Hello, everyone. Welcome to "How to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities." This is the fourth and final topic in the 2024 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series. Thank you for joining us today.

As most of you are aware, if you attended all four sessions, including this one today, either in person or via accessing the recording online, you will qualify for the Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate. And we'll be awarding those certificates here, at the end of 2024.

So again, let me remind you of what the topics were this year. Starting in February, we had "How to Use Employee Recognition to Increase Productivity." We came back in May with "Strengthening the Team." Our third topic was presented in August. It was "Moving from Manager to Leader." And then today, of course, we're presenting "How to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities."

Again, to qualify to receive at the end of 2024, the 2024 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate, you will have had to attend either in person or via watching the recording online all four of the topics this year, by the end of 2024 to qualify for that certificate. If you have any questions about your attendance this year, or if you need recording sent to you from any of the topics that you missed, we're happy to do that.

Again, the four topics were, "How to Use Employee Recognition to Increase Productivity" in February, "Strengthening the Team" in May, "Moving from Manager to Leader" in August, and today, "How to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities." In order to reach out to our staff, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today, and that goes right to our administrative office.

And just let our team know which of those programs that you're looking for, what information you need. We'd be happy to respond to you. Again, this is the fourth and final topic of the 2024 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series.

So before we get started with today's topic, "How to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities," I want to make sure that our technology is working for us. If you can please locate the Raise Hand icon in the GoToWebinar software on your screen-- If you can let me know if you can see the slides clearly and hear my voice clearly-- All you have to do is click on that Raise Hand icon you'll see on your GoToWebinar software on your screen. And that'll let me know that we are good to go technology wise.

Thank you, folks. Looks like our technology is very solid today. That's excellent. Thank you for all letting me know. I also want to make you aware that we've got a big turnout today. Close to 200 people have logged on today. And so we're going to have to have participants in listen-only mode, so you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the formal part of the presentation, which really should last somewhere around 30 minutes today, give or take.

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So you'll all be muted during the formal part of the presentation, which again will last about 30 minutes, give or take. But at the end of the formal part of the presentation, I will open it up for questions at that time. Please feel free to type any questions you have into the question box you'll find in the GoToWebinar software on your screen. And we will get to as many questions as time allows.

Of course, we've got close to 200 people on the call today, so we may not get to everyone's questions. But we will get to as many as we can today. All right, looking forward to that Q&A session coming up shortly. Let's go ahead and get started, folks. All right. I've got three objectives for our time together today during the session.

Number one is, I want us to really take a deeper dive into the benefits of delegating work effectively. When we think about delegation, when you're in a supervisory role, how important it is to know how to delegate effectively, and to make a practice of delegating effectively. So that you can, as a leader, as you delegate some of the work that others on your team can do, frees you up to do more of the management and the strategic kinds of responsibilities, or the leadership responsibilities that you have as a supervisor.

We'll talk a lot about that today, the benefits of that in detail. I also want to identify the obstacles. What is it that keeps supervisors from delegating more often and more effectively? So we'll talk about that as well. And then last but not least, today I want to really drill down into a best practice process of delegating a task or a project, and how to follow up to ensure that the work that's done by the staff member that you delegated to is completed and done really, really well.

All right. Let me begin with a quote from Brian Tracy International. Some of you might remember Brian Tracy. Brian Tracy is a pretty famous trainer and motivational speaker. I love this quote from his training company is, learning how to delegate effectively is the key to leveraging yourself and multiplying your value to your organization or your company. Again, learning how to delegate effectively is the key to leveraging yourself as a leader, and multiplying your value to your organization or your company.

And folks, that's really the jumping off place for my conversation with you today. I've been a leader now for almost 30 years in my career. And probably only about the last 10 or 12 years, I can honestly say that I've become effective in delegating. Early on in my career, I held on to things way too long. I hesitated to delegate for different reasons. I'll share some of my story here today. But can tell you, I've been much more effective as a leader the last dozen years or so, as I've been delegating more effectively.

