Delegate More to Increase Productivity

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well it would if I was suggesting that for you to delegate work to others would result in increasing your own productivity. But what if I was suggesting that doing so would actually increase the productivity of your people, would you still believe me? Well believe it or not, the more you delegate projects and work assignments to your employees (along with the associated authority to make decisions in support of completing the work), the greater the level of productivity you’ll experience from your employees.Why?

If you snoop around your business today what you are likely to find is that the majority of employees work in silos; deal with limited autonomy in making decisions on how they work as a result of processes or policies; and at least in some instances are managed by leaders who limit their ability to make decisions as it relates to their work.

What’s the result? Lack of motivate, low morale, team dysfunction and interdepartmental dysfunction. Not so fun.

This might seem like I’m stating the obvious, but as humans we have a brain and to remain focused, motivated and incentivized, we need the opportunity to use our brain; something that structure, procedures and management were often created to counter act in favor of creating “consistency” and “predictability” in work.

So why not break the mold? Reduce (that’s right!), reduce the number of procedures you have in place and instead invest time in educating employees on how to make decisions as it relates to their work. Possibly you could reduce the number of “supervisors” replacing them with team champions, as selected by the team.

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The solutions to this epidemic are endless and the results are quite powerful. By delegating work and the autonomy to make decisions pertaining to completing the work to the very people doing the work, you’ll find an increase in productivity… and morale… and motivation… and focus.

So where will you begin?

© Shawn Casemore 2016. All rights reserved.