In my role as car repair courier, I failed miserably.

The Tire

My car’s tire pressure monitoring light had been on for a couple of weeks.  My husband had checked the tire pressure and inflated the tires to the proper PSI, but the light, that weird symbol that looks more like a harp to me than a tire, did not go away.

I finally made an appointment to go have the light checked.  Well, at least that’s what I thought I was doing.  I went to the dealership, and the service guy showed me a little button I’m supposed to push under the dash to calibrate the tire monitoring system.  If everything’s okay, the light turns off.

And the light did turn off, so I thought, “I’m good to go.”  The service guy didn’t charge me anything and even ran my car through the car wash while I used their ladies and grabbed a granola bar from their free snack basket.  I was elated.  A clean car, a free snack – seemed like a win all around to me.  And in less than 10 minutes.

The Lesson

But when I arrived home and cheerfully shared the news with my husband, he was exasperated rather than elated.  We had viewed this problem through two different lenses.  I just wanted that little light off my dash.  He wanted to ensure that my tires were properly inflated and that my car was safe.  “Did they check the tire pressure?”  “Um, no, I don’t think they did.”  “What did they do?”  “They washed it.  And I got free food.”  He made a disgusted noise.

Dear Leader

As leaders, when we delegate, we need to make clear the objective that we’re seeking.  And just as important, we need to be prepared to be flexible and forgiving when we don’t quite get what we want.  Or expected.

The Spreadsheet

I remember one time when I asked my spreadsheet whiz kid to print a certain file for me so that I could take it to a meeting.  When I came back to the office to get the print-out, he was still taping it together with the assistance of another guy.  It was huge – could have wall-papered one of the walls in the office.

I’d had no idea that my whiz kid rarely printed anything and didn’t know how to reduce the page size.  I thought he could do just about anything with a spreadsheet, and he could – except print one.

I felt bad because I knew he’d spent a lot of time printing and taping, but it was useless.  I couldn’t subtly check the numbers in my meeting without whiplashing the whole table.  But he didn’t think about how I would utilize it – just that his task was to print it.  And print it, he did.

Don’t Miss the Point

These two anecdotes illustrate for some people why they want to do things themselves.  Delegating just seems too hard.  But the reality is that doing everything yourself is a great way to get very little done.  You have to delegate not only for yourself, but also to help others grow and learn.  In far too many organizations, subordinates are sitting around bored and brain-dead while their bosses are frantic and overloaded.

No Silver Bullet, But Maybe a Good Story

There’s no magic silver bullet, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

One, when you’re communicating something that needs to be done, be sure to communicate the big picture, the “why” behind it.  It’s so easy to have that in our heads and assume everyone else has it in their heads, too.  In the first example above, the big picture was about safety, not a light on a dashboard.  (Or free snacks or free car washes.  But the car looks great – it’s red again!)

Two, be specific about what outcome you need and make sure your team member has the skills you think he/she has.  Just a quick check-in might have made a big difference in that situation.  “Sgt Whizkind, I need the summary pages of that budget spreadsheet printed.  You’ll need to go in and use Excel’s scaling or fit-to-page functions.  Are you comfortable with that?”  I feel confident I would have gotten at least a confused look if not an honest answer of “No, ma’am, I’m not sure I know how to do that.”  Then I could have quickly shown him how that works.

And three, when the unexpected happens, remember that when you get a bad experience, you get a good story.  Maybe even a blog post.