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Business Rule #23:
Don’t Just Delegate, Keep Score
April 1, 2005
by Caroline Pfouts
Winning leaders use all of the team resources available to them. No matter how skilled, talented, or brilliant you are, you can’t do it alone. Delegation is more than just telling a team member what is expected of them. It’s helping each member of the group understand why their particular job is important and having them accept responsibility for reaching the team’s goal. It’s getting your people to own the project—to feel that they are part of it.
The first step is to make sure your team knows and understands the group’s goal. This sounds basic enough, but it’s shocking how few companies actually do it effectively. A dry mission statement gathering dust in a file or read once during employee orientation just doesn’t cut it.
What did cut it though was how Tana Goertz and her unbound enthusiasm for this week’s task charged up her teammates. When Team Magna was designing their new pizza, she spoke in loving tones about sauce and garlic. Confronted with Tana’s genuine passion for meatball pies, Craig Williams and Kendra Todd dropped their squabble over semantics. It’s hard to say how much of an effect Tana’s zeal for tasty pizza had on the outcome—but her obvious delight in the team’s project was contagious. It sure as hell made me hungry.
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You want your team to know, not only where they are going, but also where they are right now. Think about the last time you were at a ballpark. There’s no mystery what the score is. It’s in big numbers at the top of the stadium. Keeping score is important. Especially to the players. They need to know if they need to change or correct things in the middle of the game—while they still have a shot at winning.
One of my own consulting clients was a staffing agency. Of course, large orders for temporary employees were always welcome…but coordinating a team of recruiters on these multiple job openings could be a real challenge. The first time I received a job order for over twenty temporary workers, I was thrilled! But as soon as I put down the phone, I realized we had a lot of work to do. We had to line up qualified people to go to work that Monday. To help my team swing into action, I pulled out a large dry-erase board and drew a grid. Numbering the rows, I asked my team to fill in the name of each candidate as they were called and confirmed for the job. It was an instant score card. I gave each recruiter a different-colored felt pen. Everyone could see which candidates had already been called, eliminating any duplication of efforts. The colored pens also allowed each recruiter to see how many candidates he had on the board compared to his fellow workers. The spirit of competition took hold and everyone worked quickly. We had all of the jobs filled that same afternoon.
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Delegation is more than just telling a team member what is expected of them.
