Maurice Gavin – former staff presenter with the David Allen Company

During a recent seminar I delivered,  a  senior company leader asked the following question: How do you recommend I delegate?

I have been asked this question before but lately it seems that this question, or one like it is being asked more and more frequently.

Usually this question is being asked by individuals who manage others and/or who describe themselves as those who ‘get their work done’ through educating, inspiring, leading and supporting others–sound familiar?

It seems to be a more and more common concern for people who are senior in their roles and responsibilities: “How do I delegate such that I hedge my bet to improve the odds that what I delegate will be done  on time, within budget and to my standard of quality”.

The person who asked the question then proceeded to tell a near horror story: what they had delegated to trusted staff turned out terribly.  The end product was

• Far afield from  what they thought they had asked for,
• The quality was  poor
• The available  time to make adjustments was lost
• And a last minute  decision had to be made to either go with what they had or scrub it  altogether–neither of which was acceptable.

As a result the person who had delegated the task found themselves staying up late that night (the presentation was the next morning) correcting and finalizing the previously delegated task (a critical component of the impending presentation) and doing what they could have done themselves (had they just hung on to the item in question).  Fortunately, after burning the midnight oil, the deliverable was turned in and the day was saved.

The bad news… this manager has the emotional scars from this experience burned into his subconscious.  Now every time they consider delegating to that same individual or anyone else they second guess themselves and more often than not hold onto the item and do it themselves to ensure “it gets done right”

My response to her question and my response to others  who have this question is always the same (I paraphrase for our purposes) .  “ The failure “  was not necessarily in delegating in the first place, or to that particular individual (usually one intuitively knows who is right for the task or is offering that person an opportunity to ‘step up’), but in the failing to clarify whether the item in question was fully quantified and communicated at the point of the hand-off in the minds and systems of all parties concerned (in this case the senior leader and her direct report)

I frequently will then say, “Did you delegate the desired outcome regarding this item?” in an attempt to get the person raising the question to see for themselves what contributed to the target being missed .

At this point, there is usually a pause as they think about my words and the syntax I have within I have framed them .  Sometimes, they immediately get the play on words, and shorty thereafter they realize the power of ‘Desired Outcome’ as it relates to delegation.

I often will follow-up with questions similar to the following, just to ensure that they have a chance to visualize the steps during the delegation process where they could have inserted the elements of GTD to their mutual benefit:

• Was the image of  the deliverable you desired to receive in completed form clearly  illustrated?  Often times,  merely understanding the manner in which the deliverable will be utilized  will keep the task on vector toward its desired  outcome
• Did you reference  earlier times when something similar was done that could serve as a comparable  to this task you were asking them to undertake?  “Remember last  quarter when we delivered the XYZ Report to corporate and the 3rd  section graphs and corresponding analysis”?  Using commonly understood  completed examples will also save time and  frustration.  Did you indicate  the varied audiences that would be consumers of their work and any  sensitivities therein that could serve as landmines en route to their  successful completion of the task delegated?  One example:  “The CEO will  be reviewing this  so the  tone will be a critical element in getting  this to pass muster.  Be sure to make it sound like her quarterly report  letters to the shareholders as she thinks that this is how all correspondence should  sound”
• Was the  ‘preferred by’ deadline clear?

Everyone is  usually clear on the actual deadline, but often people have unstated comfort  zones that represent how far ahead or behind schedule they are comfortable  being.  This can be a major point of stress for both the person doing the delegating  as  well as the person to whom the work was delegated  (often at a less than conscious level—‘when do they  really want this back’)

Did you identify  the ‘Next Action’ you see as being ‘next’ as the start point you preferred  they undertake first to get them headed in the right  direction?
I am now seeing  leaders train their followers to ask:

• What do you see as the ‘Next  Action’ for this item you are about to delegate to  me”
• Did you ask them  for feedback prior to concluding the hand-off such that they could ask for  clarification before finalizing their acceptance of the delegated  task?  Sadly, most managers  (this senior leader included) realize that they hand tasks off at  ‘light speed’ (really fast for you non-Star Wars fans) and never follow up  to determine whether the hand-off was complete.
• Did you identify  a check-in point where they could identify any ‘sticking points’ while there  is still time for course correction during the term allocated to complete the  delegated task?

