week 1 b

Before delegating, the manager should be aware that while she is still ultimately responsi- ble for the successful execution of the assignment, project, task, or process, effective delegation involves clarifying the difference between the managers’ and the employees’ responsibilities.

The citation provided is a guideline. Please check each citation for accuracy before use.

In particular, the employee should be responsible for achieving intermediate and specific goals and milestones along the way. Managers should also make sure that those individuals to whom assignments are delegated have sufficient authority to allow them to carry out the task and obtain the resources and cooperation required for its successful completion. Finally, individu- als who are delegated assignments should be held accountable for meeting established goals and objectives. While using delegation as a means to develop employees suggests that employ- ees should have a certain level of autonomy, the manager should supervise and monitor as appropriate.

Periodic reports and evaluations may be critical to effective delegation. The following five steps may be useful as you think about how to delegate in a way that also develops employees. You may note that these steps are similar to the four stages of effective performance evaluation systems.

FIVE STEPS TO EFFECTIVE DELEGATION

1. Clarify. In your own mind, decide what it is that you want done and why this is an appropriate assignment for the individual. Make sure that this assignment is at the proper level of dif- ficulty, providing the employee some challenge but not so much that he becomes frustrated with the assignment. Make sure that the employee has time to do the assignment. Also, make sure that the person has appropriate authority to carry out the task and obtain the resources and cooperation required for its successful completion. Think about how you will explain to the employee what is to be done and whether or not this assignment should be considered a high priority, relative to the other work he is doing, as well as why this assign- ment is important for the work unit. Writing it down can be helpful.

2. Explain. Meet with the employee and discuss the assignment and your expectations. Once you are certain in your own mind about the nature of the task and any expectations you have regarding the outcome, you need to communicate that information to the employee in a clear and specific manner. Make sure the employee understands how the task relates to or- ganizational goals, when the subordinate’s responsibility begins, whether or not this task is a new task or has been performed by others in the past, and what sources of help are available. If the task has been performed by others in the past, provide relevant information about problems that have been encountered. Also discuss how you will supervise and monitor (Hughes et al., 1999). To ensure the task is fully understood and that deadlines and time horizons are clear, ask questions. You might even ask the employee to repeat or feed back his understanding of the delegated assignment.

3. Let Go. Allow the employee to do the task the way she feels comfortable doing it. Show some trust in the employee’s abilities, but make sure the employee feels comfortable coming to you to discuss any concerns the employee has. Make sure the employee is given the authority to complete the task and the appropriate discretion in choosing the manner of completion.

4. Checkin.Periodicallycheckontheprogressoftheassignment,butdonotrushtotherescueatthe first sign that things may not be on track. Hold the person responsible for the work and any

difficulties that may emerge. Again, make sure the employee knows that he can discuss any concerns with you, but give the employee a chance to try solving the problem on his own. Also keep in mind that the employee may have initially felt that the assignment surpassed his ability, and so may fear being embarrassed by failure but also feel uncomfortable raising this issue. When you show confidence in your employee, the employee will likely gain the self-confidence necessary to solve the problem. You may be able to avoid this problem at the start by explicitly conveying to the employee your level of confidence in his ability to complete the assigned task and asking about any concerns he has.

5. Acknowledge. Recognize the employee’s accomplishments. Acknowledge what has been done, and show appropriate appreciation. Also make sure that the employee recognizes what she has accomplished and how it has contributed to the work unit’s functioning, as well as to her own growth and development.

As noted, we focus on delegation in this module as a means to develop employees. As such, the new responsibility or task should be integrated into the employee’s performance appraisal, discussed earlier in this competency. While focusing here on the employee who is taking on a new assignment, it should also be clear that managers who are effective delegators benefit personally and also provide benefits to the organization. In the exercises that follow, you will have a chance to analyze how a performance evaluation was handled, practice giving feedback as part of a performance evaluation role-play, and think about how the performance evaluation could have been improved. The final exercise asks you to apply what you have learned in the first three competencies in this module when delegating a task to someone else.

ANALYSIS United Chemical Company*

Objective When faced with our own performance evaluations or those of our subordinates, it is often difficult to separate the people from the issues. The objective of this case analysis and the practice exercise that fol- lows it is to give you the opportunity to examine how the principles of supportive communication and reflective listening that you learned about earlier in this module can be applied to a performance review situation that is “neutral” for you so that you can gain a more in-depth understanding of how these tech- niques can be used in mentoring and developing employees.

