Do you want a team that is able to think or a horde of cyborgs who follow blindly your commands? That is the question that I asked myself today, already knowing the answer (a waste of mental energy).
There's people who feel comfortable delegating work unto others and there are those who don't.
Usually those who don't tend to be control freaks (nothing against them, as long as they are not my boss).
They feel that what they can't control will unavoidably fall out of control sooner or later.
That paranoia keeps feeding their thirst for control.
Managers that cannot delegate usually suffer from some variation of OCD.
They are usually very tidy with their paperwork and numbers and tend to be hardworking.
The problem arises when they have to go on leave or move to greener pastures.
Then no one knows what to do or where to find what.
Staff become automats that keep working on autopilot without even knowing what they are doing or why.
Here's where I'd lay a great and enlightening example...
which I have, but due to confidentiality reasons I can't disclose.
And no, I don't work for the CIA.
But this is the general idea (starring: my usual lead character, New Guy).
Person in Charge gets promoted and there's an interval of a couple of months before New Guy arrives.
Meanwhile, Team is dealing with other pressing stuff, so they can't pay too much attention to Former Person in Charge's stuff.
New guy finds out 2 days before a meeting that some paperwork for a report months 2 months behind and has to fix it to present a coherent report in 2 days.
BTW, new guy still doesn't (or barely) know how to do Former Person in Charge's job...
but needs to get it done.
During this couple of months, staff kept recording data in an incorrect way because no one had highlighted a sentence in their data sheet for 2 months.
Ergo, the last 2 months of data were useless.
When new guy asked staff if they knew why they were doing business the way they were doing it, staff said no (I love honesty).
They just moved to the next step of the process when Former Person in Charge gave them the cue to do it (the highlighting thingy).
New Guy then explained staff the rationale for what they had been doing for the past 3 years (yup, in this hypothetical case this person is a seasoned employee).
New Guy told him how it worked and the purpose of that particular task, making Seasoned Employee feel excited for learning new stuff.
Summarizing, the moral here is: train robots and you'll waste your human resources, make your agenda busier and load you with a whole lot of time consuming work that you could be dedicating to other tasks.
Instead of telling staff what to do (I don't get tired of saying this), first explain to them what they are doing and why.
Not only they'll appreciate it but you'll be training people in a way that they can continue to do their jobs even when you or no one is there for them.
Which also translates into more peaceful vacations for you.
But the article doesn't end with the moral.
I'm going deeper.
I think that in the end it all goes down to trust.
If a manager can't trust his team then it means that he only trusts himself to do the job.
And know what? He may be perfectly capable of doing all that for himself flawlessly.
But it's also selfish.
That manager is only thinking about himself and about doing his job right.
He forgets that there's a whole team that will still be there when he is not.
On the other hand, what's the motivation and excitement in being a cyborg? Not sharing the rewards (or penalties) of own's work? Is that what you want for the people that work with you every day? Try them, challenge them, give them something to work on and develop their skills at the same time.
Help them grow.
Or keep your army of droids knowing that today you only did something just for you, and no one else.
There's people who feel comfortable delegating work unto others and there are those who don't.
Usually those who don't tend to be control freaks (nothing against them, as long as they are not my boss).
They feel that what they can't control will unavoidably fall out of control sooner or later.
That paranoia keeps feeding their thirst for control.
Managers that cannot delegate usually suffer from some variation of OCD.
They are usually very tidy with their paperwork and numbers and tend to be hardworking.
The problem arises when they have to go on leave or move to greener pastures.
Then no one knows what to do or where to find what.
Staff become automats that keep working on autopilot without even knowing what they are doing or why.
Here's where I'd lay a great and enlightening example...
which I have, but due to confidentiality reasons I can't disclose.
And no, I don't work for the CIA.
But this is the general idea (starring: my usual lead character, New Guy).
Person in Charge gets promoted and there's an interval of a couple of months before New Guy arrives.
Meanwhile, Team is dealing with other pressing stuff, so they can't pay too much attention to Former Person in Charge's stuff.
New guy finds out 2 days before a meeting that some paperwork for a report months 2 months behind and has to fix it to present a coherent report in 2 days.
BTW, new guy still doesn't (or barely) know how to do Former Person in Charge's job...
but needs to get it done.
During this couple of months, staff kept recording data in an incorrect way because no one had highlighted a sentence in their data sheet for 2 months.
Ergo, the last 2 months of data were useless.
When new guy asked staff if they knew why they were doing business the way they were doing it, staff said no (I love honesty).
They just moved to the next step of the process when Former Person in Charge gave them the cue to do it (the highlighting thingy).
New Guy then explained staff the rationale for what they had been doing for the past 3 years (yup, in this hypothetical case this person is a seasoned employee).
New Guy told him how it worked and the purpose of that particular task, making Seasoned Employee feel excited for learning new stuff.
Summarizing, the moral here is: train robots and you'll waste your human resources, make your agenda busier and load you with a whole lot of time consuming work that you could be dedicating to other tasks.
Instead of telling staff what to do (I don't get tired of saying this), first explain to them what they are doing and why.
Not only they'll appreciate it but you'll be training people in a way that they can continue to do their jobs even when you or no one is there for them.
Which also translates into more peaceful vacations for you.
But the article doesn't end with the moral.
I'm going deeper.
I think that in the end it all goes down to trust.
If a manager can't trust his team then it means that he only trusts himself to do the job.
And know what? He may be perfectly capable of doing all that for himself flawlessly.
But it's also selfish.
That manager is only thinking about himself and about doing his job right.
He forgets that there's a whole team that will still be there when he is not.
On the other hand, what's the motivation and excitement in being a cyborg? Not sharing the rewards (or penalties) of own's work? Is that what you want for the people that work with you every day? Try them, challenge them, give them something to work on and develop their skills at the same time.
Help them grow.
Or keep your army of droids knowing that today you only did something just for you, and no one else.
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