Frequently when I ask these questions, senior managers that delegate many tasks will nod in agreement as they realize that the only direction they have given was the stated  deadline.  In many instances their direct reports are  intimidated and as a result they do not come back and ask for  clarity for fear of being seen as less than  ‘up-to-the-task’.

The Desired Outcome Must Be Delegated

If we are going to be effective when it comes to delegating tasks, we must take steps to be certain that what we are delegating is absolutely clear to the person to whom we are delegating the work. This means that:

1. We must define  ‘what done means’ regarding the thing we are trying to hand off
2. We must identify the start point so it is clear to the person receiving the task:  ‘what they should be doing first’.
3. We should give  the the person to whom we have delegated the task an opportunity to provide  immediate feedback as to where or how they  see themselves undertaking this task.  The intent here  should be to ensure that their trajectory is well aligned thereby enhancing  their probability of arriving at the desired outcome ahead of schedule, on  time and under budget.
4. We must allow for  periodic feedback so that we can monitor the progress of those people to whom we delegate tasks.  This will allow us to see if there are  problems, questions or concerns  and if or when these crop up we will have the time to quickly address them or provide corrective feedback.

As we are more and more dependent on others to support us in the realization of our desired outcomes at work and in life, it is critical to become as effective as possible at task delegation.

I recommend becoming so by “Delegating The Desired Outcome”.

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Editor‘s Note:  Most of the people at The David Allen Company are on Lotus Notes.  As a result a considerable body of knowledge has been developed around using Notes for GTD.  When you see the Quick Lotus Notes for GTD headline or the Lotus Notes for GTD tag, you can be sure that you’re about to get some battle tested GTD techniques from the vanguard of GTD’ers.  If you have questions about the techniques presented here, please post them to the comments and I’ll see what I can do about getting you some answers.

You have the ability to organize your Lotus Notes workspace and databases.  You probably each have about 6 Workspace Pages on the top of Notes. If you right-click on one of the tabs that has nothing in it, you can remove it:

For the ones you do want to keep, you can choose Workspace Properties and change the name and color.  To move database tiles within the workspace tabs, you can left-click on the tile and drag it to another tab.

I’ve simplified mine down to two key ones:
My Areas of Focus
Nice to Know

Or, you could take it the other direction and create more Workspace Pages and group them further into Departments, Areas of Interest, Reference vs. Discussion etc.

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Hi, everyone.  As you may know, David Allen will be delivering the keynote (along with Conference Director Ismael Ghalimi) at the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference which is taking place at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco from September 3rd through the 5th.

In addition to David’s appearance, I will be moderating a panel discussion on how Office 2.0 tools can support David Allen‘s Getting Things Done methodology.  So far we have Kevin Merritt (blist), Tim Norton (PlanHQ), and others to be confirmed.

If your company has developed a GTD-Oriented application that has a growing and passionate userbase  and you’d like to be considered to participate on this panel, please write to me at editor at GTDtimes dot com.  While the final decision about the panel participants will rest with Ismael Ghalimi, I expect that my input will be seriously considered.  There is a key caveat here and it is this:  The application must operate within the constraints of what is considered to be a Web 2.0 application.  In practical terms this means that the code and the data both reside in the cloud and thus the application can be accessed from any connected computer.

To further clarify this, if your software comes with a .dmg or .exe extension and requires a download it does not qualify for this panel.  Please understand that this is not a criticism of installable applications, it is simply that the focus of this event is on applications that operate within the Web 2.0 framwork, hence the name Office 2.0.

For those of you that are passionate users of applications that do fall into the definition of a Web 2.0 GTD application, please let me know about the application and why you like it in the comments.  If anyone feels like submitting a review of such an appliction for publication here, please send your review along with  your contact information and a brief bio to me at editor at GTDtimes dot com.

See you all at Office 2.0

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As many of you know, I was not a GTD’er prior to accepting the position of Executive Editor here at GTDtimes.  I had read David’s book and my best friend was widely known in our technology community as a long time practitioner and unquestioned authority on GTD but I had remained unconvinced that I myself needed to employ such a rigorous methodology to my own day to day life.  As I’ve mentioned, the event that caused me to decide to open up to GTD was attending one of David Allen’s Seminars and seeing the connections between his “Horizons of Focus” and the periodized approach towards training a world class athlete with which I was familiar.