And a key here is to be able to recognize that when you're in a leadership role, we have to prioritize how we spend our time. Leaders do a lot of different things every day. And folks, I know you all know that leaders do-- they have management tasks to do, completing tasks, solving problems, managing risk. There's a lot of management responsibilities that every leader has on a daily basis, and leading people, motivating staff, supporting them, spending time with them, inspiring them.

So we have those responsibilities, in general. So if on top of those responsibilities-- So I've never met a manager or supervisor that doesn't have a really long to-do list, between all of the management responsibilities that we have and all of the people leadership responsibilities that we have. We are busy. All of us in leadership are-- we're busy people. We have a lot of moving parts in our professional lives.

And so on top of that, we're hanging on to tasks and work that could be effectively delegated to others on the team, to free you up, to focus more on those management and leadership responsibilities. We're not being as efficient and as productive as we could be. That's why I think it's so important to become effective at delegating.

And so to drill down a little bit deeper the benefits of delegating effectively-- And then I'm going to open it up to the audience and give you all a chance through the question box in the GoToWebinar software, to weigh in and share some of your thoughts.

I want to talk a little bit more about the benefits of delegating effectively. I think it's really, really important to start with what we've talked about here at the outset, is when a supervisor or manager delegates tasks or other work that other people on the team are capable of doing, it leaves them more time to focus on their most important management and leadership responsibilities, which include spending time with their people, building a strong team, developing strategy for all the different initiatives within your department or within your team.

So again, it's really, really important that we get good at delegating, so we can focus on the things-- more of the management and leadership responsibilities that are the core of our effectiveness, when you're a supervisor or manager. The other benefit of delegating effectively that I want to share, that I want to get some of your all's input, is that it allows your team to be more productive, to do a greater volume of work.

I want to share a statistic that's eye opening, one research study-- and I do believe from my experience that it's probably pretty right on-- is that the average employee works at about 50% productivity. Now, of course, you all have superstars. You've got highly effective employees that are working at a much higher productivity level. Maybe they're at an 80% or 90% productivity.

But the average employee-- and I'm not saying the employee is only spending-- the study isn't saying that they're only working 50% of the time. It's saying that their output, their productivity is only at about 50% of what it could be. And so which means, if you delegate effectively to many people on your team, they're going to have additional capacity and additional bandwidth, if you will, to increase their overall production, their overall output. And I truly believe, I think the average employee has a lot of extra room.

One of the reasons many leaders have said, many supervisors or managers have said, I hesitate to delegate is, I feel guilty because my team is really busy, and I don't want to put unnecessary or additional work onto people that I know are already busy. What this study really opened my eyes to is-- and then when I thought about all the teams I've managed over the years, I think it's been pretty true in my experience-- is that there's a lot of people that have bandwidth.

They've got capacity to do more work and be more productive if they had an opportunity, if we were working with them and providing some training, and providing some mentoring and modeling, and giving them opportunities to do more, to take on more additional responsibilities, additional work. And so that's one of the things I wanted to talk about is, by delegating effectively, we can literally help our team ramp up its overall productivity.

Folks, what are your thoughts? I know there's a lot of benefits to delegating effectively. I would love to hear from you all. So if you can use the question box in the GoToWebinar software, I would love if some of you could share some of your thoughts. What are some of the things, some of the reasons, some of the benefits of delegating that you've seen in your career? Again, if you can give me some of your input by typing your input into the question box in the GoToWebinar software, I can share that with everyone, share your ideas with everyone.

What are additional benefits of becoming effective at delegating? What have you experienced, folks? All right, I'm starting to get some input. Thank you, folks. It empowers the staff. Here's another one, delegating effectively-- All right, let me grab-- Delegating creates the opportunity for better ideas. If an employee sees a more efficient way of doing things, they bring it to the team. I love that. It allows the manager to spend more time proactively making the group better. Absolutely, like we mentioned at the outset today.

