Clear Communication Makes the Difference in Delegation

The biggest problem with delegation is — and always will be — that your team can’t read your mind. You’ve got to find away to get your team members to see the same vision you have, whether it’s for a new logo or an approach to the filing system. There are plenty of opportunities for misunderstandings and other problems to creep in and only careful communication can eliminate, or at least reduce, such issues.

Use Multiple Methods of Communication

Even if you work just down the hall from your team, you probably have run into some communication difficulties when delegating tasks. While such problems can be more visible if you’re communicating in writing, with fewer opportunities for your team to ask questions, they can be present in any situation. With projects that don’t have particularly high stakes, it may not be particularly important if your team gets the clearest instructions, provided that the work gets done. It’s not ideal, but if you have only a certain amount of time you can spend on getting an idea across, it’s okay to put less effort into the less important projects.

But with big projects — the kind where it matters just how different tasks are executed — the more you can educate your team on what they need to do, the better. It’s not necessarily a matter of providing more in-depth instruction, because too many instructions can put everyone’s attention on reading and reviewing instructions instead of completing the project. However, providing access to instruction and resources through multiple access points (email, a project management tool, face-to-face discussion, etc.) can provide opportunities for each of your team members to communicate through the medium he or she finds clearest. The more discussion you can bring to the project, the more likely you are to be able to clearly communicate just what you have in mind.

Autonomy and Two-Way Communication

Clear communication has to offer opportunities for information to flow back to you, as well. Providing a method, as well as encouragement, for your team to ask questions and get clarification can help everyone involved be sure that they’re on the same page. If you simply issue instructions, you don’t necessarily even know if they’ve been received. A good question, however, can show that your team knows what it needs to be doing or provide you with the opportunity to correct a misunderstanding.

When possible, adding some autonomy to a task can help with communication: rather than issuing instructions, describe the end result you want and any necessary constraints. Have your team tell you what they’re going to do, rather than the other way around. Even if the strategy they suggest isn’t the way you would do things, it will likely still be a usable option if you’ve described the project in enough detail. And a different solution is not necessarily a bad one — your team may be able to come up with some great alternatives. If nothing else, their suggestions will probably play to their strengths, suggesting a faster result.

Image by Flickr user lloydm

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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