Why It’s So Hard to Delegate — and How to Improve

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0:32Sarah Green Carmichael:I'm Alison Beard. And I'm Adi Ignatius, and this is the HBR IdeaCast.

0:44Sarah Green Carmichael:So Adi, one thing that I think almost every leader struggles with is delegation, particularly if you have risen through the ranks because you have been a star performer in your field, a producer, someone who gets things done, it can feel really weird to start outsourcing that work, not even rote tests, but also decision making to others. Yeah, you know, we've written about this before, and it's absolutely key. First of all, nobody wants to work for a micromanager. Secondly, you can't do it all. And I'm probably not a great delegator. There are things that I feel very strongly about the process, the way I do things.

1:22Sarah Green Carmichael:It's hard for me to give that up. It's hard for me to imagine that somebody else could do it as effectively and efficiently. So I'm not great in this area. So I'm going to push back on that, Adi. You were my editor-in-chief for 15 years. And I actually thought you did a great job of letting others have authority, responsibility, and trusting them to do their jobs. Well, I mean, that's heartening to hear. I don't think I am a classic micromanager. But I think there's certain areas that I think, okay, this is my core strength. I'm really good at this. I'm going to hang on to it and do it myself.

1:56Sarah Green Carmichael:And I think maybe sometimes that's fine, but I think managers sometimes hold on to things too tightly for too long, which makes it hard for them to focus on what really, really matters. Yeah, I definitely identify with that. I think that I derive a lot of my self-worth and positivity about work in the things that I do really well. and I want to keep doing them and don't want to hand them off. And that is one of the reasons that our guest today points to as to why so many people struggle with delegation. Elizabeth Johnson is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and she's identified four main reasons why people struggle to hand off work.

2:37Sarah Green Carmichael:But she also has advice on how we can overcome them and make sure that we are effectively managing our people, enabling their growth and then freeing up our time for more strategic, higher-level work. She wrote the HBR article, Why Aren't I Better at Delegating? And here's our conversation.

3:00Sarah Green Carmichael:So I think we can all agree that delegation is essential to good management, but what does your research show about leaders' ability to actually do it well? So I guess there's two problems. The first is they're not always sure what type of work they should keep and what they should let go. And then the second problem is that even if they know the sort of work that they should be delegating more of, there's four barriers that our research tells us that stop them doing that as effectively as they should. So I do want to go through each of those four roadblocks, but first just explain what the downsides of not delegating are.

3:40Sarah Green Carmichael:And do you find that that's the same across sort of industries, leadership levels, functions? So there's three big downsides. The first big downside is for the organizations and whoever funds them, which is those organizations are not making the most out of all of their human assets because frankly, they have got people who are too expensive, too senior, doing work that could be delegated to more junior and therefore cheaper people. So just in terms of a return on assets, it's suboptimal. Second problem is for the people who should be getting more senior, more interesting work delegated to them.

4:26They're being denied the opportunity to grow, do more interesting work, develop, take on more responsibility. It's their turn to shine and they're not being given that opportunity. The third problem is actually for leaders themselves, which is they are hoarding the work. And although that's tempting to do, it actually means that they are crowding out from their own time, the time they should be, to doing more interesting, more strategic work. So doing the strategic rather than the tactical, thinking about the long-term rather than doing the short-term urgent thing that's right in front of them.

5:05So it can be very career constraining for the leaders themselves. Now, in terms of which organizations, which sectors are disproportionately impacted by those three adverse outcomes, it massively impacts organizations that should be making higher margin. So the higher your margin, the more deleterious that impact is on both the organization and its ROI, on the more junior members of teams who want to take responsibility, and also on the leaders themselves.

5:42Sarah Green Carmichael:I imagine the larger the organization too, because sort of if every manager is doing a poor job of delegating and you have a whole host of managers, then the problem is compounded. 100%. The problem is compounded. And actually, I was talking to a friend who was actually commenting on the article on LinkedIn. And he is currently in a startup with two people. And so, you know, his immediate question was to himself was, well, how salient is this for me? Well, it's less immediately salient. It's costing you less in immediate terms, but there is still an opportunity cost for you doing too much. So his immediate question was, which of the things am I currently doing on my task list?

6:30Should I be giving to my lawyers? Should I be giving to my VC advisors? Which should I be giving to my board members? You know, everybody has essentially an ecosystem around their organization, even when that organization only has two people on the payroll.

6:46Sarah Green Carmichael:How does a leader recognize when a failure to delegate is holding them back? So it's a very good question. And sadly, I'm not sure that a lot of organizations, at least the ones that I work with, do a great job in giving leaders really timely feedback on exactly that point. But here are some of the symptoms of a leader who's not delegating enough. If you come to year-end performance appraisals, you look at your succession plan, and there just aren't strong enough, plausible enough candidates on it. Chances are that's because you haven't been essentially assessing those candidates by trying them out.