When we become better at delegating, it increases awareness of what each person is working on, rather than just having them be busy. Here's another great one. Delegating can often lead to professional growth for that employee. You bet, you bet. This is great. Well, this is a little bit of an obstacle, is that employees sometimes push back on taking on more work. That's true. It does happen sometimes.

Here's another one. Delegating helps not only the leader, but also the person you delegate to. They learn and grow from taking on that extra work. I agree, especially when you're strategic about the kind of work that you do delegate. We'll talk more about that today. Here's another one. When you delegate, it empowers employees to learn new things. You're right, absolutely. It can be a learning experience for the employee, learn new skills, gain more knowledge.

It allows for more projects to move simultaneously. Absolutely, you bet it does. It totally increases productivity. Here's another benefit, the ability to mentor and train the staff to prepare them for taking on your role or another role of leadership in the future. You bet. You're preparing them. You're helping them with their career development, their professional development. Good stuff, folks. I appreciate everyone's input. Delegating helps the team become better cross-trained. I agree. It shows that you trust your team and you believe in their capabilities.

That's great. Thank you, folks. Thank you so much for weighing in. That was really helpful. So as we can all share, as we all see, as we're sharing all these ideas together, there's a lot of benefits of learning how to be someone that delegates effectively. Now, here's more of the obstacles. One of our colleagues said earlier, one of the obstacles is that employees sometimes push back and say they can't take on extra work, and that does happen. We'll talk more about that here in a moment.

But here's another obstacle is that, according to one study, less than 15% of managers delegate. Well, I have to admit, the first 2/3 of my management experience, I was not good at this. I hung on to things way too long. And when I did delegate, I didn't feel like I was very effective at it. I wasn't being very strategic with it. So we have a skill issue. For some of us, it's a skill issue is that research shows that not very many supervisors and managers are great at delegating. So we need to become more skillful at that, which is one of the reasons why we're having this conversation today, of course.

Another obstacle is sometimes we, as managers or supervisors, feel like we need to stay in control. That was a big problem for me, folks, in all honesty. I felt like I knew how to get something done. And oftentimes, I would hang on to it thinking, you know what, I know the way I like to get this done, and I don't think someone else is going to do it the way that I would do it. Because I've been doing this for a long time, and I'm comfortable with the way I do it. And I just don't trust that they're going to do it as effectively.

And so because I felt like I need to stay in control and I wasn't letting go, I was continuing to reduce my own effectiveness, by hanging on to things that I could have delegated to others-- if I had been willing to let that go. So that was an important thing for me to recognize.

Another problem that I had, another obstacle was that I would hang on to things because I would rationalize in my own mind-- I know some of you can relate to this-- that oftentimes, it was quicker to do it myself than to take the time to train someone else to do it. I know a lot of you have probably had that thought before, not uncommon. And so again, that can lead us to hanging on to things that we could reasonably delegate.

Another thing is, it's a trust issue sometimes, if we don't trust that the employee is going to do a good job with it. We may hang on to something that we could let go and delegate, to free us up to again, focus on the more important management and leadership responsibilities that we have. And so folks, let's be thinking about that. Let's be thinking about how can we overcome those obstacles, how do we start to let go, and start to delegate more consistently.

All right. So let's start talking about some of the skills here, some of the things that we can practice a little bit more effectively, to lead to becoming a better delegator. First of all, we need to be thinking about what are the right things to delegate, and the right people to delegate to. So this is some of the practical process of delegation. So first of all, we want to think about, what are the right tasks and projects to consider delegating?

I think a lot of times also, we hang on to things because we feel like we're on the line for it. Like for example, if I delegated something to someone and they don't do a good job with it, it might reflect on me as a supervisor. I know some of you have thought about that as well. It's another obstacle. But we need to be thinking about what are the right things and the right people. We need to choose the right tasks and projects to delegate. And some of the categories of that would be delegate work that your employees have the capability to perform.