As you might imagine, in order to take on editing GTDtimes with any degree of credibility it was essential that I practice GTD and moreover that I also become a student of the practice so that I could effectively edit this online publication in a way that other GTD practitioners could see was genuine and not merely giving lip-service to the principles and techniques that David has developed.  Over the past five months I have learned a great deal about GTD and even a few things about myself. However one thing that I didn’t learn from GTD was how important coaching is when trying to quickly acquire a new skill or when one is attempting to perfect a skill that is complicated or difficult to master.  I already knew this from my career as an athlete.

Thus, when I got the opportunity to have some coaching to help me apply GTD to my life I jumped at the chance.  I’ve been fortunate in my life to have worked with some truly excellent coaches and as a result I know a few things about being coached that are very important if you wish to derive the maximum benefit from the coaching you receive.  Before I talk about my GTD coaching experience let me briefly share what it is that I’ve learned is essential if you want your coaching experience to really make a difference:

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This is the final post from my e-mail that answers the question: “How to ramp up quickly with GTD and Lotus Notes?“  We’ve touched on the productivity equation and we’ve looked at how methodology is the first component of the equation. We also explored the technology or tools that can be used to implement GTD in Lotus Notes.  Last week, I discussed Mobility: how to get things done on the run, and two days ago, I blogged about the value I’ve found in getting coached and coaching others.

As I wrap up this series, I want to share some of the resources I’ve used to get connected  to the information and people who help me sharpen my skills.

Here’s what I shared in my e-mail about some of my current favorite ways to stay connected to all things GTD:

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A Community Contribution by Michael Gorsline

As you know, in implementing GTD a fair number of people are going to fall off the wagon before they experience the sustained payoffs of effortless productivity. What separates those who fizzle out from those who go the distance? From a cognitive science perspective, the answer is pretty straight forward. The people who succeed, whether or not they are aware they’re doing it, tap into the power of honoring how the mind actually functions.

I’ve heard David Allen use an insightful phrase about a specific GTD technique. I’m not sure if he’s used it to reference GTD as a whole (let me know in the comments if you know). But I certainly think it applies: “…it is both easier, and more difficult than you would expect.” A combination of ancient wisdom and modern experimental psychology gives us a fascinating view into why GTD is paradoxically both easier and more difficult than you’d expect. And it involves elephants and their riders. It can be challenging to entertain at first, but once you get the hang of it, it can help you implement GTD. It can also do the same with any other worthwhile set of skills that takes sustained effort to learn.

The Elephant and Rider

If you’ve ever resolved to do something, and really meant it, and then found yourself not following through despite your best intentions, you’re already familiar with how this works. We have a tendency to think of our mind as if it is a unified whole. But as Jonathan Haidt points out in his extraordinary book “The Happiness Hypothesis” , the ancients were ahead of their time in realizing that the mind is not unitary at all. And cognitive and social psychology have experimentally confirmed this early wisdom. Rather than unitary our minds are much more like a rider on an elephant. The rider is the conscious part of our mind, and he is quite small compared to the huge animal he rides; just as the conscious part of our mind is dwarfed the the majority of our mind that operates outside of conscious awareness.

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A Community Contribution by Sarah Albright

I began my GTD journey in 2005 when I took a 2 day version of the class at work. I loved the concepts, but at 27, I still placed a lot of trust in my memory. Then I got pregnant. Now that a massive hormonal shift has occurred and I’m the sleep deprived, full time working mother of a 1 year old, GTD lists are the only thing that keep me from sinking.

Outlook tasks combined with my Blackberry are my weapons of choice. Probably my biggest saving grace is the Agendas category. Three biggies: @ diaper bag , @ doctor and @Target.

@Diaper bag-Nothing is worse than getting to a restaurant with your somewhat cranky toddler only to realize you don’t have any snacks. Before I leave the house I do a quick check of my @ diaper bag list to make sure all the essentials are accounted for (Diapers, wipes, plastic bags, snacks, toys, sippy cup, extra clothes (for baby and me), etc.)

@Doctor-As a first time parent the list of things I can come up with to worry about (and of course Google) is way too long to keep between doctor visits. So if one pops up, I quickly record it, and the next time we have a check up I can bring my lists of concerns with me.

@Target-This one is self explanatory, but it’s huge for me. I’m forever running out of something, and this keeps me from realizing at 4 am that I used my last diaper before bed.

These are just a few of the small ways that GTD keeps me sane.

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