I’m working on a volunteer committee with a few core team members responsible for a very large task. The group is great and willing to jump in and do whatever it takes…
…but too often, they take care of things right away instead of engaging one of our volunteers to help. I get it — often, it’s so much easier to do something yourself instead of deploying a stranger, explaining things to them, etc., but in the long run, it’s not sustainable.
The same is true in organizations with staff. Instead of sharing the context, training employees on the process, and empowering them to do something new, we keep doing things ourselves. While it IS easier to do things on your own initially, that strategy only works for the short term. Long term, it’s almost always better to have the assistance of someone else.
Commit to preparing someone for future delegation. You don’t want to just hand off a task and run, but the time you spend developing someone now will pay dividends over and over in the future.
