Delegation can fail when employees lack ability due to:

1. Poor hiring - the employee doesn't meet the requirements of the role
2. Poor or no coaching or training - the employee lacks knowledge or practice at developing necessary skills, or both
3. Employee's lack of intrinsic incentive - the employee does not have the drive/self-motivation to perform the tasks
4. Employee's unwillingness to take risk - the employee may feel the downside risk exceeds the upside reward
5. Employee's fear of punitive action - the employee may be thin skinned and feel 'beaten down' as a result of former criticism
6. Poor communication - the task/authority/responsibility transfer may not have been clear and the employee simply did not understand the intent...this problem could be caused by failure to listen
7. Employee dysfunction - work to rule, sabotage, etc.
8. The I'm-too-busy mindset - this is a really troublesome catch-all...when we believe we are too busy we provide ourselves a blanket excuse for not listening, not remembering, not understanding, not accepting accountability, and not doing lots of other things

Is your leadership team meeting your expectations?

If it is – Congratulations - keep up the good work!

If it is not – we can help.

We know the small-business challenges:

• lack of time: everyone talks about being too busy to handle current work let alone something new
• lack of accountability: deadlines pass and goals are not achieved
• communication difficulties: there’s lots of talk…and too much of it is confused and negative
• lack of customer connection: something is getting lost between good intentions and delivery…and client satisfaction could be much better

We have small-business solutions:

• simple tools and straightforward methods, designed to improve the way leaders communicate with one another, make decisions, and take the actions that deliver results
• mentoring and group guidance, designed to support, educate, and energize leaders and the people on their leadership teams

We offer new approaches to problem-solving. We specialize in solving people problems and process problems. We do this by concentrating on:

Talents – People generally only have a vague understanding of their talents. A couple of quick 1-on-1 sessions can identify Talents and create the Talent-Opportunity-Knowledge-Skills pattern that is proven to improve both motivation and performance of tasks.

Communication – There are 4 key communication areas:

1. General Communication: for accountability and results
2. Idea & Innovation Communication: to promote changes for the better
3. Resolving Disputes: clarifying interests and expectations
4. Client Communications: from marketing to getting profitable deals done

We offer support in these 4 communication areas.

There are Task Donors: those are the people who delegate tasks.

There are Task Recipients: those are the people who receive those delegated tasks. 

Task Transplants involve compatibility...if compatibility is not present then the transplant is rejected.

How might we test for Task-Transplant compatibility?

If we are a donor of tasks we can ask ourselves questions like:

• Do I understand the various consequences of the assignment I am about to delegate?
• Have I properly sold the task?

If we are a recipient of tasks we can ask ourselves questions like:

• Do I understand the various aspects of the assignment I am about to receive/accept?
• Have I bought the task?

And, donors and recipients together can discuss answers to questions like:

• Do we both really understand the importance and urgency of the situation?
• Have we considered the other Task Dimensions?
• Have we communicated fully?

Task transplants succeed when the donors and recipients communicate fully, test for reasonableness, and test for task-transplant compatibility.