Mind Tools Newsletter 51 - 20th June 2006

The Delegation Dilemma This newsletter is published by Mind Tools Ltd, of 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email us from this page. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. To unsubscribe, just click the link at the bottom of the email se sent you. If you are not already a member and you would like to subscribe, please visit http://mindtools.com/subscribe.htm.

Contents: What's New The Delegation Dilemma Mind Tools Store Critical Success Factors A Final Note

When it comes to delegating, are you a natural or just a little bit anxious about giving up control? Most people like to stay in control, and even the greatest delegators can have blind spots: Tasks that no-one, (but NO-one) can do better than oneself.

Regular Mind Tools contributor Dianna Podmoroff knows all too well this dilemma.

Her article explores the barriers to delegation and offers some useful tips on how to "let go a little" to see the benefits of effective delegation.

As well as today's new article from Dianna, there are three new tools this week at Mind Tools for you. One of them – Critical Success Factors – is also featured as the second article in today's newsletter.

Critical success factors are the key things about your project or business that need to be managed to ensure its success. When you look at all your goals and tasks ahead, it's easy to loose sight of what's absolutely critical. Critical Success Factors is technique to help you re-focus on the essentials. And we're sure you'll find it a great and essential tool.

Whatever your current challenges, we're sure there's something here in this issue that's sure to help!

Enjoy the newsletter and, until next time

Best Wishes

James & Kellie

To find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they’re uploaded, click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed), or here to find out more about RSS.

New tools on the Mind Tools site

• 16th Jun 2006 - Critical Thinking - Developing the skills for successful thinking
• 13th Jun 2006 - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Learning to manage and live life in an effective and people-focused way
• 9th Jun 2006 - Critical Success Factors - Identifying the things that really matter for success

Find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they’re uploaded! Click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed), or here to find out more about RSS.

Article Series and New Tool:
The Delegation Dilemma
By Dianna Podmoroff

"If it's to be, it's up to me." This was my mother's favorite saying when I was growing up. It says a great deal about her willingness to delegate. She worked non-stop morning to night, and still does, because she somehow couldn't embrace the notion that it's possible to get things done any other way. She certainly would reject the possibility that sometimes, when you delegate a task, it can actually get done better than you could do it yourself.

If you see yourself in my mother's fateful saying, you are not alone. Delegation is an area of personal and professional management that many people struggle with. The difficulty stems from our need to control outcomes and a strongly rooted belief that we know how to do things best. It's hard to let go of control.

As managers, we fear the repercussions when an employee fails to complete something correctly or in a timely manner. The failure might reflect badly on us so we take the path of least resistance. Rather than working on improving our delegation skills, sometimes we simply keep hold of more tasks. Being overworked somehow seems less risky than having things done that might not meet our exact requirements.

Beneath the many excuses for not delegating lies the reason why many of us avoid delegating things:

True delegation means giving up a little of what we would like to hold onto (some measure of control) while keeping what we might prefer to give up (accountability).

Think about it. By nature we love to keep control. That way we can make sure things are done completely the way we want them done. It's often a scary prospect even to think about letting someone else take over a task or duty we've been doing for a while:

What if they don't do it correctly?
What if the outcome is not up to my standards?
What if they don't do it the way I've been doing it?
What if I become less essential to the business?
What if, gasp, they do it better than me?

It's tempting to want to hold onto control. And giving up control it often (wrongly) equated with giving up leadership as well. In fact leadership has much, much more to do with responsibility than authority or control.

How many times have you heard someone say that he or she can handle responsibility or that they thrive on accountability? Many people do, yet what people often mean is that they like to be in control.

Delegation means taking true responsibility and inevitably means giving up some control. If that sounds a bit scary, how can you overcome your mindset and become a better delegator? Here are some tips:

Realize that you just can't do it all. Everyone has limits. If you fail to acknowledge yours, you will burn out. Maybe not tomorrow and maybe not even next year, but the stress and pressure of trying to do it all will get you eventually.

Start small. Delegation is a skill and learning it needs patience, persistence, and practice. Start by giving away small, uncomplicated tasks. As your confidence grows so will your willingness to delegate more.

Recognize success. When you have had a few successful outcomes on tasks you have delegated, take time to appreciate the process. Think about the time you saved and how you spent that extra time working on other projects.

