Podcast: How to Get Delegation Right, Part 2 of 3

Through her work as an executive coach, Brenda Ellington-Booth has seen people struggle in the details: Does it make sense to delegate work if you have to triple-check for accuracy? How do you balance your team’s needs with the organization’s? And what about your needs? Wasn’t this supposed to make life easier for you?

In the second of our three-parter on delegation, Ask Insight dives into the nuances.

(You can check out episode 1 here and episode 3 here.)

Podcast Transcript

Laura PAVIN: You’re listening to The Insightful Leader. I’m Laura Pavin.

We’re back today with part two of our Ask Insight three-parter on delegation—a skill that seems to be a pretty universally confusing math for higher-ups to get right. And that’s because, if you ask Kellogg Professor Brenda Ellington-Booth, delegation is a moving target. There’s no rule book for how to get it right—you have to read the room, know your employees, and understand the stakes of your work.

Ellington-Booth is an executive coach who helps leaders figure out how to do that all the time. And today, she helps us understand—with some concrete examples—the types of things we should being delegating more of and what we should not be delegating as much.

She spoke with Insight’s editor in chief, Jess Love. Here’s Love.

...

Jess LOVE: So if you were to think of one thing that leaders delegate but probably shouldn’t, what comes to mind?

Brenda ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Things that have huge consequences.

LOVE: If it is so important, why is a leader’s instinct going to be to let someone else think about it.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Well, because in my mind, part of a leader’s job is to help people grow. Otherwise, they become dependent on you. And unless they have a sense of what’s important and how to deal with those more challenging, complex deliverables when the stakes are high, they will never be able to accept more responsibility.

LOVE: Yeah. Okay. So you’re a manager and you’re kind of like, okay, this is the biggest decision, but I’ve got to prep my team for also making these big decisions. Here you go. But that’s maybe a mistake.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: It could be if you delegate too much, you know, because like I said, if the stakes are really high, and if someone that you’re trusting, you know, hope and pray that they have the skill set and the fortitude to get something done, that’s kind of hard to take as a manager. But at the same time, there’s got to be, as a manager ... I think you need to have some creativity in terms of, how do you train your people and get the results that you need to get done, even when the stakes are really high?

LOVE: Can you give us an example of a time or the type of situation where a leader really wants to delegate something, but in actuality, they should just be doing it themselves?

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah, so I think there’s an example where the stakes were high when there was a lot of money on the line. And it was a situation, the accounting department, this is a real example, the CFO went to the board with some numbers, and the numbers weren’t right. And the CFO had a lot of things going on, and on the board, there was someone that had a background in finance.

LOVE: Oh, this is agonizing.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah. And so you can imagine the CFO’s being grilled by this board member who considers themselves to be an expert. And then it’s not until that person, that CFO, gets into the actual meeting where the board member can call him out. And so, the CFO made the assumption that the numbers were right. They had gone over it, you know, the process before. And he just didn’t have the opportunity, or he thought, you know, this person got it, they’ve done it before, and he didn’t double check the numbers. And that was a really high-stakes situation.

LOVE: Oh my gosh. Now I want this to be made into a movie, and I want to find out what happened.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah. It’s really about training that other person, their direct report, to think systematically as a way of, how do you double check your work without me having to do it? You know, in my mind, there’s always, like, the gut test.

And the gut check is sometimes individual contributors are so busy and focused on getting something out the door, and it being complete and on time, versus taking a minute and saying, you know, let me walk away and come back, and does this number really make sense or does this graph really make sense? And so many times we’re in a rush, and we don’t realize that, and then we only see it when it’s too late.

LOVE: Yeah, so kind of what you’re describing is what seems like a delegation issue, you know, maybe in this case was a little bit of a judgment issue, but it was also a training issue.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: It was a training issue too. Yeah. Both learned a really valuable lesson. And some people, some managers can overcorrect, “okay, I’m not going to trust you with anything else again.” Or both can have, like, you know ... The manager hopefully will have this growth mindset: “that was really uncomfortable for me. And I need to give that really good feedback by saying, ‘I need you to understand what happened here. And I really need you to put yourself in my shoes. And this is not about, you know, being a bad person or incompetent, it’s more about, let’s just walk through and develop a system where this doesn’t happen again. What’s going to work for you? What’s going to work for me?’”

