You can delegate a task, not accountability!

You can delegate a task, not accountability!
 

One of the responses for last week's discussion on delegation skill is “After I delegate the task to my colleague or team member and if he/ she does not execute the task as expected, how can I be responsible?”.

We need to understand the difference between responsibility and accountability. Accountability is someone ultimately accountable for RESULT, whereas Responsibility is someone responsible for the EFFORT or PROCESS.

Accountability is outcome-based; responsibility is process-based.

In an organizational context, when you are delegating some tasks to someone, you are just partially offloading your task to someone with empowerment to complete the task. Still, ultimately you are accountable for the result of the task. You cannot pass the ownership of the result to others. That is why we need to understand that delegation is not just the allocation of duty to others.

Effective delegation is a combination of
 Knowing what to delegate+ To whom to delegate+ Education+ Guiding

For example, as production in charge, you are just delegating the task to your reports, but you are accountable for the delivery and not your team. You are delegating the responsibility only, not accountability. Finally, you are accountable for your team’s performance.

We need to understand that the art of delegation itself is a responsibility, not just outsourcing the task to someone. When we own that responsibility, we become master the art of delegation skill!

Developing delegation skill -Logical part of delegation

Developing delegation skill

As we discussed last week on the beliefs and fears holding us from delegating the task, let us understand the logical part of the delegation.

I mentioned my senior and his outstanding delegation skill. I observed the typical pattern in his delegation approach, and that made him good at delegating and completion of the task on time.

Whenever any new organizational tasks come across through him, he used to plan to whom to delegate. Once he identified the right person, he thoroughly explained the importance of the task responsibility, things to be done, and clarified all the doubts to the teammate. While his teammate was executing the job, the senior person regularly used to check about the progress and guide the teammate. Once the task was over, he used to personally thank the person as if the job was his own task.

It looks like the senior person applied a common-sense approach, and it was proven right most of the time, as I observed. He used to be very cool, good in time management, and above all, the team enjoyed to work with him, and I attribute the result due to his structured delegation methodology.
 
The logical approach in successful delegation is as follows

• First, determine whether the task is to be delegated or to be done by self-based on priority and competence.
• Identify the right person in the organization/function by mentally calculating the capability, work distribution, and other priorities.
• Without an ego, explain the person about the task and educate the execution methodology
• Periodically monitor and guide the people during execution to give confidence and moral support
• Acknowledge the people’s contribution

 For effective delegation skills, we need to be aware of the emotional and logical part and practice it!

pl listen what Richard Branson's view about delegation 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTq5KhImmtc

Developing delegation skill

Developing delegation skill

One of the leadership traits is effective delegation, and it is one of the undervalued skills in the organization. Most of the managers and leaders aware that they are doing most of the work on themselves, and it affects their quality of work, time, and eventually growth; however, some factors are pulling us down from delegation.

Factors that  prevent us from delegating  

• Believing that self is perfect and only self can do the task
• Lack of patience to teach the work to others
• Fear of losing the importance in the workplace if someone also does the task
• Enjoying more of doing the routine, familiar job and not making an attempt to learn a new skill or doing something non-familiar task for growth
•  Really not knowing the prioritization regarding the position as discussed last week.

Whatever may be the reason which prevents us from the delegation, with a lit bit of awareness on our mindset and knowing the methodology of delegation, anyone can improve his / her delegation skill. It is an art and science.

Personally, I worked with one of the senior person in the organization hierarchy, who is competent at managing time; he used to come on time and leave the office on time in a culture where most of the people start late and stay late in the evening. One of the skills he possesses is excellent delegation skills, and that could be the reason he uses to be cool, enjoys his personal and professional life than his colleagues. His methodology of delegation is worth to mention.

 Let us discuss the methodology of delegation next week!!

Prioritizing task- accountability vs. responsibility

Prioritizing task- accountability vs. responsibility

One of the questions most of the managers use to ask “I have many tasks to perform in a day, how to prioritize? They are smart people and are already practicing the discipline of having a “To do checklist.” However, they left the office with the feeling of Incompleteness.

The feeling of incompleteness arises due to being busy with many tasks, but not much impact on growth. The solution is to prioritize the job based on accountability and responsibility basis.

Should the individual introspect and answer, “am I predominately doing on “my accountable task” or “my responsibility task”?