Realize that "Your Way" is not always the "Only Way." A big part of letting go is the fear that the task will not be done "right." The problem is that your "right" often means identical to you and fails to consider that there are other ways to achieve the same result.

Work on giving others the tools to do what you do. Delegation will only work if you help the other person succeed. So make sure he or she has the right resources and then keep communicating, participating and supporting the other person. Remember, delegation means NOT abdicating your responsibility, so you need to make sure you have done everything you can to influence a successful outcome.

Appreciate others' accomplishments. You might be bored with organizing the annual Juggler's Conference and Exhibition, but if one of your employees has never done it, the challenge can be exciting, invigorating, and motivating. The successful outcome is not just a well-organized conference. It's the opportunity for someone to shine you and get recognized for their achievements.

Seize the opportunity to work on more stimulating projects. The less time you spend on lower level tasks, the more time you have to concentrate on your main objectives. (You know the ones…the really important issues that keep getting shoved to the bottom of the pile because you're so overloaded….)

Understand the dynamics of authority and responsibly. Delegating does not mean giving up responsibility, and this is an essential lesson for true leadership.

Use the leverage. Delegation can put the right people on the right tasks. And the better allocated your people are, the greater the productivity, effectiveness and the opportunity for organizational growth.

Delegation, when done well, benefits everyone. You have more time to concentrate on the main responsibilities of your position. Your employees have more opportunities to expand and enrich their jobs. An added bonus is the fact that because delegation relieves your own time pressures, the job gets done better in the long run.

So, cast off your preconceptions about delegation! You were doing a good job before: You can do even better when you delegate more. With a fresh perspective and little courage to "let go", you'll be amazed by what you can achieve!

You can learn specific strategies for delegating tasks in the following Mind Tools articles Delegation - Getting the help you need, when you need it and Successful Delegation: How, When, and Why, and also in the Mind Tools leadership program, How To Lead.

The Mind Tools Store:

• How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You: Learn the 48 simple but essential skills you need to become a top leader in your industry. More >>
  
  
• Design Your Life Design the life you want to live. Set the clear, vivid, powerful goals you need to live it to the full. More >>
  
  
• Make Time for Success: Learn 39 essential personal effectiveness techniques that help you bring your workload under control and maximize your productivity, so that you can make the most of the opportunities open to you. More >>
  
  
• The Mind Tools E-book: All of the tools on the Mind Tools website in one convenient, easily-downloadable, easily-printable PDF file. We have excluded advertising to enhance clarity and have formatted sections to be easy to read, print and use. More >>
  
  
• Personal Coaching from Career Excellence Professionals:Find career and life direction, bring your job under control, build self-confidence and put yourself on the path to long term success with a Mind Tools coach. Our coaches give you the focused personal coaching you need to make the very most of your career and life. More >>

New Tool:
Critical Success Factors
Identifying the things that really matter for success

So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it’s often difficult to see the “wood for the trees”. What’s more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.

That’s where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project.

By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project. As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what’s most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims.

The idea of CSFs was first presented by D. Ronald Daniel in the 1960’s. It was then built on and popularized a decade later by John F. Rockart, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and has since been used extensively to help businesses implement their strategies and projects. Inevitably, the CSF concept has evolved, and you may have seen it implemented in different ways. This article provides a simple definition and approach based on Rockart’s original ideas.

Rockart defined CSFs as:
"The limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where things must go right for the business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization's efforts for the period will be less than desired."

He also concluded that CSFs are “areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention from management.”

Critical Success Factors are strongly related to the mission and strategic goals of your business or project. Whereas the mission and goals focus on the aims and what is to be achieved, Critical Success Factors focus on the most important areas and get to the very heart of both what is to be achieved and how you will achieve it.

Using The Tool: An Example

CSFs are best understood by example. Consider a produce store “Farm Fresh Produce”, whose mission is:

“To become the number one produce store in Main Street by selling the highest quality, freshest farm produce, from farm to customer in under 24 hours on 75% of our range and with 98% customer satisfaction.”

(For more on this example, and how to develop your mission statement, see our article on Vision Statements and Mission Statements.)

