Delegating
What does “delegating” mean to you? Which of these definitions resonates?
- Delegating means assigning work to a more junior colleague, supervising that work closely, correcting it, and thoroughly reviewing it to ensure it’s correct before sending it to the client or requester.
- Delegating means assigning work to a more junior colleague, instructing the colleague in how to do the work to your standards, and thoroughly reviewing it to ensure it’s correct before sending it to the client or requester.
- Delegating means assigning the work to a colleague competent in that work, ensuring that the colleague fully understands the goals, vision, and constraints behind that work, discussing progress on a regular but not intrusive basis, and briefly reviewing it before the colleague sends it to the client or requester.
We might refer to these three methods as
- Closely supervising
- Guiding
- Partnering
Note that the major difference between #1 and #2 is that #1 corrects work after it’s done and #2 instructs how to do it before it’s done. The big similarity is that the delegator will spend a lot of time redoing work that’s already been done, convinced that the right way to do it is the same as the delegator’s way to do it. Perhaps you redo the work “looking over the shoulder” of the junior colleague, or perhaps you redo it after she’s handed it off to you… but there is a lot of rework.
Is that efficient for a client?
My kids head back to school in a few days, and #1 and #2 closely parallel school assignments, albeit without a client. The teacher instructs how to do X, or corrects it after the student does it, or often both.
Are you acting like a teacher when you delegate? That’s okay, if you’re consciously teaching… but is it right to bill a client for teaching? And is that the best use of your own time?
The third method is different in two ways, one minor, one major. The minor difference is the omission of “junior” before colleague; you can delegate work to a peer, a more junior colleague, or even “delegate up.” (Yes, that’s legit, and it’s a real and useful skill.)
The major difference is this: “There are multiple right ways to do X, and mine is but one of them.”
In other words, you trust and rely on your colleague to solve the right problem in any right way.
Method #3 seems incredibly hard for many attorneys to master. They may agree with it intellectually, but they say, “It’s my neck on the client’s chopping block.”
To which I might answer, “It’s the firm’s neck on the chopping block, and both you and your colleague work for the firm.” (I might also add, sotto voce, “And you never make a mistake, right?”)
Proper delegation is an interesting aspect of Legal Project Management. Ineffective delegation is one place where projects start running away from estimates.
Ineffective delegation can mean treating a junior associate as a partner in the project before he’s ready — doing #3 when what’s really needed is training — but that’s rare. More common is failing to use method #3, doing double work, and running over budget and/or writing off time. You also turn the junior colleague into a retention risk, unsatisfied with the way you or the firm operate. Perhaps he’ll leave, though in today’s economy that’s less likely. Perhaps he’ll try hard to work with other folks instead of you. Most likely, he’ll bide his time until he’s the delegator… and then inflict the same stuff upon his junior colleagues, perpetuating an inefficient system.
There’s opportunity here for increase efficiency and stronger working relationships… but as with most opportunities, you have to reach out to grab them, which always has at least a sense of risk.
This is a principle that is easy to agree with, easy to claim you act in accordance with, but difficult to live up to. My work involves training and supervising lawyers and legal support professionals. Delegation styles 1 and 2 have their place in increasing the competence of new team members. Knowing when to move into style 3 is more art than science. No matter how sophisticated your methods for measuring competence, trust is an important influence on decisions to delegate. That said, if you find it hard to move to a partnering style of delegation with someone, if the trust isn’t there, you need to look at whether that person is appropriate for the position–or, even, whether you are in the right position.
I love Paul’s last item — are you in the right position?
As I noted, #1 and #2 are appropriate for training. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I have found that most people will work up — or down — to the expectations you set. Sometimes you’ll be disappointed by a work partner (#3), but more often such a partnership will exceed dramatically what you alone might have accomplished.
I learned to be a manager very early in my career. It took a lot longer to learn leadership, and to accept the costs and risks because of the significantly larger attendant gains.
Is an attorney’s job to minimize risk (#1, #2) or maximize gains (#3)? Of course, as lawyers always answer, “It depends.” The right answer, I believe, is to ask the client which approach they desire, and require an answer other than “both.”
Your post is spot on Steven, as is Paul’s comment. One other issue with delegation is that too often the delegator does not explain the task in the context of the big picture, which can change the focus of the task and the required output. A classic example is the research task undertaken by a junior lawyer producing the 10 page advice on the corrupt law, but with the wrong focus, or where the client needed a dot point advice for submission to the board.
With juniors, I often recommend asking the delegatee to explain their understanding of the task – a quick way to identify if their is a communications disconnect.
I agree, Liz — not just with the “play it back to me” strategy but with the need to explain the big picture, to provide a context. It is only with such a context that a partner — junior or otherwise — can truly contribute, rather than just work on a task.