Delegation is one of the hardest management tools for leaders to learn.
We all understand that micromanaging your employees isn’t good for anyone, but when you’re used to being involved in everything, it can be hard to let go. It gets easier as you hire great people and implement sound processes—watching your company grow without your fingerprint on everything is a beautiful thing.
Perspective helps too.
This piece was originally published in 2015. It has been updated with new data and advice for 2023.
Here’s how the story usually goes. Sometime in the early 20th century, British explorer Ernest Shackleton needed to hire a crew for an upcoming expedition to the South Pole. So he placed a newspaper ad:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success.”
The copywriting — and its strong, direct language — has been printed, reprinted, and talked about for decades. It’s beautiful. Possibly the world’s greatest job ad.
Though his accomplishments went largely uncelebrated in the years after his death, Shackleton, in recent years, has become a revered leadership figure thanks to new literature on his life and career.
The Shackleton ad copy has taken on a life of its own, with hiring managers and entrepreneurs pointing to it as an example of how to lure exceptional people to your organization.
But there are two problems here. For one, the ad probably never existed. Even if it did, many people — it seems — are missing the point.
Contrary to common misconception, giving feedback—insightful, useful feedback—is surprisingly difficult. Why? Because, as legendary venture capitalist Ben Horowitz once observed, it’s completely, utterly unnatural.
“If your buddy tells you a funny story, it would feel quite weird to evaluate her performance. It would be totally unnatural to say: ‘Gee, I thought that story really sucked. It had potential, but you were underwhelming on the build up then you totally flubbed the punch line. I suggest that you go back, rework it and present it to me again tomorrow.’ Doing so would be quite bizarre, but evaluating people’s performances and constantly giving feedback is precisely what a CEO must do.”
Sometimes it’s tempting to feed our employees a shit sandwich—more on this momentarily—and give vital feedback in other completely awful ways, but it’s crucial to your career as a manager that you resist the urge to do so. As a cautionary tale, here are three uniquely terrible ways that inexperienced managers often give feedback and how you can avoid doing this yourself.
If you’re not careful, you can spend your entire day trying to keep up.
As a manager, your to-do list never really seems to shrink. You know your success somehow lies in getting ahead—that’s what keeps you coming back to the list—but chipping away at that mountain of tasks can quickly become unproductive.
Sometimes, being a good manager means taking the time to step away from your daily tasks. Counterintuitively, one of the best ways to get ahead is to look backward.
Books might not seem to contain the most pressing information, but with a close reading, you can learn more deeply than other mediums allow. With their lessons, experiences, and principles in mind, you can transform your management style in a way that gets you further ahead in the long-term.
We’ve gathered 12 of the best business psychology books that’ll give you insight into management, hiring, and persuasion.
It came, like most terrible and dangerous things, in the night.
OK so like 9:30.
But late enough. It arrived through the buzz of my phone. A new message in my inbox. A message from my new boss. And on week two of my tenure here at iDoneThis. The subject matter was nothing time sensitive, he wanted to introduce me to Jimmy Daly, an excellent writer and content marketer (whom you can find here).
I immediately opened the email and started typing a reply. I was excited. I felt that rush of opportunity. That ah-ha here’s my chance moment. Then I stopped myself. I deleted the draft and put my phone in my pocket. This is dangerous, I realized.
(This is the last part of the 3-part “Manager’s Series” by our friend, productivity expert and CEO of Real Life E time-coaching company Elizabeth Grace Saunders.)
Feeling ignored is one of the most infuriating situations you can be in — but it’s your job to control how you react to it.
When you’ve tried so hard to address team members’ emotional hurdles to accepting change and walked them through how to apply the change to their work situation, your blood can start boiling when you still don’t see the desired results. You feel ignored. Have you ever caught yourself thinking “How could they be disrespectful?” or “Do they notice? Do they even care?”
Before you stomp over to people to tell them exactly how you feel about their impertinence (or, send them that fiery Slack or email), step back and take a deep breath . . . and one more, just in case. Count to four, inhale. Count to four, exhale.
Bosses: sometimes your team is going to go above and beyond the call of duty, and you’re not even going to notice. It happens. Unless you spend your days micromanaging — and nobody ever wants this — you’re not going to see every amazing thing they do.
Why is this important? Because it means you’re lacking important information about how people are doing and so, are less able and likely to give feedback.
Feedback in the workplace is essential for making progress. So if you can’t know everything that’s going on at work, how can you create a great culture of frequent, helpful feedback?
That’s where peer feedback comes in.
First-time entrepreneurs often think building a product is the same as building a company, but experienced entrepreneurs know better.
To 3 seasoned entrepreneurs, building product is just the first step in a long journey, and it’s not even the hard part. Building product is hard, but building the machine that builds the product is even harder.
—Dennis Crowley, Co-Founder/CEO of Foursquare
At many companies, documentation isn’t a core part of their internal operations, but a laborious chore to be managed; a way to prove that a meeting or conversation took place, never to be looked at again. However, the most productive, successful teams recognize obsessive documentation for what it truly is—an opportunity to work smarter and … Read more
As Chief Happiness Officer, Ginni ensures that iDoneThis is helping teams and companies stay connected, enhance productivity, and improve their inner work life. Every so often, a team leader will reach out to ask why some team members just aren’t getting on board. Ginni reached out to friend, time coach and productivity expert Elizabeth Grace Saunders for some advice. (This is the 2nd of a 3-part “Manager’s Series”).
Previously, I addressed how emotions such as overwhelm can prevent your team members from implementing changes. But sometimes the key factor limiting people’s behavior isn’t how they’re feeling but not knowing how to integrate the change into their own work habits.
As a time coach, trainer, and author of The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment, I’ve seen that people can understand how a tool or technique functions as an independent entity. But the gap between how something works and how something works for them isn’t easy for many to cross. That’s why in Chapter 7 of my book, I include a step-by-step guide to all the areas to consider when you’re crafting your own routine.
Apart from building new habits, you must also Learn how to build a team with strong bonding which will surely help with the new habits in your team.
To get you started, I’ll explain four of those considerations here. Go through these with your team the next time you’re trying to implement a new practice, such as having everyone use I Done This. Remember that team members may have different answers to these questions resulting in dissimilar methods—that’s natural and normal. The method isn’t as important as achieving the end goal of lasting behavioral change.