like me?) are too ‘buttoned-up’, too inhibited, to expose ourselves to criticism. Or our self-confidence is so low we can’t risk hearing hard truths.

Or it may be that we’re proud. We think we’ve done well, and don’t want anyone telling us we could have done better. And that in the future we’d do better if only we worked on this or that area of weakness.

Actually, perhaps the problem is not pride but fear, fear of knowing we’re not as good as we choose to believe.

Whether it’s low self-esteem, pride or fear that stops us being honest, we need to get over it. Accepting the truth about our weaknesses is stage 1; working to overcome those weaknesses is stage 2. Put together those two stages make us stronger and better people.

4. It’s not just skills that matter; character does too

Skills matter. We should strive for excellence in everything we do.

But probably all of us have met very clever people who weren’t nice to know. They were grumpy, or bullies, or rash, or hard to please, or foul-mouthed, or impatient, or the kind who jump from one idea to the next with no perseverance or resilience in face of challenges. These folk have character issues – flaws – and those flaws need improvement because we carry these traits all through our lives.

On the whole Alison and I have had excellent neighbours. They were kind, helpful, and pleasant to be around. But there have been a few not like that. Some just unfriendly, others critical, one or two downright rude. I think that’s simply how they were; there was never a day when they were different. We did the obvious – we kept out of their way.

Good character builds good relationships, wins people over, generates trust, creates a pleasant atmosphere and makes life a good experience for us and others.

When we think about being better people, we should think about our character. Ruthless honesty, with no excuses, is the right starting point. We probably need a supportive but honest friend too, because we’re blind to many of our own failings. The Scots poet, Robert Burns, wrote:

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us

If his use of the Scots dialect needs translation for you, he’s saying:

Oh, would some Power give us the gift
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us[1]

 If only, Burns writes, we could see ourselves the way others see us, we’d be freed from so many mistakes. Our characters need that level of insight and change.

In summary, we mustn’t settle for being good where we’re already good. Other parts of our lives need to be strengthened. But we must want to be better, and do whatever it takes to be better. It’s a life-long task, I’ve still some way to go.

[1] Original verse from Burns’ 1786 poem To a louse with ‘translation’ provided at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_Louse

Why quit while you’re ahead?

Two golfers have something strange in common. One was male and played more than 90 years ago, the other female who played more recently. Both were highly skilled, and greatly admired. In their twenties they were hard to beat, and had great golfing futures. But the strange thing they have in common happened when they were 28. They both quit.

Bobby Jones, an American, was always an amateur and played while also working as a lawyer. He won his first tournament at age 6, and shot to golfing stardom by winning the US Open in 1923 aged 21. By 1929 he’d won the US Open three times, the Open Championship (the UK’s top tournament) twice, and the US Amateur four times.

Then came 1930 when Jones did what no-one had before or since, he won the Grand Slam of Open and Amateur titles all in the same calendar year: the Amateur Championship (UK), the Open Championship, the US Open, and the US Amateur.

And then he stopped. He stayed involved with golf, such as designing Augusta National Golf Club and launching the Masters Tournament which is played there annually. But he retired from competitive golf aged 28 and practised law.

Lorena Ochoa, a Mexican, also quit at her best. She was ranked number one lady golfer in the world for 158 consecutive weeks (no-one since has got past 109 weeks), winning 30 titles in eight seasons, including two Majors. In each year from 2006 to 2009 she was the Ladies Professional Golfer Association player of the year. Then – aged 28 – she stopped. In an interview just after, she said she wanted to give time back to her family, and added: ‘I am very satisfied with my achievements’.

These are two examples, but ‘going out at the top’ isn’t unique to sport. I’m intrigued why people call a halt when things are going so well. Do they feel they’ve done all they can, and don’t want to see their abilities decline? Has the stress of getting to the top been too much and now they want out? Do they fear they’ll never produce such good work again? Or do they simply have other ambitions to fulfil?

Quitting while ahead isn’t done only by superstars.  Our achievements may be less spectacular, but they’re still achievements and family and friends would expect us to go further.

Why don’t we? Why stop doing what you’re good at doing?

I’ll describe four reasons.

Fear of not being able to repeat    Authors – including the most successful – are often afflicted with this thought. The last book was a blockbuster, and now they stare at a blank computer screen thinking, ‘I can never match that. I can never do that again’. Some get past their writers’ block and produce more good work. Some can’t even make themselves try.