Am I doing justification for my position by doing those tasks predominately?

The above question will enable the individual to prioritize well.

For example, if you are a CEO or business head, your accountability is to ensure business profitability, stability, and growth. Your predominate task must be in line with your accountability. That is prioritization. Suppose if you do most of the activities which you claim as you are responsible, like chasing the production targets, microanalysis on your subordinate’s job, updating the customers on despatch status, then you are not prioritizing your tasks. Even though you are responsible for some of the activities which you can delegate.

Similarly, as supply chain head, one of your accountabilities is to ensure cost optimization, and you only can do that, that is, prioritization for you. The other responsibility tasks like signing every purchase order, followup with vendors, etc. can be delegated.

The key for prioritization is that we need clarity on our accountability and responsibility. Then need to learn to delegate the responsibility task to others. The clarity will enable you to prioritize your job.

However, there is some reservation on delegating the task, and we will discuss it next week!

Be aware of your time wasters

One of the queries most of us have internally is “how to utilize the time effectively “and simultaneously work on as pulled by external distractions and factors without much conscious about the time spending pattern. However, a few productive people are good at managing time and accomplish most in the given time.
 
The first step towards to utilize the time effectively is to understand your habit pattern and the time loss associated with it. Once you are aware of your losses, you are convinced to take corrective action.
 
Without awareness, any time management tools and apps are not going to be useful.
 
One of the simple and powerful ways to be aware of time spending patterns is to track and record your activity for every hour minimum for a week. When you analyze the data, you will get a pattern of your work spending in the category like traveling to the office, spending time in the meeting, communication with the team, social media, and so on. Also, you will get a new insight into time-wasters or the activities which are not helping your personal and professional growth.
 
When I did this exercise recently, I got an insight into my habits, which are time wasters and the lifestyle which consumes most of my time without adding value to my growth.
 
I believe that this awareness is the first step towards effective time management. Suggest you do the analysis for a week and be aware of your time wasters if you want to utilize the time effectively.

Improving communication in the workplace-Summary

As we have been discussing for the last 20 weeks about improving communication in the workplace from an individual or personal effort perspective, now let us pause on this topic by summarising the key learnings.

Key learnings:
 

• Effective communication is all about meeting the purpose of your intent with others. It is not about language proficiency.
• As people are from different backgrounds in the workplace, each needs different levels of the communication process, and it is an individual 's responsibility to develop the skill rather than pointing others for poor communication results.
• People will listen to you only when your communication contains ALL  the below elements.

• Expertise in the subject or creditability proof 
• Connecting emotionally with the person
• Logically connecting with facts

• You can connect emotionally with others by consistently displaying. 

Respect to others and feeling good with you
Listening  and undivided attention to others
Prompting others and fulfilling the need of “what is in it for me “
Your friendly  posture, tone, facial expression
Knowing the difference between criticism and feedback
Being approachable to others
 

• In the workplace, we can not avoid conflict due to differences in the thought processes of each person. The only way to manage the conflict is through appropriate usage of assertiveness, proactive communication, and sometimes to ignore the battle for the interest of higher purpose.

• Going forward, to manage the new generation, Influencing skill is mostly expected expertise in the workplace rather than the conventional way of commanding and directing. Influencing skills can be learned and developed with awareness and practice.

Developing communication skills is a lifetime learning process, and you need to invest in it to progress in the career path!
 

Being approachable

Improving communication in the workplace

Being approachable

 
One of the factors to improve the effectiveness of communication is creating a favorable environment for conversation. The atmosphere is not the physical environment at an organizational level, but on the emotional aspects at a personal level. That psychological, environmental factor is “Being approachable.”
 
What is meant by being approachable?

Being approachable means how others are feeling when they want to reach out and communicate with you. The feeling could be memorable, friendly in nature, inspiring, relaxed, or fearful, disappointment, demotivated once they reach out to you.

Approachability is not confined only by physical proximity but at an emotional level. In most of the workplace, this is a concern, particularly in the relationship between superior and juniors and between colleagues.
 
It does not mean that you need to give less priority to your job and to offer yourself for others when others want to reach out to you. Even if you are busy with your work, you can demonstrate your approachability with a polite, assertive, and permissible way of communication.
 
