The purpose of this standard procedure is to
describe the process and methods for delegating authority. The question of whether to delegate or not is
often considered a personal choice on the part of many managers. In reality,
there is no choice. The Department
Managers, Lead person cannot be successful in managing for the lowest possible
cost, highest possible productivity, and maximized profit for Your Company,
without delegation of authority and sharing responsibility to perform, along
with structuring the accountability to perform through performance evaluations. A basic principle of organizational
management states that “sufficient authority shall be delegated to a manager to
take the necessary action or actions to accomplish the Company’s objectives,”
such as “ Sales Volumes, Inventories, Productivity, Project Completion within
budget estimates, with client satisfaction.
Delegation of authority is one of the most frequently violated
principles of organization. The essence
of the principle is that when an employee receives an assignment, he/she should
automatically be granted the power of authority to carry the assignment to its completion. To ensure the effectiveness for the process
of delegation, it is very important that the employee have one and only one “boss”
giving directions and delegating. The
employee should be given a direct explanation of who he/she is responsible to
for the assignment. If this is not done, conflicting orders will result in
confusion and loss of productivity and profitability.
A. Scope
of assignment.
B. Specific
results to achieve.
C. Time
schedule for completion.
D. Standard
for successful performance measurement.
Delegate the jobs alternating to each team. (as
long as the team can maintain schedule).
Train and develop your Operations, Assembly and Manufacturing Teams, to
work together as an entity to accomplish the Pro-Active management of the
company goals, with controls by the Administrative departments. The most effective way to increase your span
of authority (i.e. manage more responsibility, or take on more business), or to
increase your discretionary time, is to have someone trained to fill some or
all of your responsibilities when it becomes
necessary. Every attempt must be made to
share responsibility gradually. Some positions simply require a passing of time
for responsibility to grow naturally. Avoid
transferring responsibilities overnight. Be conscious of the amount of time
that is needed to master an area of responsibility. Delegate in advance. Do not wait until a project, task or
responsibility becomes a problem before delegating. Every attempt must be made to delegate the
task/project/assignment or responsibility as a whole. Whenever possible delegate the entire project
and/or functional responsibility to one responsible lead person, rather than
assigning parts to many individuals.delegation must be done to achieve specific
results.Consciously attempt to avoid listing your own method & style for
the project scope, or function, rather attempt to detail the specific results
required for the successful completion of assignments and/or function
responsibility. All functional
departments within the organization must be informed of the shared
responsibility and authority delegation levels within the organization. This will ensure the full cooperation of all
the personnel within the organization. Employees will
understand the shared
responsibility, the authority delegated, and the accountability established
within the organization. Let the
managers manage. Follow up to determine
the results achieved giving intermittent performance feedback whenever possible
and appropriate.
Develop and detail all results expected, the
time frame, and any limits on authority to be exercised and used. To avoid miscommunication, put into writing
the results expected and any time frame agreed upon. Allow the projects, tasks, and
responsibilities shared to be performed according to the style of the lead
person they are delegated to, within established Company policy and standard
procedures, and hold them accountable for the results expected. The successful lead persons and managers will
effectively delegate. A successful business will be managed by managers who are
not afraid to delegate. The manager who fails to delegate will be doomed to
being “MANAGED BY ACTIVITIES” rather than being a “MANAGER OF ACTIVITIES”. DELEGATION IS NOT ABDICATION !! Authority can be delegated and responsibility
shared, however the ultimate responsibility to see that the task is completed
cannot be delegated. FOLLOW THROUGH WITH PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS!! To determine what responsibilities should be
shared, perform the following analysis.
List all actions or tasks that you perform and
determine which tasks should be appropriately delegated to subordinate
functions and subordinate personnel. Utilize
the attached Daily Time Log for a period of time to determine what
responsibility can be shared and which tasks should be delegated. When delegating a task and/or sharing a
responsibility to a subordinate function ask:
A.
What level of authority
is required?
B.
Which subordinate
function is closest to the situation?
C.
Does the subordinate
have the necessary skill & experience to assume the responsibility, or is
additional training or coaching required?
D.
How much coaching time
will be required?
E.
Is the task or responsibility
clearly defined?
F.
How can the
accountability be evaluated?
Your
task and/or responsibility list should be reduced by at least 50%. Perform the above analysis at least annually,
and more often if you find insufficient time to effectively manage your
functional responsibility.