Directions Read the case and then answer the questions that follow. The United Chemical Company is a large producer and distributor of commodity chemicals with

five chemical production plants in the United States. The operations at the main plant in Baytown, Texas, include not only production equipment but also the company’s research and engineering center. The process design group consists of eight male engineers and the manager, Max Kane. The group

has worked together steadily for a number of years, and good relationships have developed among all members. When the workload began to increase, Max hired a new design engineer, Sue Davis, a recent master’s degree graduate from one of the foremost engineering schools in the country. Sue was assigned to a project involving expansion of the capacity of one of the existing plant facilities. Three other design engineers were assigned to the project along with Sue: Jack Keller (age 38, with 15 years with the

(Quinn 66-67)

company), Sam Sims (age 40, with 10 years with the company), and Lance Madison (age 32, with 8 years with the company).

As a new employee, Sue was enthusiastic about the opportunity to work at United. She liked her work very much because it was challenging and offered her a chance to apply much of the knowledge she had gained in her university studies. On the job, Sue kept to herself and her design work. Her rela- tions with her fellow project members were friendly, but she did not go out of her way to have informal conversations during or after working hours.

Sue was a diligent employee who took her work seriously. On occasions when a difficult problem arose, she would stay after hours in order to come up with a solution. Because of her persistence, coupled with her more current education, Sue usually completed her portion of the various project stages a num- ber of days before her colleagues. This was somewhat irritating to her, and on these occasions she went to Max to ask for additional work to keep her busy until her fellow workers caught up to her. Initially, she had offered to help Jack, Sam, and Lance with their parts of the project, but each time she was turned down tersely.

About five months after Sue had joined the design group, Jack asked to see Max about a problem the group was having. The conversation between Max and Jack was as follows.

Max: Jack, I understand you wanted to discuss a problem with me. Jack: Yes, Max. I didn’t want to waste your time, but some of the other design engineers

wanted me to discuss Sue with you. She’s irritating everyone with her know-it-all,

pompous attitude. She just isn’t the kind of person that we want to work with. Max: I can’t understand that, Jack. She’s an excellent worker whose design work is always well

done and usually flawless. She’s doing everything the company wants her to do. Jack: The company never asked her to disturb the morale of the group or to tell us how to do our work. The animosity of the group can eventually result in lower-quality work for

the whole unit. Max: I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Sue has a meeting with me next week to discuss her six-month

performance. I’ll keep your thoughts in mind, but I can’t promise an improvement in

what you and the others believe is a pompous attitude. Jack: Immediate improvement in her behavior isn’t the problem—it’s her coaching others

when she has no right to engage in publicly showing others what to do. You’d think she was lecturing an advanced class in design with all her high-power, useless equations and formulas. She’d better back off soon, or some of us will quit or transfer.

During the next week, Max thought carefully about his meeting with Jack. He knew that Jack was the informal leader of the design engineers and generally spoke for the other group members. On Thursday of the following week, Max called Sue into his office for her midyear review. One portion of the conversation was as follows:

Max: There is one other aspect I’d like to discuss with you about your performance. As I just related to you, your technical performance has been excellent; however, there are some

(Quinn 68)

Sue: I don’t understand—what questions are you talking about? Max: Well, to be specific, certain members of the design group have complained about your

apparent “know-it-all attitude” and the manner in which you try to tell them how to do their job. You’re going to have to be patient with them and not publicly call them out about their performance. This is a good group of engineers, and their work over the years has been more than acceptable. I don’t want any problems that will cause the group to produce less effectively.

(Quinn 68)

Let me make a few comments. First of all, I have never publicly criticized their perfor- mance to them or to you. Initially, when I was finished ahead of them, I offered to help them with their work but was bluntly told to mind my own business. I took the hint and concentrated only on my part of the work. What you don’t understand is that after five months of working in this group I have come to the conclusion that what is going on is a “rip-off ” of the company. The other engineers are “goldbricking” and setting a work pace much slower than they’re capable of. They’re more interested in the music from Sam’s radio, the local football team, and the bar they’re going to go to for TGIF. I’m sorry, but this is just not the way I was raised or trained. And, finally, they’ve never looked on me as a qualified engineer, but as a woman who has broken their professional barrier.