Excellence of Execution and Delegation
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Hi!
We have celebrated both the New Year AND the Chinese New
Year. Time to get back to work!
And
while we are busy getting things done, a lot of times we
need to delegate at least part of our work to someone
else, whom we hope we could share our workload.
However, sometimes the
execution of such work remained way below our
expectations, and we couldn't help but feel frustrated
that we actually increase (rather than decrease) our
workload by delegating it to someone else.
Hence, this
month's topics:
-
Excellence of Execution and Delegation;
and
-
Employee
Empowerment Can Work in China
This issue's main
article is on "Excellence of Execution and
Delegation", and we like to draw your attention
on some of the issues that bosses care most about, and
how you can help your boss achieve those.
If you also happen to be a boss too, here are some
suggestions that you can give your staff so that they
could work better with you.
In brief:
To read the rest of this newsletter, pls.
click here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html).
Excellence of Execution and Delegation
by c.j. Ng
On the surface, Gene seems like a diligent
employee. He arrives to work on time, and displays
great attitude to everyone – superiors, peers and even
the office cleaner.
However, Glenn, Gene’s
boss, somehow finds that there’s something amiss in
Gene’s performance. While Gene is always
accommodating to any requests or assignments given to
him, there are many times that he does the work wrongly,
or misses deadlines completely. Whenever Glenn asks if
Gene needs help or further clarification, Gene will
always reply that everything is ok.
Unfortunately, for the more difficult or complex assignments,
Gene will almost always drop the ball and will either
make mistakes or even not do anything.
Eventually, Glenn decided to have a heart-to-heart talk with Gene
and told Gene about how he had fallen short of
expectations. At first, Gene simply looked down and
stayed silent.
Sensing that Gene could be interpreting the situation as
a reprimand, Glenn decided to ease Gene’s concerns and.
“You always have had a great attitude to work,
Gene. As there are times that you tend to make
mistakes or miss deadlines, I just want to help you to
find out what could be an obstacle you face, and how I
can help you overcome it.” Glenn said, seeking to assure Gene.
“I don’t know. I just
feel I don’t get the support from my colleagues when I
don’t know how to do a certain thing.”
Said Gene.
“Why didn’t you ask?
Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Glenn.
“I don’t know.” replied Gene.
“Don’t you realize the importance of meeting deadlines?” enquired Glenn,
hoping to understand how Gene was thinking.
“But I already tried my best! I just don’t know how to do it!” Gene
gasped in one of the few situations that he actually
raised his voice.
Glenn spent the rest of the conversation with Gene trying to find
out why Gene was not reaching out to get help, and why
there was the lack of feedback if things hit a wall.
Gene, on the other hand, withdrew himself from Glenn’s probing questions
and remained largely silent.
At the end of the conversation, Glenn asked Gene if he
could seek help and support whenever there was a problem
or challenge.
Gene, as always, replied yes.
However, nothing improved thereafter. In fact, there were more mistakes and
more deadlines were missed.
And worse, Gene’s work attitude had changed from bright
and chirpy to one that was gloomy and grumpy.
And Glenn was left wondering what went wrong.
7 Essential Behaviours for Effective Delegation and
Execution
One of the key challenges faced
by managers currently is the lack of the ability to
execute by the people whom the managers have delegated
some work to. Cases similar to the above, as well as
other forms of execution and delegation issues are very
common in many workplaces.
-
Know your people and your business
-
Insist on realism
-
Set clear goals and priorities
-
Follow through
-
Reward the doers
-
Expand people’s capabilities through
coaching
-
Know yourself
While the book looks at how to
achieve company-wide execution of business strategies,
by senior managers we could also adapt the usage to the
execution and delegation of day-to-day work by middle
and line managers as well. We’ll just look into a few
salient key behaviours to illustrate how you can achieve
excellence of execution and delegation in your
workplace.
To start off, we can look into
the key areas of following through, and rewarding the
doers. In the above case, perhaps what Gene needed was
for his manager, Glenn, to follow through with the
progress of the work that had been delegated. Depending
on the nature of the work, as well as the person being
delegated the work, different levels of monitoring and
following through are required respectively.
At the same time, there could also be a
pervasive culture of people not being held
accountable for results throughout the organization. If this is the case, then
perhaps there could be more rewards for the doers (as opposed to those who
simply talk, and not do). In the case above, the doers could be Gene’s
colleagues who meet deadlines and deliver results, OR they could be people who
willingly to ask for help when faced with problems, and happily help others when
being approached.
