by Rick Baker
On Aug 27, 2013
Delegation can fail when employees lack ability due to:
- Poor hiring - the employee doesn't meet the requirements of the role
- Poor or no coaching or training - the employee lacks knowledge or practice at developing necessary skills, or both
- Employee's lack of intrinsic incentive - the employee does not have the drive/self-motivation to perform the tasks
- Employee's unwillingness to take risk - the employee may feel the downside risk exceeds the upside reward
- Employee's fear of punitive action - the employee may be thin skinned and feel 'beaten down' as a result of former criticism
- 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
- Employee dysfunction - work to rule, sabotage, etc.
- 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
Often, people do not do what you expect them to do because they do not understand. As examples, they do not understand instructions or they do not understand how to perform the work. What we do not understand we cannot do.