To me, that's the first consideration is OK, here's something that I'm doing, that I know I've got a couple of people on my team, that they can do a good job at this. And so I need to consider letting this go, because I have people that are capable of doing this. Maybe not exactly the way that I would do it, but they could do a pretty good job if I'd be willing to let it go. So that to me is the first category, is to make a list.

This is a good little assignment for you if you want to be thinking about this afterwards, or even as we're speaking right now, is make a list of the things that you're doing on a week-to-week basis that you do have staff members that could take it on, take those tasks on, and do a reasonably good job with it. Even if they wouldn't do it exactly the way that you did, or quite as well as you've done, but just a reasonably good job with that. So that should be on your potentially consider delegating list.

Another one that would be more obvious and easier for us to let go, is things that we're not particularly skilled at yourself. I love to teach and present-- hopefully that comes across during these sessions-- but I'm not the world's best writer. I like to speak. I like to communicate verbally, but I'm not a great written communicator. I happen to be on a team with people who write really well.

Well, for a while there, years ago with Deer Oaks, I was hanging on to some writing responsibilities. Finally, one of my colleagues said to me, I'll take that on. And she's a professional writer and more skilled at it. And I finally let it go. And it was like a burden came off of my shoulders. It was great. I felt really set free. I should have delegated that a long time ago, because it wasn't something I was good at. I didn't even enjoy it very much.

So either work you're not particularly skilled at, like in my example, or work that you don't enjoy, or that you're not interested in, seriously consider delegating that to someone on your team who again can do a reasonably good job with it. And so again, those are some of the things to consider when you're making a list of things to delegate. Now, you also want to delegate to individuals who have the capabilities necessary to successfully complete the work, not necessarily those who just aren't very busy.

And so again, we may hang on to things, because we don't trust that the people we would delegate to would do a good job. So for example, if you're pretty swamped and you know you've got an employee that has a lot of bandwidth, has some capacity to take on more work, but you're just not comfortable that the employee is going to do a good job with what you might delegate to them. You maybe don't want to go in that direction.

Maybe you don't want to delegate to that person, because that again is going to reinforce that if I delegate this work and if it's not done well, it's not going to make our department more efficient. It may come back on me as a leader, as choosing the wrong person to delegate those responsibilities in the network, too. So make sure you're delegating to individuals that you believe and trust can do a good job.

The litmus test for me is, can this person I'm considering delegating this task to, can they do a reasonably good job with that? And if they can, go ahead and delegate that, as long as they've got the bandwidth. And that's the important thing.

You also want to ask yourself-- hopefully, that statistic I shared earlier has opened some of our eyes here today is, just because we might be thinking of delegating to someone who's a pretty good employee, who's pretty productive, don't necessarily automatically think, oh, they're too busy. They don't have the bandwidth to take this on. Consider, based on the research, most employees are not working at 100% productivity. So most employees do have the ability to take on some additional responsibilities, some additional workload.

Now, obviously, you want to be mindful and reasonable in how you make those decisions. You can call somebody in and say, hey, I've got something I think you'd be great at, and I could really use your help with. Do you feel like you've got the time and the bandwidth to take this on? And if the person really makes a good case that, I don't think I do right now, we need to be open to hearing that, and maybe make some adjustments.

If you feel like that's the right thing to delegate to that person, maybe you take something else off of that person, so that they can take on this new responsibility. But be mindful. We want to make sure we're not overloading people, of course. But let's not automatically assume that hey, this person over here and this person over there, they're jammed. Because the research says most people are not jammed.

And so we do want to use some discretion and be reasonable in our thinking about that. But let's be more open to delegating from time to time than maybe we were in the past, where we just dismissed, oh, they're too busy. I don't think they have more bandwidth. I think most people on our teams have more bandwidth to take on more work than we're thinking that they do.