Because the manager doesn’t want to spend, you know, four hours double checking every number either. Otherwise, like you said, what’s the point of delegating?

LOVE: So now I’m going to ask you the reverse. In your experience, what do managers not want to delegate that they really should?

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: People don’t necessarily delegate things that are relational based.

LOVE: Mmmm, oh my gosh.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah, because now it’s about two people. Like, maybe you delegate your direct report going to a meeting and representing you. That’s scary. Because, you know, you just don’t know what they’re going to say, and you know the players or you know the scripts that have been played or what’s going to come at this person. There’s no way that you can prepare an individual for all the different what-if scenarios.

But yeah, it’s really important for that direct report to have that experience, you know, without like an earpiece and the manager’s listening: “okay, say this.” But when those relational things are on the line, then the stakes are high for the manager now because either the employee is going to do fine or they’re going to get a phone call saying, “did you know what so-and-so said” or, you know, “well, so-and-so agreed that your group would do this.” And the manager’s like, “really? Okay.”

So when it’s relational and the consequences, again, are high ... and so managers really don’t want to delegate those things when they feel like their reputation is going to be at stake.

LOVE: Mm hmm. I think that really resonates with me. I mean, especially because, you know, once you are in that leadership position, so much of how you’re able to get things done are those relationships. So you kind of have your own reason for wanting to keep those relationships really strong, and introducing anything else into those relationships, I can see, might feel a little terrifying.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah, it is. And you just don’t know how two people, their chemistry, is going to be.

LOVE: Right. So what you’re describing sounds terrifying, but what you’re saying is that we should delegate anyway.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yeah. The initial investment is hard and high, you know, it’s a lot of work because the really good managers that I see that do this well will take time to not only make sure the employee will have, you know, the right information, the right slides or whatever, but also give them a sense of who’s in the room, what their sensibilities are.

They’re going to prepare them to kind of do what-if scenarios that might likely happen or prepare them for the question where they’re just not going to be able to answer or they feel uncomfortable. And a lot of times, managers forget to do that, you know, and it’s more about, “well, if there’s a question that comes at you, let’s practice how you say, ‘I don’t know, and still, you know, look credible.’”

LOVE: Yeah. Yeah. Would you recommend in that type of situation, let’s say it’s a, you know, high-stakes meeting, very relationship-based, would you want to bring that person along for a meeting or two before they are the one, you know, the solo representative?

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Absolutely.

LOVE: A lot more job shadowing, almost.

ELLINGTON-BOOTH: Yes, job shadowing. And I think that’s a really helpful way to help groom employees. But it’s more than just ... show up to the meeting. It’s the meeting before the meeting. “So this is what I’m going to do in the meeting. This is my thought process. This is what I’m unsure of. Let’s see how it goes.” The meeting happens and then there’s the meeting after the meeting. “It didn’t go as I thought” or, you know, “this question threw me and you see how I handled that?” And really getting the employees to start thinking proactively how to prepare, what to do in the moment, and then hopefully how to think about what happened afterwards.

PAVIN: So Ellington-Booth has given us some great practical guidance in this episode: Avoid delegating when the stakes are too high. But don’t avoid delegating things that are relationship-based. Help your employees foster relationships, and let them attend meetings with key decision-makers—just make sure they’re ready. Check in with them before the meeting to prepare and after the meeting to debrief. The investment will pay off for them and for you as you build trust in your team.

But trust is not a simple thing. So, in the third and final episode of our series, we’ll dig deeper into trust and why delegation can be surprisingly emotional! That’s next time.

[CREDITS]

PAVIN: This episode of The Insightful Leader was produced and mixed by Isabel Robertson. It was produced and edited by Laura Pavin, Jessica Love, Fred Schmalz, Abraham Kim, Maja Kos, and Blake Goble. Special thanks to Brenda Ellington-Booth. Want more The Insightful Leader episodes? As always, you can find us on iTunes, Spotify, or our website: insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu.