Todd Rhoades, editor of Monday Morning Insight, shares insights from an article related to delegation. As he views it, effective delegation involves asking five key questions:
- Is there someone else who has (or can be given) the necessary information or expertise to complete the task? Is this a task that someone else can do, or is it critical that you do it yourself?
- Does the task provide an opportunity to grow and develop another person’s skills?
- Is this a task that will recur, in a similar form, in the future?
- Do you have enough time to delegate the job effectively? Time must be available for adequate training, for questions and answers, for opportunities to check progress, and for rework if that is necessary.
- Is this a task that I should delegate? Tasks critical for long-term success (for example, recruiting the right people for your team) genuinely do need your attention.
If you can answer “yes” to at least some of the above questions, then it could well be worth delegating this job. Read the whole article.
Which brings us back to time and effort. Looking at this list, it is obvious that delegation, especially first-time delegation, will take some extra time and energy. The payoff is in the long-term. Training someone to do tasks that take up an on-going amount of your time will free you to do things that only you can do. And, in many cases, if you’re like me, most of the things that you should be delegating are things you really don’t enjoy doing in the first place.
One goal of mine at King’s Grant is to get people connected to the church through meaningful volunteerism. I put together a list of tasks that can be delegated to willing volunteers that therefore free ministerial and office staff for other tasks that only they can fulfill. Take a look at the volunteer opportunities.
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