Now, whenever possible, when you do delegate, if you want to make it a positive experience for the person you're delegating to, don't just delegate the work. Delegate also the responsibility and the authority that comes with it, if you can. I'll talk more about that here in a moment.

All right, next. Some of you said this already today at the outset when you're giving us your input. We do want to consider delegating for employee growth and development. To me, it's a win-win, if you can delegate work to get it off of your plate, so you can focus more on your leadership and management responsibilities. And delegate work to an employee that they'll grow from, that will expand their knowledge base, that will help them become more skillful. It'll be an opportunity for them to hone their skills and come up higher in their skill set.

And so be thinking about that. And I wouldn't just do that with senior people, also with newer people. There's a lot of research that says, newer people who get hands on earlier-- Now, obviously, you're going to decide what you're going to delegate to senior people. You're going to delegate probably more complex things, because they've been around for a while. They've got a wider knowledge base and more experience.

With newer people, though, you can still delegate some smaller tasks to newer employees, to help build their confidence, to help them become more skillful, to help with their training and onboarding. One onboarding study said that when people don't get to do hands-on work during the onboarding process or get to be hands-on enough, they don't bond with the work. And it does have a negative impact on whether they stay long term.

So make sure that you're giving newer employees an opportunity to delegate and take on new responsibilities too, for their own training, for their own edification and enjoyment of the job, and to build their confidence.

Now, we did talk about using delegation for professional development or career development work. I like to use delegation as a coaching strategy. Coaching, as you all know, is collaborating with employees, working with them, partnering with them. So when you are going to delegate, I think it's a great coaching strategy to delegate with someone and talk about, here's the project that I would really love your help with, and to partner with the employee about how that work is going to be done.

Think about coaching as a partnership. Coaching differs from being directive. When we're directing, we're telling people when we're assigning work, what to do, and how to do it. That can feel like that person is being micromanaged if we get down into the weeds too much, and are too hands-on in making or giving direction as to how the work should be done.

But if you are delegating something to someone and then partnering with them to brainstorm on the work plan, or brainstorm together on the project plan, give that employee input into how that work is going to be done, or input into how that project is going to be completed, that's when you'll see the employees really step up and take ownership. People support what they help to create.

So if you are going to delegate, don't overdelegate by delegating not only the what, but then the how. That to me is an overreach when we're telling employees all the time, here's what I want you to do, the what, and here's how I want you to do it, step 1, step 2, step 3. That again can make an employee feel like they're being micromanaged. I love how one of my colleagues said that he sees his employees as subject matter experts.

And so when he delegates, he will say, here's the project or here's the task. And I think you're going to do a great job with this because of your background and experience, and you're very skillful in this area. What do you think we should do to get this done? And he really gives them a lot of leeway as to how they're going to do the work. Because they're the subject matter experts. It's their job.

And that's again how you can delegate in a way that's going to be empowering to people. They'll feel it'll help their confidence. They'll feel more empowered by you. Now, here's a scaled down delegation process. And so here's some steps to remember. And so of course, when you do delegate, we did talk about-- this is kind of taking it to the next step after choosing the right people and the right things to delegate.

When you're sitting down with that employee to go through the delegation process, make sure that you and the employee are on the same page about the assignment and the expectations. That's important. Delegated work that is not talked through at the beginning-- I truly believe that if you're delegating anything substantial, any kind of a significant task or a project, it's better to make that assignment of work or that delegation conversation face to face, rather than just shooting off a quick email.

It can be more efficient to shoot off a quick email, but if you're going to delegate something, I want to talk to that person about, here's the project, here's the expectation for it, here are the goals of the project. And what do you think the project plan should be? What are your thoughts? I'd be really interested knowing your initial thoughts about how this project ought to be completed, or what the steps that you should be following will be. And give that employee an opportunity to have a say in the how, in the project plan, in the work plan.

