Successful Delegation

Yesterday I had some more training. I am just about all trained out for this year. The class was on how to successfully delegate to your employees which I've re-interpreted to mean that I should give them all the work so I can nap. Apparently, the art of successful delegation is giving up control, learning to trust others and not trying to do it all yourself. I can totally do that, I have no problem with any of those things. Except for a little bit. Mostly the bit about giving up control, learning to trust others and not trying to do it all myself. 

So, in an attempt to try something new which I am all about as long as it doesn't upset my current routine or schedule in any way, I decided to practice this. During the first break, I sent an email telling my employee that I was hereby handing everything over to him. If he needs me, I will be under my desk. Napping or building a fort depending on the time of day. Because I have now mastered the act of giving up control, I didn't even wait to see his response, I just mentally empowered him. Hope things are going well. Have awarded myself a PhD in Delegation. Even though I had clearly passed the course, it was still pretty early on in the day so I decided to stick around. I mean lunch was still to come.

Our first exercise was to split into groups and come up with the benefits of delegation from the perspective of the employee, manager and company. We then regrouped to present our findings to everyone. Before doing that though, we had to introduce ourselves, describe our business area and our Super Power. Yes, you read it correctly. Kind of threw me for a loop - I'm used to describing the type of animal I would be. Didn't matter anyway because I appear to have missed the point. Everyone else came up with a super power in relation to their job e.g. master multi-tasker, superior communicator (given the way they communicated this, I have my doubts), future ratings predictor. Not me. My super power is obviously Animal Whisperer. When asked if it applied to just one breed, I went into a long detailed explanation about how cats, dogs and even squirrels appeared to love me. Evidenced by a squirrel running up my leg one day - why I thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate how I got rid of it by shaking my leg vigorously and yelling "get off, get off", is beyond me. Should have gone with invisibility, kind of needed it to kick in about now...

Eventually lunch arrived and I sat down next to a colleague who works out of Denver. Over the turkey meatloaf (which is debatable cos it looked an awful lot like catfood meatloaf) he regaled me with fun tales of his wife's experience with endometriosis. Turkey, catfood, didn't really matter at that point...

Good news is I'm now able to offer a complete package of services for you to buy at an exorbitant rate. Negotiation, delegation, management(ation. Sticking with the theme) and strategization. Communication is extra. I only work half days. And only one day a week. But I bill for a full week. See how good I am? 

They gave us toys again.  I think they're supposed to refocus those of us that are fidgeters.  Worked brilliantly.  Look, I made a ring!