7:27That's a real red flag around, maybe I haven't been delegating enough for the past year. Equally, if you've got people leaving you, regretted leavers, who are in their exit interviews saying things like, well, I just don't feel like I've got a path to growth here, or I don't feel like I'm getting as much responsibility as I feel able to take on. Again, that can be a bit of a red flag on you as a leader. Now, very often the problem is that these red flags are kind of covered up in a lot of organizations. because a lot of organizations reward people who do rather than who delegate. And that's, I think, particularly true in organizations.

8:10The professions is a good example. So law firms, the medical profession, where so-called producer managers are the model. In other words, a partner of a law firm, she still has clients. She's still generating billable hours. She's now also managing a team of other lawyers, though, who have their own clients and are generating their own billable hours. And so that producer-manager model, the real question is, what is truly recognized and rewarded by the organization? And I think for too many organizations, it is still that we recognize doing rather than delegating. Whenever we're asking leaders to do something differently, we also have to ask, well, why aren't they?

8:53because actually they may be reacting perfectly rationally to the reward and recognition structure that the organization has put in front of them.

9:02Sarah Green Carmichael:And you mentioned the first problem that you confront is figuring out which tasks are delegatable. You know, so there's sort of the low level sort of tactical work, obviously, but then, you know, some strategic work like decision-making should also be handed off too. So how do you help leaders figure out what they should be giving up and what they shouldn't? So it's a very good question. And it does depend on the nature of the work that a particular leader is doing in their particular organization. But we do come back to that test. Am I the best, cheapest person to do this work? And if I'm not, how do I get it to the best, cheapest person with enough context so that that person is set up to do that work just as brilliantly as I would do it?

9:45So for example, that might well be not just a list of activities to do. Basically, here's my existing task list, please do it for me. It might be, I'm actually going to give you part of writing this year's strategy. The demarcation between strategic and tactical is actually a little bit more nuanced. It's not that leaders should keep all the strategy stuff for themselves and just delegate the shorter term tactical stuff. It is actually that they should delegate anything where they don't pass the better, cheaper test.

10:21Sarah Green Carmichael:Okay, so now let's turn to those four main challenges that you talked about. First, you note that it feels really good to be personally productive, to actually get the work done, not oversee the work getting done. So how do you overcome that? Look, it's not easy because it's chemical. I mean, high achievers are basically addicted to dopamine. And so part of it is actually just slightly weaning yourself off that dopamine addiction. But there are some hacks. The first is create different types of checklist. I personally, whenever I'm chairing a meeting, I write myself a little note and I put a little box next to it that I can tick.

11:07And next to the list is, have I set proper context for this meeting, which means clarifying, why are we meeting? What am I hoping to achieve in the next 45 minutes? How do I think we all need to show up to make that more likely? And then when I've done that context setting, I get to put a little tick in the box. So to some extent, we're not even having to wean ourselves off our dopamine addiction. We're just having to have a higher quality of dopamine addiction. Yeah, you absolutely are. But the other reason that there is a dopamine deficit when you first try to delegate more is actually that all of this context setting work, it's not just less dopamine rich, it's also actually cognitively heavy to do.

11:54And what we know about stuff that has a high cognitive load on the human brain is that there are some things that help with that. And so creating routines massively reduces the perception of cognitive load. And so one of the things, again, that I talk about in the article is leaders who create routine checklists, but also just routine questions that they use for quarterly business reviews or performance management conversations or coaching conversations. Things like, what's your biggest problem right now? How do you think you're going to approach that? And if these become your standard routine questions, we know that that reduces the cognitive load.

12:33And when you reduce the cognitive load, you reduce the perception of there being a dopamine deficit.

12:39Sarah Green Carmichael:So the second problem that you identify is when employees come back to you asking for help. How does a leader deal with that and make sure that the work stays handed off? So this is really tricky. Some of the best leaders are most susceptible to this because for them, they really want to help their people. So really here, it's about understanding what constitutes help, because actually you don't help people by making the decision for them, doing the work for them. That actually doesn't build capability in them. It builds dependency on you. And so when we frame it for leaders in that way, that creates a bit of a light bulb moment, which is, oh, wow, that's the opposite of what I want.

13:26I don't want my people to be dependent. I want them to shine. Just reframing it in that way can help.

13:33Sarah Green Carmichael:I do have to say that I really struggle with that because oftentimes, especially in a deadline driven business, I sort of think to myself, it's just going to be easier if I do this myself instead of offering suggestions on how to do it or guidance on how to do it. So what's your advice to someone who struggles with that like I do? The reality is, at least in the short term, it will always be quicker. And so intellectually, you just need to know that this is going to require an investment of your time, of your coaching and teaching skills. But the practical advice is always the same. When someone comes to you and says, for example, which of these two clients should I prioritize?

14:14Or we're strapped for headcount, so which of these two projects is the higher priority? You don't help them by giving them the answer. you help them instead by resetting the context, which means, so let's remember why we're doing these two projects. Let's remember what the outcomes should be of these two projects. And then giving the work back. So once you've reset the context, then saying, so given that, what do you think the priority project or client should be? And the wonderful thing that happens at that point, not only does the leader get to walk away from that conversation, having given the work back.

