Delegation - Tips #3

Welcome to this episode of Your Morning Boost, brought to you by AWB Education. AWB Education is your partner in school leadership and is here to help you with your educational programming needs. You can find more episodes like this one, along with our offerings of support and consultation, at AWB education dot org. Good morning, welcome back. Today. We're going to continue this talk on delegation. We've been diving into Lauren Landry's twenty twenty Harvard Business School article on how to delegate effectively and looking at this from the lens of school leadership. We are now on to tip number six. Her Tip number six is to allow for failure. You know, humans learn best from trial and error. And I always kind of snicker a little bit at anytime I'm eating something you know, unusual or even just I mean, like a mushroom. I wonder how that process of determining which ones were edible and which ones were not ever came around. I mean likely this is probably because somebody went, hmhm, I saw Bob eat this one, and he's still here, and larryate that one last week and we haven't seen him again, So maybe I'll pick the one like Bob did I mean really, that's trial and error, right. Trial and air is a way that we sometimes have to refine a process. When we assign a task, we need to anticipate and be okay with the concept that there is a good chance that the first attempt or more just may not succeed. We also may stumble across a better way of doing something purely by accident. Champagne wouldn't exist if we weren't okay with failures. We just need to remember to have an open mind and consider a new approach to our tasks. But we also need to give this some time, which then brings us to her tip number seven, which is to be patient. You know, one reason people don't like to delegate is because, frankly, they just think they can do the job faster. It probably is quicker if I just do the job myself. And while that may be true, the point of this is to release work that somebody else can do so that I can do something else. In an earlier episode, I mentioned one of my all time favorite quotes in it still applies here, which is only do what only you can do. This means that, regardless of whether or not I can do this faster, it still doesn't mean that I should be the one that does the task. Instead, teach the person your tricks of the trade that you've accumulated over many years of experience, and then let them work through it. It will take longer, just like it took me longer the first few times I did something. It's all part of that learning curve. Right. The next time they're doing this work, they will be more efficient and even more so the following time. And then likely the next task that maybe even remotely similar to this one, it will just go smoother and it will go quicker too. We just have to allow it to happen. It will. If you remember back to Tip three, Lauren was describing the need to define clear outcomes, and this would include defining clear but also reasonable timelines. Anticipate that the first or maybe even the second times that somebody does this task, it's going to take longer, and that is okay. Maybe even twice as long as it would take you to complete it, but that's okay. Just make sure that you and clue that in your plan. If it's done sooner and it's done well, that's a reason to celebrate. Anytime we can make our school, our district more efficient in our work. That's a reason to celebrate. There's more work to do out there somewhere anyway, right Well, we can get accomplished if we do it together. This has been your morning Boost, brought to you by AWB Education. Find us at AWB education dot org to find out how we can help you with your educational programming needs. If you enjoy this episode, please take a quick minute to leave a rating and review to help us reach even more people. Otherwise, enjoy the workday, lead with your heart and we will see you next time.