The odd thing is that the more people praise us for doing well, the more we’re afraid we’ll disappoint them in the future. Perhaps an achievement was a one-hit wonder. We can’t sustain that standard and don’t want to fail, so we don’t try again.

Public acclaim comes with unreasonable expectations    I happen to be writing this blog the day before England play Italy in the final of the UEFA European Championship. Unquestionably the England football team has done well to get this far, and if they win the players will be legends in their lifetime. Children will be named after them. Huge financial rewards will flow their way. And, in England, the media and public opinion will declare the team near certainties to win the 2022 World Cup to be played in Qatar.

That’s enormous pressure. No matter how well paid, no matter how skilled, no matter what’s been won before, it’s hard to cope with that level of expectations.

Some thrive on pressure. It’s been true of top tennis players like Navratilova and Federer. But others have stopped while ahead. Björn Borg won 11 Grand Slam singles titles in seven years (including five consecutively at Wimbledon), and everyone expected more from him, but he quit aged 26, telling family and friends that tennis was no longer fun. Constantly trying to live out massive expectations would rob anyone of joy.

Failure to understand why we’re succeeding    Some personality types are happy to go with the flow of whatever happens; others like to feel in control. So when opportunity or achievement occurs, but you don’t know how or why, it’s unsettling.

Stanley Baldwin was Prime Minister in the UK three times in the 1920s and 1930s. Two out of the three occasions he didn’t expect to hold the post. In 1923 Prime Minister Bonar Law retired as soon as he was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer (and died soon after), and Baldwin was appointed PM.

After periods in and out of office, his third term began unexpectedly in 1935. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was becoming increasingly senile, and Baldwin deputised for him. Then MacDonald’s health declined more severely, and Baldwin was formally made PM.

That third term was tumultuous, with furious debates about disarmament / rearmament in the run up to World War II, and then almost equally ferocious arguments about the intention of King Edward VIII to marry the twice divorced Wallis Simpson. Baldwin opposed the marriage, and ultimately the King abdicated.

Two times Baldwin was thrust into the top job unexpectedly. The strain on him during those years must have been immense.

I can’t come close to rivalling Baldwin’s situation as Prime Minister of the UK. But two of the major roles of my professional life were unexpected. I became General Director of the Baptist Missionary Society without ever having been a missionary overseas or served on any of BMS’s committees. BMS (now BMS World Mission) was founded in 1792 by William Carey, the first ever society of the modern missionary movement. BMS has an illustrious history. It is also a major charity, channelling millions of pounds per annum to the least evangelised and impoverished countries of the world. After 12 years in BMS’s most senior staff role, I accepted an invitation to become President of Northern Seminary in Illinois, USA. I had the right academic qualifications for the role, but – as I pointed out to my interviewers – I wasn’t American, hadn’t come through the American education system, and though I’d taught at university level in Edinburgh and Aberdeen didn’t have academic roles in my career background. They still made me President. Both those positions were challenging, especially when people assumed you knew things you couldn’t possibly know. I persevered; some wouldn’t.

Many find themselves in roles they didn’t expect or don’t think they deserve. Even when things are going well, they’re uneasy. The result? A level of discomfort that causes some to step away.

Physical, emotional or spiritual exhaustion    I’ve always loved the biblical account of Elijah. He’s a triumphant hero but that’s not the whole story. In the book of 1 Kings, chapter 18, he challenges hundreds of false prophets to prove their god’s strength against what the Lord can do. The true God will be able to light a sacrifice without human intervention. They meet on Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal dance around their altar calling on their god, “But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:29). Then it was Elijah’s turn. He organised his altar and sacrifice, dug a trench around it, and had everything soaked with water three times. Then he prayed, and the fire of God fell and burned up the sacrifice, wood and stones. And the people cried out “The Lord – he is God! The Lord – he is God!” (1 Kings 18:39).

It was complete vindication about who was the true God and who was the true prophet. A great day for Elijah. That’s 1 Kings 18.

But 1 Kings 19 is very different. The Queen was furious her prophets had been killed, and threatened Elijah’s life. Elijah ran. When he stopped he left his servant, and went on another day into the wilderness. He was at breaking point. “He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said. ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors’” (1 Kings 19:4).