Typically, when people have a say, they're going to take more ownership, which is important. And as I mentioned earlier, don't just delegate the work, delegate the responsibility and authority. Because that's empowering to people. Not only are they going to have to actually do the work, but they're going to actually get credit for it. They're going to have an opportunity to make some decisions about it. They're going to be able to make a presentation around it.

Like for example, if you're delegating the creation of a new program to the employee, and you're going to be taking their work and presenting it to senior management, take that employee with you to the senior management meeting. And give them an opportunity to be presenting with you, or on their own, whatever you think is most appropriate, to senior management about the findings of the project, and the recommendations coming from the project. Let them be part of the presentation. That's empowering to people.

So you're giving them responsibility, authority, and you're allowing them to have some of the spotlight when you do delegate to them. The more we can give them, in addition to just the work, the more empowering it's going to be for the employee, the more motivating it's going to be. Make sure, of course, that you clarify with the employee what the timelines and deadlines are, so you're on the same page about that. And then make sure, of course, that you always give that employee plenty of credit and recognition.

All right. And last but not least, and I'll open it up for questions here, managing performance after delegation. So it's like anything else, if we assign work to someone and not have a followup step, not have some sort of a timeline where people are agreeing about when the employee is going to update their supervisor on the progress that they're making on the assignment, when that work's going to be submitted, the completed work is going to be submitted-- It's so important.

That was the problem I had earlier in my management career is, I would delegate something and then I wouldn't hear anything for weeks. And then I would feel compelled to follow up with the employee. And sometimes I felt like they would feel like I was looking over their shoulder. And then I realized, wait a second, as long as I have a predetermined followup step after delegation, communication would work. And I wouldn't have to go back and look over people's shoulders.

So what I mean by that is, let's say the first of the month, you get together with an employee. You delegate a project to them. It's a 30-day project. They have a month to get it done. So you have a good conversation about what your expectations are. You and the employee brainstorm together on the project plan. But you want to make sure that employee is making progress along the way.

You want to make sure that you're able to follow along just in case your boss asks about it, and to be up to speed on what the progress is, and to be able to make some course correction if it gets off track. And you might say to the employee, OK, we've got 30 days to get this done. If you don't mind, let's do a 15-minute touch-base meeting in two weeks, halfway through the project time, the project duration. Let's get together for 15 minutes, two weeks from today.

And all I will be looking for that day is just for you to give me an update on the progress you're making, and then we can brainstorm together. I can offer support. We can brainstorm together, if anything needs to be added to that. I've been doing that now for a long time and having those followup conversations, when projects are in process or tasks are in process. And I find it works beautifully.

Number one, it adds some accountability. The employee knows they're going to have to give you an update at a certain point in time that's prescheduled, so they're going to be less likely to procrastinate. And then when they do give me the update, I can make some course correction.

I had something happen recently in my job at Deer Oaks like that, where I had asked some staff members to do some things, and I wasn't hearing anything. And it got a little off track, and I was able to course correct and say, hey, in the future, can you do this, this, and this along the way when we have a project in process? And so, again, as long as you've got a clearly understood line of communication, that's really important.

Another reason I think we hesitate to delegate is, if we delegate, we feel like we're losing control. And so if you feel like you're losing control if you delegate, then have an agreement with that employee as to when they're going to give you updates, how frequently, specifically what the followup steps are, so you're going to know that it's being done, and know that it's being done right, and it's going to be done on time. And so I think that works really, really well in terms of performance management after delegation.

All right, folks, I know we covered a lot in a very short period of time today. I want to give you an opportunity to ask questions. If you have any questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software. We now have almost 250 people that have logged on. I want to thank you all for your time. And several of you have logged on since the outset.

At the beginning today, folks, just to catch everybody up, I reminded everyone that today's topic, "How to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities" is the final topic in the 2024 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series. As most of you know, if you attended all four of these, either by attending the live session like today or viewing on demand of the recording link for those that you couldn't attend live, which is understandable, we're all busy--

If you do all four of those combination of live and/or viewing the recordings-- and we track all of that through the GoToWebinar software-- you will receive the Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate, the 2024 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate, at the end of the calendar year, this year 2024.

