A key skill for leaders at all stages of their careers is the ability to delegate effectively. Leaders who can’t delegate often limit their ability to grow in an organization and — more importantly — they don’t give the people around them the opportunity to grow.
To delegate effectively, a leader needs to let go of the need to do something themselves. Sometimes that’s about whether the leader believes they can trust someone else to complete the task in a suitable and timely fashion. A key variable is always the degree of complexity of the task. A greater degree of complexity demands more trust — so the question becomes: how does a leader build trust that other people will do the job?
The Lyles Problem-Solving Process
An idea I’ve long championed comes from Dr. Gerry Faust of Faust Management Corporation: teach your subordinates a formal problem-solving process. He suggests the Lyles Process — named after Dr. M.A. Lyles — which involves 7 steps:
- Define the problem — get it conceptually correct and achieve alignment.
- Define the objectives — when this problem is resolved, how will things be different?
- Generate alternatives — what are all the ways to realize the objectives?
- Develop an action plan — who is going to do what, by when?
- Troubleshoot — stand back and ask: how can this go wrong?
- Communicate — what is the story we are going to tell everyone?
- Implement — monitor and adjust as necessary.
Once your people learn this problem-solving approach, when you want to delegate a task you can ask: ‘What do you think we should do about X?’ After reviewing the process together, you can feel more comfortable that the employee will deal effectively with the challenge — and they will demonstrate a stronger sense of accountability as a result.