Time Management - Marc Mancini
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78<br />
<strong>Time</strong> <strong>Management</strong><br />
Deadlines help firm up prioritization. When you delegate, always<br />
set deadlines, including intermediary status review dates.<br />
Entertain input from the person you delegate to. If you empower<br />
the person in the process, by sharing responsibility from the<br />
start, you’ll reinforce his or her motivation.<br />
8. Establish a reporting method. To leave vague the reporting<br />
methods for intermediary and final deadlines is dangerous. Must<br />
feedback be written? Oral? Lengthy? Summarized? Articulate<br />
your expectations to the person you delegate to. Doing so will<br />
ensure professional, responsible, and orderly feedback. An<br />
added advantage: if written, the report can be easily shared with<br />
others.<br />
9. Encourage questions. At the end of your explanation,<br />
encourage the person to ask any questions that may be still<br />
unvoiced. If none are forthcoming, do a comprehension check;<br />
have the person summarize the assignment as he or she understands<br />
it. You’ll almost certainly need to clarify some details.<br />
You may even wish to “walk” the person through the task. This<br />
is a powerful, hands-on method for testing his or her comprehension<br />
of the job. Now is also the time to offer trade-offs if you<br />
get the it’s-not-my-job reaction. Finally, summarize steps 4<br />
through 9 in a brief, written memo to the person and, if appropriate,<br />
send a copy to your boss.<br />
Providing Resources<br />
When you delegate a task, you need to make sure the person<br />
has everything necessary to perform the task:<br />
• Sufficient authority to make necessary decisions. If a certain amount of<br />
autonomy saves you time, a reasonable level of autonomy will save<br />
time for the person you’re delegating to. Also, if the person needs<br />
to come to you for decisions, how much effort and time are you<br />
saving by delegating?<br />
• Access to all resources necessary for the task. The person should not<br />
have to ask for access, one item at a time.That’s a waste of time,<br />
for both of you, and not smart delegation.