And so to remind you, back in February, we did, "How to Use Employee Recognition to Increase Productivity." That was our first topic. We came back in May with "Strengthening the Team." In August, we presented "Moving from Manager to Leader," and today, of course, "How to Effectively Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities."

If you're not sure if you missed any, or if you would like to request the recording link for any of the programs that you missed this year, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our staff for what you need. And we'd be happy to send that to you again. And I'll go through this one more time here at the end. But let me go ahead and open it up for questions.

Got a lot of questions coming in. All right, here's a good one. What are some tips to delegate to employees that are not very busy but do not want additional work? That's a really, really great question. So if you know an employee is not really busy, I think you can reasonably bring someone in. I love to do coaching conversations with people. As you all know, a coaching conversation would be having a good two-way conversation with a staff person, where you're just talking through a subject together.

The difference again between directing, telling people what to do, and coaching, which is collaborating, working together is, collaboration and coaching involves the employee and gives them a voice, gives them input into what you're talking about. And in those cases, employees typically receive the conversation better. Because they're a part of it, rather than just being told.

So, for example, for you to tell an employee-- I can tell you're not very busy. I'm going to give you this extra work-- that employee might push back. They might get argumentative. Because you're trying to do something that they may not be comfortable with.

But if you have that same conversation with the employee, and you do it as a collaborative coaching conversation-- And you call the employee in and say, hey, I've got a project that I think you would be perfect for because of your experience, and I want to talk about having you take this on-- And then brainstorm with the employee. Get them interested in the project. Brainstorm with that employee. If the employee, later in the conversation--

Because number one, they're going to be more open to it, if you present it as something that you feel like they'll do a really good job at, and because of their expertise. And then as you start to brainstorm it together, if the employee starts to push back and starts to say, I don't have bandwidth, you can say, in all honesty, from my observation, I think you do have a little bit of room in your workload to be able to take this on. Can you tell me why you don't think you have the ability? And really just have a conversation about it with the employee.

And then you can also start it on a trial basis. If the employee is still pushing back and you really feel like they can handle it, but this person is maybe a little bit of someone that is maybe a little bit of a malingerer, a little bit of someone that's not giving you 100%, you can say, why don't we try this? Let's try this for a month. Let me have you take this on for a month, and I'll monitor your workload with you. But let's try it and see if it does work comfortably into your workload. And I'll be sensitive to take your feedback along the line. And we'll make adjustments as we need to.

So just try to partner with that employee. A lot of times, if you use more of a partnership coaching approach, the employee will at least be more open to working with you. All right, let me continue. We've got lots of questions today. And folks, I am going to apologize in advance. I can tell already we're not going to get near to being able to answer all of these. But I'll get to as many as I can today.

All right. Here's a good one. What's an effective way to delegate during high-stress, fast turnaround time? I feel most supervisors in my office tend to hold on to work during peak times, because it's faster. I totally agree with you. That was one of the reasons I mentioned earlier. I think a lot of supervisors do hang on to things when they feel like, or they rationalize that this would be faster to do it myself than to teach someone to do it.

I think some of that is we need to get into a flow of delegating, where it's-- When delegation becomes a normal part of what you do, if you're continually looking at your workflow, looking at your to-do list, your workload as a supervisor and identifying, like we talked about today, which of these tasks on my to-do list could reasonably be done by someone else on my team, and the regular rhythm of delegating, then even during the busy times, because you're used to thinking that way, it won't be such a stretch to delegate something, instead of hanging on to it yourself.

