On seeding new capability

I think of delegation as a way of recovering some of what’s been lost with the disappearance of traditional apprenticeships, but in a white collar setting.

It’s a lot more than just ad hoc task-dumping, which so often backfires. Ad hoc task-dumping, poorly conceived, leads to missed goals, bad feeling, the erosion of trust, and creeping organisational paralysis.

Proper delegation, which I call deep and deliberate, is a managed process of seeding new capability from you to less experienced members of your team, and also new accountability and new confidence.

They’re actually infinite resources – capability, accountability and confidence – and when they animate a team or an organisation at all levels, it rocks. When they’re sucked out of a team or organisation, it freezes up.

You can grow them anywhere, in any situation.

More here: https://dsabuilding.co.uk/deep-and-deliberate-delegation/