Ep. 132 Side Mirror: Delegating Part 1 - Purpose and Paradigms of Effective Delegation

We published an episode recently called "Leading from Behind" and I thought it would be helpful to follow that up with a few words on delegating which is a fundamental skill for leaders to master. This is part one of a two part Side Mirror about delegation.

Once I started jotting down my thoughts things kind of snowballed and I realised I have more to share on this than is reasonable to expect you to listen to in one sitting. Even with two parts this is a big topic so please forgive me if I've not covered something you're interested in or a technique that you like to use yourself and feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss that.

In this first episode on delegation I'll share some paradigms to encourage us to delegate more and in Part 2 I'll share with you how to apply the Guiding Principles of Fulfilling Performance to help you delegate effectively and in a way that is constructive in growing your people.

Supporting resources:

Book:
Let's Be Clear - Ed Eppley

Podcast Episodes:
Episode 50: Ed Eppley
Episode 99: Flow, Purpose and Growing People
Episode 120: The Power of Paradigms
Episode 129: Leading from Behind

Thank you to our sponsors: 

ASKE Consulting

Email: hello@askeconsulting.co.uk

Aquilae

Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk

Episode Directory on Instagram @careerviewmirror  

If you enjoy listening to our guests career stories, please follow CAREER-VIEW MIRROR in your podcast app. 

Episode recorded on 25 August 2023.

Transcript

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Andy Follows 0:00

I am sitting in lovely Siesta Key , florida . I'm coming from Bangkok in Thailand , prague in the Czech Republic , cairo in Egypt , auckland , new Zealand , london , england . Welcome to Career View Mirror , the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far , showing insights to help you with your own journey . I'm your host , andy Follows . Hello listeners and welcome to this Side Mirror episode of Career View Mirror . If you're a regular listener , thank you and welcome back . You'll be aware that most of our episodes feature interviews with people with a link to the automotive industry who kindly share their life and career journeys with us . We celebrate their careers , listen to their stories and learn from their experiences , and from time to time we also publish these Side Mirror episodes , which introduce concepts and tools that feature in our signature towards fulfilling performance development program . Please feel free to share any of our episodes with people you lead , parent or mentor . For more details about Towards Fulfilling Performance Program , you can contact us at CVM at aquiliecouk . You'll find that email address in the show notes to this episode .

Andy Follows 1:23

This is part one of a two-part Side Mirror about delegation . We published an episode recently called Leading from Behind and I thought it'd be helpful to follow that up with a few words on delegating , which is a fundamental skill for leaders to master . Once I started jotting down my thoughts , things kind of snowballed and I realized I have more to share on this than is reasonable to expect you to listen to in one sitting . Even with two parts , this is a big topic , so please forgive me if I've not covered something you're interested in or a technique that you like to use yourself , and feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss that . In this first episode on delegation , I'll share some paradigms to encourage us to delegate more , and in part two I'll share with you how to apply the guiding principles of fulfilling performance to help you delegate effectively and in a way that's constructive in growing your people .

Andy Follows 2:11

Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsors . This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting , who are experts in executive search , resourcing solutions and talent management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe . I've known them for almost 20 years and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for Career-View Mirror . They're the business we go to at Aquilae when we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on . ASKE was founded by Andrew McMillan , whose own automotive career includes board-level positions with car brands and leasing companies . All ASKE consultants have extensive client-side experience , which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers . My earliest experience of working with Andrew was back in 2004 , when he helped me hire regional managers for my leasing sales team at Alphabet . More recently , when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business , ASKE Consulting was alongside us , helping us to develop our people strategy and to identify and bring on board suitable talent . Clients we've referred to ASKE have had an equally positive experience . Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long-term outcomes for you and the people they place with you . They even offer the reassurance of a two-year performance guarantee , which means they have skin in the game when working with you . If you're keen to secure the most talented and high-potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage , do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you . You can email Andrew and the team at hello@ askeconsulting . co . uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www . askeconsulting . co . uk . ASKE is spelled A-S-K-E . You'll find these contact details in the show notes for this episode .

Andy Follows 4:05

Okay , let's get back to our episode . Back in 2006 , I was about to move from the UK to take up a role in BMW's Asia-Pacific Regional Headquarters , based in Singapore . Before I even finished my UK job , I was invited to attend a leadership development program which would turn out to be highly impactful for me . It was held on a game reserve in South Africa and was facilitated by Ed Epley , who became a friend and mentor and was my special guest for our 50th episode of CareerView Mirror . I'd already had responsibility for people in my roles prior to then , but it was during that week that Ed instilled in me and my cohort on that program a paradigm about my role as a leader that has stayed with me ever since .

Andy Follows 4:48

Ed said, "Andy , your role as a manager is to deliver results and grow the people . Growing your people means you increase their capability so that next year they can be more productive without having to work harder . He went on to point out that typically , organisers need to increase their productivity by 3-5% per year just to stand still because of rising operating expenses . More recently I was back , learning from Edd again . We were at Aileron , which is an amazing facility for entrepreneurs in Ohio and I was experiencing him delivering this message as part of their course for presidents . He was explaining to the assembled group of entrepreneurs the consequences of not growing their people and of not increasing their capability and productivity year on year . For the first year or two , maybe you can make up the slack by doing some of the team's work yourself on top of your own and getting the team to put in longer hours . Or maybe you hire an extra resource which temporarily increases productivity but also raises your cost base , so you actually find your ratios going backwards . Eventually you can't close this gap in productivity between what you need from your team and what you're getting , and you fall into what Edd calls the gap trap .