So I think more than anything else, it's just getting into that rhythm. Delegation is something I do every week now, where I didn't 15 years ago. I honestly didn't. I would delegate only once in a while when I was swamped. And I was doing it only out of necessity. I wasn't doing it as part of how I was helping to be as productive as possible as a leader. But nowadays, since I've made delegation a normal practice, I'm consistently looking at my to-do list and considering what I could delegate to others on the team that could do a reasonably good job with it.

So that, again, to keep myself freed up to do the other important management and leadership responsibilities on my plate. And so I think it's a matter of getting into a rhythm. And once you're in a rhythm of regularly doing that, then when something comes up, even during a busy period, you won't be as hesitant to delegate, or as more apt to hang on to it. Because you're so used to just going through the process of identifying and then delegating.

All right, someone's asking here today, what is the deadline for viewing these recordings? The deadline would be-- we're going to be looking in December. I would suggest maybe no later than early December to try to get the recordings viewed. It'd be my suggestion. I don't think that's a drop dead date, but it'd be my suggestion. So I think our staff, probably before the holidays, will start to do the summation of the program and try to see who's qualifying for the certificate. So if you did get everything done by early December, I think you'd be in a pretty good place.

I'm looking for additional questions. How do you delegate to the employee who is always busy? That's a really great question, too. And I've got someone like that on my team. And so you do it thoughtfully. I don't want to overload people. Sometimes the person that's really busy is our go-to person, the person that everyone goes to for help, because they're confident. They're known as someone who's a go-getter, who gets things done really well. And so we want to be careful not to overload that person.

And so I'm just very thoughtful about the people that are busy on my team. I'm very thoughtful about what I ask that person to do. Because I don't want to overload them. But of course, there are some things that I really need that person to do, because they're the right person to do it. You just have to weight that. And just be very thoughtful about it. Because again, you don't want to overload people.

I'm trying to find additional questions that would be something that a lot of us could relate to. Well, here's a good one. How do you handle an employee-- this is a really good one-- who doesn't like providing updates, despite having multiple conversations with them about the importance of communication? They see it as being micromanaged. I appreciate that. And I've run into that before, as a matter of fact.

And so one of the things that I like to do, I do regular one-on-one meetings. I'm a big advocate of doing regular one-on-one meetings with the team. And so what I want us to remember about that is if you're doing regular one-on-one meetings, you can make asking for updates from the staff about ongoing projects and tasks just a normal part of your one-on-one conversations, so they don't feel like you're looking over their shoulder. I think that's important.

If you're always following up with people, sending out-- And I made that mistake earlier in my career, where I would wait a couple weeks after making an assignment, not hear anything back, send out a reminder email, and then the employee would start to-- I could tell they were getting uncomfortable. Why am I asking? Don't I trust them? And so I found that when I made asking for updates just a normal part of our regular one-on-one rhythm, that it's not as uncomfortable for the employee--

We just have an understanding that when I assign an important task or a project, I'll just say, just please be prepared since this is a high-profile project, and my boss may be asking about it. Just please be ready to give me an update during our weekly one-on-one meetings. And then it became less uncomfortable for the staff, because we were just more of the regular flow of communication. So that was what I would suggest.

Here's another really good one. We got some great questions. Thank you for being so thoughtful in your questions, folks. How do you manage the conversation to emphasize that while it is a negotiation, that you have the final word on this delegation? I appreciate that. That's really good. And so it depends again on your rhythm with the employee, to let the employee know that--

And I'd be real honest with the employee is that I want to give you input, that I want us to partner together on your workload. I want us to partner. I'm here to support you. And of course, I'm going to be requiring a certain amount of work to be completed on your side. But it's a partnership. So if you need my support, you got it. Just let me know how I can help, and I'll jump in and help.

But to let the employee know from time to time that, I may ask you to do some things or assign some things to you, that you may feel like you don't have the capacity to take on. I want you to be honest with me, if you've got concerns about that kind of stuff. But by the same token, I want you to be open to take on more. Because we are a thin staff. We're not in a situation where we have a lot of extra staff.