Rewards need not be monetary, and they need not
be expensive. Sometimes, a public commendation could be all it takes to give
recognition for the doers, and make others follow the deed as a good example.
Know Your People and the Work You
Give Them
Simplistically, there are 2 kinds of work:
-
Tasks; and
-
Responsibilities
Tasks
are repetitive, have established procedures, and
sometimes need guidance and direction to complete.
Responsibilities will encompass work that do not have
established procedures, and the doer will have to use
one’s initiative, abilities and decision making to
achieve expected results.
At the
same time, when the work delegated increases in
complexity, the more likely it will be delegated to a
team, rather than be completed by an individual.
.
In terms of knowing the people, there are also a few aspects to
consider, such as:
-
The level of skills
and expertise the person has;
-
The mental and
emotional maturity of the person;
-
The motivational
level of the person;
-
The
Belbin
Team Role of that person, in
particular if the person is more likely to work
alone or as a team, and if he prefers following
procedures or to create his own work ways, etc...
For the case above, there are a few possibilities:
-
Gene seems not
to have the required expertise to do the work
that he was delegated to;
-
Gene may prefer
clear instructions and more guidance, as opposed
to a responsibility that was delegated by Glenn;
-
Gene might have
issues working with others, or at least talking
to others when he needed support;
-
Gene might feel
de-motivated, for whatever reasons;
-
Gene might be
emotionally immature, and hence felt that he was
doing a great job and refused to acknowledge
feedback that stated otherwise, etc.
Whatever the case might be, Glenn will have to re-look at the
kind of work he’s delegating to Gene, and also
understand Gene from different angles.
In response to Gene’s behavior, Glenn has a few options.
He could:
-
Reassign the work to someone else;
-
Reassign the work to a team, where Gene could be
one of the team members;
-
Restructure the work into a task, with
established procedures, guidance and direction
to Gene;
-
Set
CLEAR goals for
or with Gene
-
Train and coach Gene;
-
Replace Gene as an employee with someone else;
etc.
Setting CLEAR Goals and
Priorities
When delegating responsibilities to a person, it’s critical that
the person is held accountable for the results. One way is to make sure that the work is
delegated together with a CLEAR goal, which stands for:
-
Challenging
-
Limited by Time
-
End Objective
-
Agreed Upon
-
Required
In many cases, employees with a healthy sense of responsibility
would like to understand:
-
Why do they have to
achieve this goal;
-
What final
objectives are we trying to achieve;
-
How it’s going to be
done, and if there was autonomy in deciding how it’s
being done;
-
If it’s challenging
enough to warrant sufficient focus, but not overly
challenging that makes one give up immediately
Hence, by setting CLEAR goals, managers could ensure the person
being delegated the responsibility could be held
accountable, while at the same time foster sufficient
autonomy to deliver good results.
Eventually, managers would also need to have a sense of
self-awareness so as to
what are some of the strengths and weaknesses that the
manager has, and how to have the courage and fortitude
to ask for the right support from their team members.
Managers would need to learn to give frank, direct and yet sensitive
assessments and feedback to the team members that they
had delegated work to.
Need help in achieving excellence of execution and
delegation? Simply e-mail
info@directions-consulting.com
or call +86-136 7190 2505 or Skype:
cydj001 and arrange to buy me a mocha. All
information shall be kept in confidence.
Power Breakfast Hour: 11 Mar 2014
Excellence of Execution and Delegation
-
The 7 essential leadership
behaviours that will lead to effective delegation
and execution;
-
How to delegate the right
work to the right people, using the right way of
monitoring;
-
How to set CLEAR goals to boost
accountability and improve performance
VENUE: Crowne Plaza Shanghai • 400 Panyu Road (near
Fahuazhen Road) • 上海银星皇冠酒店 • 番禺路 400 号 （靠法华镇路）
DATE: Wednesday, 11 Mar 2014
TIME: 08:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
PRICE: RMB 200 ONLY!
To make this a more conducive
discussion, we are expecting a small group of about 15
people only. The room can only take in 18, so please
register early to avoid disappointments. Please e-mail
your registrations too
sales@directions-consulting.com
Pls.
check out our web sites
www.directions-consulting.com
and
www.psycheselling.com/page4.html for more
inspiration.
Tips for Managers:
Employee Empowerment Can Work in China
Frank T.
