What to delegate
When it comes to what tasks get delegatedand which he keeps for himself, Byford hasa simple rule: If it involves a lot of work,pass it on.
“Which sounds kind of silly to say, but thereare enough things that I am supposed to betaking care of that if there is any single one ofthem that takes up a vast amount of time,then (that) has to be delegated,” he says.
“If it’s a high-level strategic issue thatinvolves our board of directors, then I canspend a lot of time on that. If it’s some pieceof sales analysis that we don’t have that it seems we ought to have, then my goalwould be to say to somebody, ‘Here’s thequestion. Please go away and see if you cango away and figure out the answer,’ ratherthan go and try to do it myself.”
Sometimes, Byford knows he wants tolook at the data on a certain subject, but isn’tquite sure at how he wants to look at it orwhat he wants to get out of it. So, he needsto spend enough time on it until he knowsthe question he needs to ask, and thenhands it off to someone else.
“On occasion, I find I’m digging into something because I don’t know how to ask thequestion, and that’s when it perhaps getsmost challenging,” he says.
The other simple rule Byford uses whendetermining what to delegate is to hand overanything that he can’t help with.
“There are any number of decisions orthought processes that go on in the organization, where frankly there are a whole lotof people who are way better qualified thanme to figure things out,” he says. “The bestthing I can do at that point is to maybe askone or two pointed questions, and then getout of the way.
“For example, my background is a technical one. I’m an engineer. I’ve never been in asales organization; I’ve never been in marketing. So, when it comes to sales and marketing issues, my suspicion is that, ‘Well I’mquite sure that the folks in those organizations are far better equipped than I am tomake those kinds of decisions.’”
He may ask some sort of pointed questions to make sure things are on track, butafter that, he lets them take over.
“Even on the technical sides these days,I’ve been out of the technical business for solong that I can’t usually do anything morethan ask a few high-level questions,” he says.
While trust and delegation are important,you have to be ready to act when a task isgoing awry. Start by talking to the employeeassigned to the task.
“Those are difficult conversations, and it’sall too easy to put them off or to furtherthem or not be sufficiently clear when youare having those conversations,” he says.“Then you get to the point where there isjust a widening gap, if you like, between the perceptions on both sides. If you don’t takethe opportunity to close that gap while it’sstill small, it becomes a gulf, and then it’svery difficult to deal with.
“So, be honest with them. I’ve found that inthe vast majority of the cases, that worksout really well.”
It’s also helpful to ask questions and gettheir side of the argument.
For example, you can ask the employeewhy he or she thinks his or her way is theright way or you can ask the employee if heor she knows the ramifications of his or herdecision.
“Perhaps, at times, you can ask people totake the opposite position,” he says. “We’vedone that on occasion in our internal discussions, which is to ask people to switch sides.Make the case that you don’t believe in andsee how good of job you could do of that.
It’s a matter of getting a well-justified decision. Who knows, you may find out, and Ithink it’s often true, that the decision thatyou are hearing may, in fact, be the correctone. But, what you haven’t really heard isthe justification for it. If you can poke andprod a little bit … to get the justification tocome out a little bit, you may find that, ‘Oh,OK, now I get it.’”