The strategic objectives of Farm Fresh are to:

• Gain market share locally of 25%
  
• Achieve fresh supplies of “farm to customer” in 24 hours for 75% of products
  
• Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of 98%
  
• Expand product range to attract more customers
  
• Have sufficient store space to accommodate the range of products that customers want.

In order to identify possible CSFs, we must examine the mission and objectives and see which areas of the business need attention so that they can be achieved. We can start by brainstorming what the Critical Success Factors might be (these are the “Candidate” CSFs.)

Objective	Candidate Critical Success Factors
Gain market share locally of 25%	Increase competitiveness versus other local stores Attract new customers
Achieve fresh supplies of “farm to customer” in 24 hours for 75% of products	Sustain successful relationships with local suppliers
Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of 98%	Retain staff and keep up customer-focused training
Expand product range to attract more customers	Source new products locally
Extend store space to accommodate new products and customers	Secure financing for expansion Manage building work and any disruption to the business

Once you have a list of Candidate CSFs, it’s time to consider what is absolutely essential and so identify the truly Critical Success Factors.

And this is certainly the case for Farm Fresh Produce. The first CSF that we identify from the candidate list is "sustain successful relationships with local suppliers”. This is absolutely essential to ensure freshness and to source new products.

Another CSF is to attract new customers. Without new customers, the store will be unable to expand to increase market share.

A third CSF is financing for expansion. The store’s objectives cannot be met without the funds to invest in expanding the store space.

Tip: How Many CSFs? Whilst there is no hard and fast rule, it’s useful to limit the number of CSFs to five or fewer absolute essentials. This helps your CSFs have maximum impact, and so give good direction and prioritization to other elements of your business or project strategy.

Using the Tool: Summary Steps

In reality, identifying your CSFs is an iterative process. Your mission, strategic goals and CSFs are intrinsically linked and each will be refined as you develop them.

Here are the summary steps that, used iteratively, will help you identify the CSFs for your business or project:

Step One: Establish your business’s or project’s mission and strategic goals (for help doing this, see http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_90.htm)

Step Two: For each strategic goal, ask yourself “what area of business or project activity is essential to achieve this goal?” The answers to the question are your candidate CSFs.

Tip: To make sure you consider all types of possible CSFs, you can use John F. Rockart’s CSF types as a checklist. Industry – these factors result from specific industry characteristics. These are the things that the organization must do to remain competitive. Environmental – these factors result from macro-environmental influences on an organization. Things like the business climate, the economy, competitors, and technological advancements are included in this category. Strategic – these factors result from the specific competitive strategy chosen by the organization. This includes the way in which the company chooses to position itself, market itself, whether it is a high volume low cost producer, or a low volume high cost one, etc. Temporal - these factors result from the organization’s internal forces. Specific barriers, challenges, directions, and influences will determine these CSFs.

Step Three: Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving success – these are your Criticial Success Factors.

As you identify and evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover some new strategic objectives or more detailed objectives. So you may need to define your mission, objectives and CSFs iteratively.

Step Four: Identify how you will monitor and measure each of the CSFs

Step Five: Communicate your CSFs along with the other important elements of your business or project’s strategy.

Step Six: Keep monitoring and reevaluating your CSFs to ensure you keep progressing towards your aims. Indeed, whilst CSFs are sometimes less tangible than measurable goals, it is useful to identify as specifically as possible how you can measure or monitor each one.

Key Points

Critical Success Factors are the areas of your business or project that are absolutely essential to it success. By identifying and communicating these CSFs, you can help ensure your business or project is well-focused and avoid wasting effort and resources on less important areas. By making CSFs explicit and communicating them with everyone involved, you can help keep the business and project on track towards common aims and goals.

If you're interested in this subject, take a look at our articles on Core Competences, Vision Statements & Mission Statements, and Goal Setting.

A Final Note From James

This week's articles have both given me some good food for thought and I hope they have for you too. And don't forget to check out the other new articles at Mind Tools including an article on Critical Thinking and a fresh look at Steven Covey's much-respected "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."

As always we love to hear you comments and suggestions, so do get in touch and tell us what think and want to see in future issues.

Next issue, there'll be more new tools and article, including another tool in our “Be Positive!” series and an article on communication and working in virtual teams.

Until next time!

James

James Manktelow

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