Gallo
Empowering workers is considered the acme of enlightened
management in the West, where employees are typically
looking for independence from their bosses and
“ownership” of their jobs. But try to empower employees
in China, and you’re likely to get the opposite of what
you expect.
A certain Harvard MBA with a stellar track record
running a Fortune500 company’s manufacturing unit in the
U.S. came to China expecting employees to respond to
empowerment just as workers in the States had done.
Perceiving that part of the company’s manufacturing
process in China needed to be changed, he refrained from
laying down the law and instead asked the senior team
members in China to come up with their own
recommendations.
“I made it clear that they were the experts in Chinese
manufacturing and could do the best job,” the executive
told me. “I then asked for questions and reminded them
that my door was always open and they could contact me
any time to get clarification or make comments. There
were no questions, so I said my goodbyes and told them I
was looking forward to being back in two weeks.”
Two weeks later, nothing had been done.
“What’s wrong with these
people?” he asked. “If I
empowered my team in the U.S.,
they would have delivered as
expected.”
This reaction is common among newly arrived Western
executives. He wasn’t wrong to try to empower his
employees. But he didn’t understand that Chinese culture
and history work to prevent employees from taking
advantage of empowerment when it’s offered to them.
First, Chinese tend to be
fearful of making mistakes,
especially with a new leader.
They worry about inadvertently
straying too far from where the
leader wants them to be, and
they see risk in asking
questions that might make them
appear ignorant and expose them
to painful criticism.
Second, they may suspect that the leader is asking them
to take on some of his responsibilities because he is
lazy or incompetent.
Third, empowerment threatens to disrupt society’s order
and thus violates the Confucian respect for hierarchy
and clearly defined roles that is embodied in the
popular saying “King is king, minister is minister,
father is father, and son is son.” As a consequence,
employees in China who are directed to think and act
independently often do the opposite, warily hunkering
down until they can figure out what’s really on the
boss’s mind.
The best approach is to explain to employees how
empowerment will boost company performance in the long
run. Quote from one or two articleson empowerment in
respected publications. Then demonstrate what you’re
talking about. This can’t be done from afar: Be present
as your team goes through the beginning steps of a
project so that members can see first-hand what you mean
by empowerment. That will help allay the team’s fear
that it might stray too far and that it might be working
for a lazy or incompetent boss.
As a management practice, empowerment has just as much
value in China as it does everywhere else. It can unlock
employees’ ideas and stimulate deeper engagement. While
few Chinese firms have fully embraced it, employee
empowerment is commonplace in multinationals operating
there. In a number of companies, including Corning
China, Bayer CropScience China, Tianjin Alstom Hydro,
and Xian-Janssen, I’ve seen empowered workers drive
innovation and bottom-line performance. But like many of
the West’s best practices, empowerment can’t simply be
imposed. Chinese managers and employees need to see why
it works and how it can benefit them.
Frank T. Gallo is the greater China chief leadership
consultant for Aon Hewitt in Beijing and the author of
Business Leadership in China..
To find out how you can better empowerment results, you
can e-mail
info@directions-consulting.com
or call +86-136 7190 2505 or Skype:
cydj001
About
Directions Management Consulting
Directions Management Consulting is the
partner of
LeadershipIQ in China
and Asia.
LeadershipIQ helps more
than 125,000 leaders every year through the facts drawn
from one of the largest ongoing leadership studies ever
conducted is used to help companies apply resources
where the best possible results be achieved.
In addition, Directions Management
Consulting is a leading provider of sales performance,
innovation and experiential learning solutions in China
and many parts of Asia.
Using the
Belbin Team Role Profiling,
Directions Management Consulting helps develop high
performance teams and leadership at every level.
Psycheselling.com
is the sales performance arm of Directions
Management Consulting specialising in conducting
training, research and consulting services for sales
managers and their team.
Raybattle is the
strategic partner of Directions Management Consulting
specialising in experiential learning events and
management retreats.
Currently, Directions
Management Consulting has served clients such as Delphi
Packard, InterContinental Hotels Group, LELO,
Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Philips Lighting, Carrier,
Ingersoll Rand, Kulzer Dental etc.
Directions
Management Consulting will increase its efforts to
conduct leadership studies in China and other parts of
Asia, so that more companies apply resources where the
best possible results be achieved in this part of the
world.
Enquiries and
suggestions, pls. e-mail
info@directions-consulting.com or visit
www.directions-consulting.com
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