Andy Follows 6:00

You can read more insights about professional management practices as taught at Aileron in Ed's book . Let's Be Clear , and we'll put a link to the book in our show notes to this episode . By the time I arrived on this leadership program in South Africa , I'd spent a large part of my career in sales and was fully aware of my responsibility to deliver results . I also knew I had some responsibility to develop my team , but this was the first time that I'd seen my responsibility to grow my people presented to me in equally big letters alongside my responsibility to deliver results . It had a big impact then and it stayed with me ever since .

Andy Follows 6:37

As with anything that we do that we want to do well , we'll achieve better outcomes as leaders if we adopt effective paradigms from the outset . I talk more about paradigms in episode 120 , the Power of Paradigms . Very briefly , our paradigms are the way we see the world . They influence the thoughts we have , the actions we take and the results that we get . Sometimes they're effective and serve as well . Other times they're ineffective and do us more harm than good . We can change them intentionally or they can be changed by external factors that cause us to have a paradigm shift or mini-paradigm shift . If they're left unchanged by us or events , they'll continue running in the background like a piece of software , subconsciously filtering thoughts , promoting certain behaviors and driving associated outcomes .

Andy Follows 7:22

When we truly adopt the paradigm that our role as a manager is to deliver results and grow the people , or even grow the people to deliver increasingly better results , that paradigm automatically influences the thoughts we have and the multiple downstream actions we take . In a day , for example , when a new request lands in our inbox , our first thought will be for which team member does this task represent a development opportunity ? When we adopt the paradigm that we should be doing the work that only we can do and we delegate the rest , we free up more of our time to lead our team and to support our boss with their work , and that increases our value to the business and it grows ourselves in the process . I talk more about this and give some reasons why managers hesitate to delegate in episode 129 , leading from Behind . When I talk about delegating here , I'm talking about delegating tasks deliberately , as part of someone's development and so that we can free up time to do something that only we can do . I recognize that sometimes we need to delegate tasks just to get them done in a proficient way , because we're working within some constraints . Think of that behavior as part of the deliver results responsibility rather than growing the people . It's a necessary part of getting the work done and it's fine , as long as it doesn't become an excuse for lazy leadership .

Andy Follows 8:37

Before we jump into dishing out tasks to your team , there are a few other paradigms that you might want to adopt and live by to maximize the chances of you succeeding with your delegation . How do we choose the most appropriate team member for the task ? Ideally , we want to assign it to someone for whom this will be playing to their strengths . As my good friend Dr Peter Dry says , we grow furthest and fastest and have more fun when we grow in the direction of our strengths . If something's challenging and aligned with our strengths , we'll be much better placed to grow from it than if it's challenging because it's something that we're really not good at . Ideally , to provoke engagement and growth , the task should be challenging without being overwhelming . If the level of challenge is appropriately balanced against their capability , it's most likely to put them into flow . Flow is a psychological state that's highly conducive to productivity . I talk more about flow and share an example of how my former boss successfully leveraged it to develop me in Episode 99 , flow Purpose and Growing People .

Andy Follows 9:39

And for our final paradigm , before we start looking at how to delegate , let's remind ourselves that delegation is not abdication . When we delegate , we hand over responsibility for carrying out a task to someone else , but we retain responsibility for the quality , quantity and timeliness of the outcome . As well as picking the most appropriate team member for the task and realizing that we remain responsible for the result , what else can we do to increase the chances of success when we delegate ? This is where the guiding principles of fulfilling performance can help us become more intentional , effective and let's not forget confident in our delegating . In Part 2 , I'll walk you through the guiding principles of fulfilling performance and how we can use them to delegate effectively .

Andy Follows 10:28

You've been listening to CareerView Mirror with me , andy Follows . I hope that you've enjoyed this episode and found it helpful . If you have some comments or questions , we'd love to hear from you , and our contact details are in the show notes to this episode . If you enjoy listening to our episodes , please could you do me a huge favor and share them with someone you lead parent or mentor or a friend you think will also appreciate them . Thank you to our sponsors for this episode , ask Consulting and Aqualye , and thank you to the CareerView Mirror team , without whom we would not be able to share our guest's life and career stories . And , above all , thank you to you for listening .

Andy Follows 11:03

No matter how hard you try , no matter how hard working you are , you're never going to be able to do it on your own . It's just not possible . You know , at the end of the day , you're steering your own destiny . So if it's not happening for you , you're not seeing what you want out there , then go out there and connect . Don't rely on others . You have to do it yourself . You have to take control . If you've got an idea , if you've got a thought about some of the might be successful . If you've got a passion to do something yourself but you just haven't quite got there , do it . Take a risk , take a chance , stick your neck out . What's the worst that can happen ? You fall down . Okay , you pick yourself up and you try again .