“When you sort your goals by length of Time Span, the “by when” part, what do you see?” I asked.
Colleen was actually re-sorting her list using arrows. “I am going to clean this up and put it in Outlook, but I can already see the short Time Span goals are those I can delegate. And some of the longer Time Span goals need to be split into some shorter Time Span goals, and I can delegate those as well.
“And some of the longest Time Span goals,” she continued, “well, those are mine to keep. Those will require a different kind of thinking. I cannot delegate that.”
Longest Time Span goal, those are mine to keep!
Great post Tom.
I sound like this manager in know begining to work on her team instead of working in the team.
When I speak with many program directors and manager/leaders they claim that they are too busy doing busy stuff to implement any long term planning.
As you wrote – delegation, is what a leader / manager does,
Fear that as a leader if you delegate tasks your team will feel that they are doing all the work.
Tom,
I am interested in how you made the connection between due date and time span. Just because a deliverable is required later in the process does not necessarily mean that it has a longer time span or involves more strategic thinking.
For example, when building a machine or facility the design (site layout, engineering drawings etc.) are needed first while the finishes (paint, tile etc) could be required last. Yet it may take years of coordinating stakeholders, engineers and architects to develop the design vs. a few months of focus groups etc for the finishes. In this scenario, I would rather handle the design and delegate the finishes.
Therefore, it would seem as though the “what by when” might be a bit simplified and that we should rather focus on “what and how long” in order to differentiate between the due date and the time span.
Any thoughts?