From the Ask Tom mailbag:

This question from Jan was in response to a post about Delegation from March 30, 2007 (seems a lot of people are reading the archives.)

Question:

Hi! I’m a bit puzzled with delegation as the most powerful time management tool. It could well be the most powerful learning and development tool, but the former I need some thoughts on this.

Response:

Delegation serves both purposes. As a Time Management tool, anytime someone else is performing tasks on our behalf, it frees our time up to do something else. And if that is our purpose, then we can free up a couple of hours every day.

But the real power for Time Management only comes when your purpose for Delegation is People Development. When you develop someone, you may be able to move significant tasks (that take a lot of time) off your plate. Instead of freeing up one or two hours, you may free up 50 or 100 hours.

Working with managers, I always ask, “How can you work for one hour and gain two hours productivity?”

But the real question is, “How can you work for one hour and gain 50 hours of productivity?” Only when your purpose for Delegation is People Development. -TF