At first glance, his running away seems strange. If God hadn’t sent fire, Elijah’s life would have ended on Mount Carmel. But God did send fire and Elijah saw what God could do. But that was yesterday, and today he couldn’t cope, ran away and prayed God would take his life.

We might now call that a form of post traumatic stress disorder. Elijah had been through a hugely difficult experience. He’d survived but it had left him exhausted mentally and physically, overwhelmed and unable to cope. He couldn’t go on, and just wanted out.

Now five responses to these four reasons for quitting.

One   It’s okay to stop. Just because you do something well doesn’t oblige you to keep doing it. Besides, there will be other things you’d be good at. C.H. Spurgeon was a brilliant preacher during the Victorian era, packing massive crowds into churches. He founded a college (Spurgeon’s College is still operational today) to prepare more pastors and preachers, and in the early days interviewed all applicants himself. If a prospective student said he knew he was meant for ministry because he’d failed at almost everything else, Spurgeon always refused him. Spurgeon believed anyone who would be a good minister would be good at another six professions as well. He was right. And it’s true for more than ministers. If we can succeed in one thing, we can succeed in others. Moving on to something else isn’t the end of the road, just a junction at which we choose to turn.

 Two    Self-esteem and self-confidence are fragile things in almost everyone. I suspect someone who never self-doubts isn’t super competent but incapable of honest self-analysis. So when we doubt if we can be successful again we’re being normal and natural. And it might be right just to press on. I have a coffee coaster which includes words that have meant much to me down the years: ‘Believe in God; believe also in thyself’. I have believed in God since a child, and the coaster constantly reminds me to believe also in the self God made me. There is such a thing as righteous self-confidence. It’s not pride, and not mere positive thinking. It’s saying ‘I can do this thing and keep doing it. And I can face whatever comes next’.

Three    You might imagine successful people hear nothing but praise. You’d be wrong. I’d preached to about 2000 at a national gathering, and many gathered afterwards to thank me. Then came a lady in tears. During my talk I’d told the story of how my daughter nearly died when caught in a strong tide, and that had triggered memories in her of how her son was murdered by drowning. I couldn’t have known her situation, and my story was appropriate to my message, but I was deeply sorry I’d upset that lady and spent time talking with her. Afterwards I remembered almost none of the kind words said to me that night, but vividly remembered that lady’s pain. She was right to speak to me, and I learned lessons from how deeply she’d been affected. But the criticisms of some others are not legitimate, and I’ve tried not to be too affected by foolish comments. And, whether the negative criticisms are foolish or wise, still to face forward and do what I’ve been called to do.

Four    There can be a streak of perfectionism in high achievers. When our projects are going super-well, we imagine everything is exactly as it should be. But rarely is that true. Most things contain flaws or mistakes. The perfectionist can’t cope with that. If it’s not remedied immediately, the temptation is to get out. But none of us can escape the real world in which things are hardly ever entirely perfect. They’re good, but they’re not 100 per cent as they should be. So, especially when there’s more to be done than can be done, we must accept that good enough is good enough. Life is a balancing act of competing goals and responsibilities, and to give more time to perfect one is to steal time from another. Good enough isn’t perfect, but often it’s perfectly acceptable.

Five    There are two very down-to-earth reasons Elijah ran away when Jezebel threatened his life. 1) It wasn’t just spirituality that had sustained him on Mount Carmel, it was adrenalin. When he came down the mountain the adrenalin drained away, leaving him deflated and vulnerable. 2) He was exhausted, and therefore less able to cope. By the time he’d fled into the wilderness and prayed to die he was beside himself with tiredness and hunger. So, after he’d slept, an angel wakened him and gave him food and drink. He slept again, and a second time he was wakened to eat and drink. Only then was he fit to move forward, learn lessons and accept new challenges. I’ve learned not to look for super-complicated explanations when very ordinary factors are staring us in the face. Elijah didn’t need to die. Rather, after giving out so much, he needed time, rest, and a renewed vision for what was ahead for his life.

Most likely you’re not a golfing, tennis or football superstar. Nor a Prime Minister or a prophet. But you may feel you can’t keep doing what you’re doing even though it’s going well. I meant what I wrote earlier that it’s okay to stop. But often it’s also okay to keep going.  Reaching a ‘Stop’ sign usually means ‘Stop and check’, not ‘Stop and never move forward’.

May God make you wise with your decisions.