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A: TASKS THAT MAY NOT BE
DELEGATED |
B: TASKS THAT MAY BE
DELEGATED |
C: TASKS THAT MUST BE DELEGATED |
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Time of Day |
Task or Activity |
Interruption |
Time Lost |
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Interruption Code Definitions:
1. ________________________________
4. ___________________________
2. ________________________________
5. ___________________________
3. ________________________________
6. ___________________________
4.0 WHO’S GOT THE MONKEY?
How lack of delegation &
established accountability keeps the monkey on your back and Techniques for
taking the monkey off your back. The
effectiveness of decision authority not delegated to the appropriate level. This analogy underscores the value of
assigning, delegating and controlling - HOW MANY MONKEY’S DO Y0U HAVE?
In any
organization, the manager’s, bosses, peers and subordinates, in return for
their active support, impose some requirements, just as the Manager imposes
some requirements upon them when they are drawing upon his or her support. These demands constitute so much of the
Manager’s time that successful leadership hinges on an ability to control this
“monkey on the back” effectively. Mr.
Oncken is Chairman of the Board of the William Oncken Company of Texas, Inc., a
management consulting firm. Mr. Wass is
President of the Company.
Why is it that
managers are typically running out of time while their subordinates are
typically running out of work? In this
article, we shall explore the meaning of management time as it relates to the
interaction between managers and their bosses, their own peers and their
subordinates. Specifically, we shall
deal with three different kinds of management time:
Boss-Imposes-Time: To
accomplish those activities which the boss requires and which the manager
cannot disregard without direct and swift penalty.
System-Imposed-Time: To
accommodate those requests to the manager for active support from his or her
peers. This assistance must also be
provided lest there be penalties, though not always direct or swift.
Self-Imposed-Time: To do
those things which the manager originates or agrees to do. A certain portion of this kind of time,
however, will be taken by subordinates and is called
“subordinate-imposed-time.” The remaining
portion will be his or her own and is
called “discretionary time.”
Self-imposed time is not subject to penalty since neither the boss nor
the system can discipline the manager for not doing what they did not know the
manager had intended to do in the first place.
The management
of time necessitates that management get control over the timing and content of
what they do. Since what the bosses and
system impose on them are backed up by penalty, managers cannot tamper with
those requirements. Thus their
self-imposed time becomes their major area of concern.
The manager’s
strategy is therefore to increase the “discretionary” component of their
self-imposed activities. Most managers
spend much more subordinate-imposed time than they even faintly realize. Hence we shall use a monkey-on-the-back
analogy to examine how subordinate-imposed-time comes into being and what the
superior can do about it.
Let us imagine
that a manager is walking down the hall and he notices one of his subordinates,
Jones, coming up the hallway. When they
are abreast of one another, Jones greets the manager with “Good Morning. By the way, we’ve got a problem. You see....”
As Jones continues, the manager recognizes in this problem the same two
characteristics common to all the problems his subordinates gratuitously bring
to his attention. Namely, the manager
knows (a) enough to get involved, but (b) not enough to make the on-the-spot
decision expected of him. Eventually,
the manager says “So glad you brought this up.
I’m in a rush right now.
Meanwhile, let me think about it and I’ll let you know.” Then he and Jones part Company.
Let us analyze
what just happened. Before the two of
them met, on whose back was the “monkey”?
The subordinates. After they
parted, on whose back was the “monkey”?
The managers. Subordinate-imposed
time begins the moment a monkey successfully executes a leap from the back of
the subordinate to the back of his or her superior and does not end until the
monkey is returned to its proper owner for care and feeding.
In accepting the
monkey, the manager has voluntarily assumed a position subordinate to his
subordinate. That is, he allowed Jones
to make him subordinate by doing two things a subordinate is generally expected
to do for his boss - the manager accepted a responsibility from his
subordinate, and the manager promised Jones a progress report.
The subordinate,
to make sure the manager does not miss the point, will later stick his or her
head in the manager’s office and cheerily query “How’s it coming?” (This is called “supervision.”)
Or let us
imagine again, in concluding a working conference with another subordinate,
Johnson, the manager’s parting words are “Fine. Send me a memo on that.”
Let us analyze
this one. The monkey is now on the
subordinate’s back because the next move is his, but is poised for a leap. Watch that monkey! Johnson dutifully writes the requested memo
and drops it in his out basket. Shortly
thereafter, the manager plucks the requested memo from his or her in basket or
from his or her desk and reads it. Whose
move is it now? The Manager’s. If he or she does not make a move soon, the manager
will get a follow-up memo from the subordinate (another form of the subordinate
supervising the manager instead of the manager supervising the
subordinate). The longer the manager
delays, the more frustrated the subordinate will become (he or she will be
“spinning their wheels”) and the more guilty the manager will feel and (his or
her backlog of subordinate-imposed time will be mounting).
Or suppose once again that at a meeting with a third subordinate, Smith, the manager agrees to provide all the necessary