When leaders and managers spend time thinking about work-tasks before they delegate them to people they gain advantage over those who choose not to invest the time.

They gain advantage for 3 main reasons:

1. They improve their ability to match people's talents to work-tasks,
2. They improve their ability to communicate about work-tasks, and 
3. They make fewer delegation errors.

• Is it a routine task or a not-routine task?
• Is there a system/process for doing the task?
• Is that system/process in writing?
• Has that system been well communicated to all involved and affected?

If the leader or manager does not understand both those things then the leader is taking a chance – taking a risk – when people are assigned to perform tasks.

To make this point more graphically - It is risky to assume bright people can perform simple tasks.

Another graphic point – When a task is not performed well there are only a few reasons why it is not performed well.

Seeking Simple, let’s create a short list of the reasons why a task is not performed well:

1.    The task is impossible, so nobody could do it

2.    The task is possible but not clearly defined/described, so people may do the wrong thing

3.    The task is possible but the person doesn’t understand it: the person isn’t capable of understanding the way the task was defined/described; the person, for one reason or another, didn’t listen…the communication failed

4.    The task is possible & the person understands it  but lacks the talent to perform it

5.    The task is possible & the person understands it  but lacks the knowledge to perform it

6.    The task is possible & the person understands it  but lacks the skill [practice/experience] to perform it

7.    The task is possible & the person is capable of doing it but chooses not to do it: the person chooses to spend the time doing something else; multi-tasking - the person does something deemed more important and runs out of time; the person doesn't like the task; the person is prone to procrastinate; the person doesn’t like the boss or the company - sabotage

Yes – even the short list contains many possibilities. That’s the challenge of managing and leading people. Many things can go wrong according to Murphy they do go wrong.

So - leaders and managers need systems/processes for sorting through the possibilities to determine why things went wrong.

Leaders must do something about it...

• When they notice their people are under-performing
• When they find their people are making an unusually high amount of errors in their work 
• When they sense their people are just going through the motions 
• When they know their people's work quality is substandard
• When they see their people aren't providing their best effort 
• When they see their people showing disregard for the rules 
• When they hear their people bickering back-and-forth, criticizing one another 
• When they learn their clients are complaining about products or services

Who would you rather be around, someone who is enthusiastic or someone who is the opposite?

Who would you rather mimic, someone who is enthusiastic or someone who is the opposite?

Who would you rather follow, someone who is enthusiastic or someone who is the opposite?

The answer seems rather obvious. Most people would rather be around, mimic, and follow other people who are enthusiastic.

Enthusiasm is a rare but highly contagious mindset.

Unfortunately, so is lack of enthusiasm.

Which leaves us with choices...

We can keep our eyes open for enthusiasm.

We can find celebrate enthusiasm.

We can initiate enthusiasm.

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