What I'm Learning About the Art of Delegation

Originally I thought that I had to do the work, and that if I delegated, quality would drop or the outcome wouldn’t be as good as it could be.

After reaching an unbearable level of stress, a friend showed me an old account of Moses and how he delegated his work to address and judge matters amongst the nation. This freed him up to handle the most important and high-impact cases.

So I started looking for opportunities to remove work and decisions from my plate, purposely leaving the highest-impact ones in front of me.

The results so far have been interesting. The tradeoff of quality comes at the benefit of even higher levels of quality for the most important work.

Like ordering groceries or writing some functions, there is the way I would ideally do it, but then there is the outcome, which has a greater tolerance for being different from my ideal.

People. I care way more about people and their outcomes than the stuff in between.

Similar to that Moses account, some things should not be delegated, and that’s getting clear. I still talk to people face to face when I’m trying to understand someone. I’m trying to learn what needs my direct attention besides the outcomes and the responsibility. Attention to people and their experiences matters, and the hands-on interaction matters, but it’s up to our judgment as to what we value and what we delegate.

The highest-impact work on my plate isn’t the functions or the errands. It’s people. Delegation, for me, is making sure I’m actually there for that.