For example, you might have observed and heard the following scenario in your workplace, especially with your senior members when you approach them, or you demonstrate to your colleagues or subordinates.
 
1. Not effectively listening with face to face, instead of doing something and listening to you
2. "Don’t tell me stories. Come to the point straight."
3. "Don’t tell me the problem, I want only solutions" (the person comes to you for solutions approach)
4. Not returning the phone calls and messages
5. Not responding to mail communication
 
Those are the behaviors that create a perception that the person is not easily approachable. All those behaviors distant you from others even though they are nearby physically.
 
When there is a barrier to “approachability,” eventually, the quality of communication suffers either by not sharing full information or not getting information on time.
 
Just be aware of behaviors that make you not being approachable .!

Book on "Developing an Influencing Skills."

Book on "Developing an Influencing Skills."

As we discussed last week on developing Influencing skills at the workplace , given below one of the best books on the same which i read some years back.

The Author gives the techniques of persuasion by explaining the science behind each technique.

I recommend reading the book if you would like to enhance your perspectives on managing the people with your influencing skills.

Link is given below

https://amzn.to/2pEF7RM

Developing Influencing skill

Improving communication in the workplace

Developing Influencing skill 

 
One of the effective way to improve overall communication and harmony in the workplace is by influencing others to get things done. 
 
What is influencing?
 
Influencing is the power to change or direct someone without directly forcing them to do. It is more of impacting others positively with your personality and communication process.

For example,

When you are proposing or initiating an improvement idea in your organization, and when you express it to others,  it is accepted and implemented by others. People may or may not be reporting to you, yet they are convinced to proceed based on your communication methods, respect, and trust. They make it happen as if they are not forced to do it, but it happens on their willingness. That is influencing.

The communication method could be explaining the purpose, listening , respecting the views and convincing.

Why do influencing skills need to be learned?

When you grow up on the career ladder, your success depends on how you are getting things done across functions apart from your domain or functions. Commanding will not help beyond some level and only influencing help.

Also, young generations come up smarter than you, and they like to work with influencing personality than the controller.
 
Factors that help to become an influencer in the workplace
 
Expertise in your chosen  domain
Respect and listening
Being assertive than aggressive or passive
Gaining trust and respect through your character and competency
Provoke others with questions and change the perception
Purposeful communication
Focusing more on the solution than problem or  arguments

 The point is when you learn to influence others to get things done, you also enjoy the work and the people are also enjoying to work with you. Hence, worth to invest in developing the influencing skill!
 

Managing conflict with assertive communication

Improving communication in the workplace

Managing conflict with assertive communication
 

When conflict occurs in the workplace, you have a choice to manage thorough either passive or aggressive, and both have pros and cons. The third choice to manage conflict is assertive communication, which has only advantages.

This communication quality helps to improve the harmony and growth of the individual. However, it calls for managing your emotions during the conflict and a high level of patience and maturity. If one puts effort into learning this skill in life, I can say that it is the most precious asset one can have.
 
Assertive communication:

Assertive communication is all about how you are expressing your views by maintaining respect, showing empathy, or understanding other’s opinions from their perspective and also be firm in your views. In the end, both have to feel good and sense of achieving the purpose.

One instance I had witnessed some time back in one of the product development organization. The team put a lot of effort into developing a product and ready for launch in a few months down the line. The product manager was showing the proto to the managing director of the organization and explaining the features. The managing director suggested some modifications to improve the aesthetic.The team knew that the suggestion was good, but making any modification at the moment would delay the product launch. Since the advice came from the head of the organization, they could not resist.

The product manager had two choices in front of him; either he could passively accept the suggestion as direction, change the product, and delay the timeline. Another option he had was to refuse and argue aggressively. But he responded well by using assertive communication as follows

“I agree with your suggestion as this may improve product value further, and  I suggest to take it as a future product line extension and the implications to be worked out. Any change at this moment will delay the product launch timeline, cost. I think we should move forward now.”
 
The above assertive expression consists of respecting other’s opinions and acknowledging, not rubbing the ego with an argument, indicating the consequences and at the same time being firm on the stand considering the big picture of the organizational growth. That results in closure of the conflict and never resurfaced after that.
 
The point is most of the conflict happens either due to ignorance of information, a perspective difference of individual and the one who manages the conversation with an assertive way emerges as a leader. This calls for conscious development on self on assertive communication!