Deligating is Especially Difficult When Things Go Wrong
Sadly things do go wrong from time to time in business. Yet dealing with a problem area can make the difference between being good manager or a bad one. For the problem solving manager they have to create around them a team of people that also see the importance of solving business problems and getting the task done.
Management textbooks and training courses tend to identify business success through a few basic rules and easily-remembered anecdotes. What matters though is also developing an approach for the times when things go wrong. As much as we would like to assure ourselves that this will not happen ‘on our watch’ we also know it will at some stage in our career. Sadly nobody ever seems to put together a book that tells you how to dig yourself out of a hole. This can really matter at an appropriate time in your management career. As with everything you will have to apply logic and intelligence in order to come to the correct decision here.
One of the inherent problems with managing anything is that if you delegate it to someone else they are accepting the responsibility for getting the task done. When they fail to deliver it is you that will be held responsible and furthermore you must protect your staff from any criticism that follows. Sure, you could argue that “management fostered a culture that allowed this to happen” but then you would have to micro-manage your whole team every step of the way to be sure such things don’t happen. We are generally agreed that micro-management is a bad practice, quite apart from it slowing down the natural flow of work. What is often more effective here is building a learning team which in itself will reduce the chance that failure will repeat itself. When failure repeats it is the manager, rightly or wrongly, that is seen as the cause of problem.
In one aspect we face an organisational problem in that we focus on accountabilities and getting things done rather than managing the feelings of your staff. Personal pride can often get in the way of logic. This personal pride affects both the manager and their staff, but you can manage accountabilities, albeit poorly much of the time. Part of letting go of the details is about delegating problems to others to solve then delivering effective results because of the work that they complete. Remember though that other people rarely see the problem in the same way that you do, which can also be a challenge.
