Let go to go up

She was a senior finance professional. Recently she was promoted to a higher position to oversee a whole division. As it happens to most such persons, she too struggled in managing time. This transition from a functional specialty position to an overall divisional responsibility does not happen automatically just because you are promoted with a fancy designation and a wider number of new direct reports.

In such situations the first step should be to understand what the key deliverables of the new position. When that is clear one can determine what the areas of focus should be and what the required competencies are. As we saw in a previous occasion as well spending more time in the areas of familiarity is a common mistake.

One of the key functions she did in her finance role was developing and submitting management information reports. Having analysed how she spends time we realised she continue to do that activity and it obviously required a lot of time. Then I asked her why she is not delegating that function to someone else? 

Her response was that the senior management depends on her to provide the right information and they are comfortable only if she provides those information. After some discussion she realised that this was dragging her back on her performance in the new position and my challenge was to find a person in her team who can do the analysis and reporting not only for the senior management but also for her as well.

This opened out new needs and opportunities. She then realised that to deliver on her new role she too has to get a wide range of management information and if she were to analyse and prepare those herself then she would hardly get time to walk around the operational divisions, provide guidance to those new divisions that have come under her preview etc.

Though she found a competent person, who was her key team member who did some part of regular collating and analysing of information delegation was not that easy at the beginning. 

This is to be expected. Delegating is also a skill managers need to develop. The common excuse or the concern managers have when it comes to delegating is the doubt whether the other employee has the capability carry out the task in the same level of competency and very often the way you did it before. 

In the context of delegating, it is very important to realise and accept that different persons will approach the same task in different ways. So in delegating, the question the manager must ask is not how the other person will do the task but what the results that person will produce, and whether those are acceptable. 

The manager in this example has to delegate developing Management Information reports, a function she is very familiar with. Actually those are the kind of activities managers can confidently delegate for they know to check the quality of the results and if there is a short fall she is capable of identifying and solving such deficiencies very fast.

She had a good chat with the former assistant and explained to her that she is going to depend on her for obtaining regular MIS, not only for the senior managers but even for herself to manage the division. She explained the kind of information she expects to see in the monthly MI reports. In order for her to do that the manager arranged her to reallocate her own work. 

My client was surprised in the first month itself after seeing the quality and comprehensiveness of the MI report. The former assistant not only produced them in improved formats, but also supported with graphics and narratives where there are variances.

This simple step of delegation not only helped her to find more time to focus on areas that matter but also found hidden talent of her assistant and realise the higher potential of the assistant.

(The writer is an Accredited Master Coach and a Mentor, with over many years of senior management and board level experience. He can be reached via email at [email protected].)