14:51But actually, she also gets to really see the quality of the decision that their direct report can come to. Because for as long as the leader is making the decision, she doesn't really know. As a result of that, she's then even less likely to delegate because she's delegating to an unknown quantity. What I always say to leaders is, don't let yourself off the hook. Those should be the exceptions, not the rule. So look for opportunities, plan the work, Plan enough runway between when you give the work away and when the deadline is so that there are actually enough so-called catches in that process so that someone can come back to you not just once, but two or three times with a rewritten draft.

15:35That massively increases the likelihood that you will actually successfully delegate and not come back to you. Yeah.

15:43Sarah Green Carmichael:And the end goal, if you're a good boss, is to make sure that eventually your team members can do it as quickly as you can. 100%. And as well as you can. 100%. So the third challenge is when leaders above you, maybe if it's even the C-suite or the board, they expect you to be in the weeds on everything and know every detail of every project that you're overseeing. So how do you handle that? As we say in the article, this is not when the problem is below you, it's above you or indeed, you know, your client. okay? People to whom you are not used to saying no. And so this is basically fixable, but gradually.

16:22So we can't expect bosses or clients to go cold turkey on our involvement. Again, we have got to help them get comfortable with us not being involved in the weeds. So some little tactics. Start on the smaller, less risky stuff. Make it very clear to the boss or the client that you are still the ultimate owner of accountability, but that these team members, they're actually all over the detail. and in fact, in some cases might be able to be much more responsive than you are. A good example of that is a banker with whom I worked a number of years ago, very senior, had a lot of clients. And as a result of that, if a client called her, she may well be on an airplane, in another meeting.

17:12As she delegated more and more of her work, the clients were actually saying, wow, not only is your team good, but they're actually more responsive than you were able to be. this is actually great. Now, again, a bit like the, you've got to choose your battles in dealing with a second issue. You've also got to recognize that when it comes to this third issue, the demands of bosses or clients, there's going to be some bosses who just want you at least for now. And there's some clients who just want you at least for now. And again, as long as you are able to deliver that and resource your team accordingly, in other words, pass the better, cheapest test, then that might be fine.

17:54And actually, in organizations where you can use the pricing mechanism with clients, in other words, you can say, look, I'm a very expensive resource, but if you really want me at that meeting, I can absolutely be there, but it will cost you this. And again, very often with professional services firms, management consulting firms, law firms, that is exactly what they do. That's what they use the pricing mechanism for.

18:16Sarah Green Carmichael:And I like the idea of saying, okay, you need me, but I'm also going to bring my number too. And maybe that will prove to you next time you don't need me because she's going to do great. Absolutely. And so the most important advice is you cannot just flick a switch and not be there. You have to, as I say, almost create a runway so that you have credible replacements for at least some of the time that you spend with your boss and with your clients. Okay, and then finally you talk about how many of us have a limited definition of work in our minds. So what do you mean by that and how do we get over it?

18:54Well, I don't think we spontaneously just create this limited definition, although that's exactly how to articulate it. I think very often this somewhat limited definition of work is given to us by our organizations, but it particularly afflicts the producer manager. And this is about getting over the fact that, look, in order to scale ourselves as individuals, we just have to accept that there is a limited amount of work that any individual can do, however expert and however unique. And so this is really about having, in some ways, a more nuanced conversation with your organization. It's about making sure that the people who are promoted want to be in positions of leadership.

19:41And we're not just promoting the best technical people. In investment banking, we very often refer to it as we promoted our best trader to be the head of desk. And then all of a sudden, nobody's happy. The best trader is no longer trading. He's running a desk. The people on the desk are not happy because they're being managed by someone who doesn't want the job and probably isn't very good at it. And the organization isn't happy because the resulting dynamic isn't working. So I think we just have to have more sophisticated conversations about succession, about leadership pipelines. But I think we also do need just to recognize that sometimes there are going to be producer managers who don't want to lead.

20:23And we need to find roles that are properly recognized, properly remunerated as well for those people. That's particularly true in the professions, in sectors that have deep technical expertise and where that deep technical expertise is the source of value for the organization and its customers or clients. So I think this one is trickier because it requires the organization to think differently, not just the individual.

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22:06Sarah Green Carmichael:So what happens if you try all of these things, but then your team just really isn't good enough? You know, they're not doing the work to your standards. So you need a new team. Well, you do need a new team. I think that's right. So there's two problems that none of this attempt at delegation will survive. The first is what we term structural under-resourcing. That is when there just aren't enough bombs on seats or machines in the value chain. In other words, you are under-resourced regardless of the capability of those resources. So you need to fix that. That is a fundamental structural fix and a conversation that you need to have with your organization.

22:48It's really, though, only when you try to delegate and to give the accountability for the work to these other people that, honestly, you start to develop a true sense of how capable these people are. Because if you're still underwriting all of their decisions by making those decisions for them, then you don't really know. So the sequence of work here is really this. Make sure you have enough resources. then try to delegate by overcoming the four challenges that we talk about in the article. And be patient with it, right? And be patient with it. Give that time. If as a result of doing that work, you realize some of your team, and it's usually not all of your team, but some of your team are just not good enough, even for the role they're currently in, let alone for a promoted role, then you need to act accordingly.