Delegating with Intention: Keep it Delegated

Keeping things delegated starts in the PRO part of our process, but requires the rest of the acronym:

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What does this mean?

One of the best ways to keep things delegated is the prevent your future self from jumping in as an anxious micromanager
The key to doing this is setting really clear expectations for you and your employee about what kind of updates you need/want and how and when you’ll check in before that anxiety sets in
Check out the matrix from Melody Wilding in this article for some ideas on how you might structure the check-in cadence depending on the work

Once you set the expectations for updates and check-ins, you need to stick to those.
Sometimes it can be tempting to brush them off for fear of being perceived as a micromanager.
If you don’t follow through with planned check-ins you miss opportunities to surface questions and challenges and practice trust and accountability throughout a project which can result in surprises when it’s too late.

It’s critical to be really clear on what the actual question is and what your employee actually wants from you when they get stuck.
Try asking these questions:
- What is the question or the challenge?
- What have you considered or tried already?
- What outcome would make this a helpful conversation?
Listen for opportunities to restate the expectations you aligned on in the PRO part of the process
Ask at least 3 open-ended questions before you offer ideas.

Problem	Delegation pro response (assuming you’ve asked some questions to understand if they’ve tried these next steps)	Taking the work back
XX on the other team won’t respond to my emails	What if you try stopping by their office or checking with a peer on their team about their preferred communication style	I’ll reach out to them
I’m not sure which software we should buy for this project	Could you outline 3 options, the pros and cons, and your recommendation?	I’ll check in with IT and get back to you about what’s possible.
I’m not sure if I can use AI this way for the project	Take a look in the employee handbook, I think the executive team just added a section on AI	I’ll ask about this in our next leadership team meeting