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Back to 1784. Straight talk about delegation. How about your practices today?

Roger, a good friend of mine, always chasing for smart ideas, emailed me an amusing quote this morning.

Back in 1784 in France. The Duke of Choiseul, a French military, statesman and skillful diplomat, with many provocative ideas, during a visit by Talleyrand, the Foreign Affairs Minister who served under Napoleon and later started negotiations to sell Louisiana to the US, said:

“In my ministry, I have always made people work more than I did. One must not bury oneself in papers; one must find men to sort them out. One must put to work those whose job it is to work; then a day has more than 24 hours.”

A rather cynical lesson on delegation, isn’t it?

More seriously, wouldn’t it be nice to check in your diary of this week, this month, this year which tasks you should delegate? May I remind you of a few principles that make delegation work? You delegate tasks AND responsibility when you are overqualified to fulfill them and when the new people in charge have been trained and have proven qualified. Being “overqualified” shouldn’t mean that you are either too full of yourself or not really competent and looking for the escape key, or washed-up or burnt-out. Open your eyes and apply self-criticism. Focus on your skills and accomplishments to moderate your self-evaluation of overqualification.
 


→ Now, may I suggest you move ahead?
 

1. Sum up the added-value of your cutting-edge results gained by applying your skills in the tasks you want to delegate.

2. Check in your diary, in your to-do list, and in your job description what you could delegate.

3. Sum up the hours you could gain through delegation and calculate their cost.

4. Assess the added value issued from you concentrating on other tasks/jobs missions.
 

You see the picture of the excel sheet? If you have to “sell” this internally, I can give you a hand here.

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Next article on DELEGATION coming soon
 

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