Pacific Lesson 1: Delegate Effectively

Lesson 1: Delegate Effectively

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself”
Andrew Carnegie

Pacific

This course is a step-by-step guide to managing high-performance teams. It provides hundreds of ideas that you
can put into practice with your team immediately and skips philosophies, definitions, models, and theories with
no practical application.

The content of this program was created over 12 years based on experience in executive training and coaching. To
develop it, hundreds of interviews were conducted with CEOs and executives of companies and institutions, and
it contains the wisdom of some of the greatest leaders in history.

Pacific is Gamelearn’s third product: A video game, course and simulator that will allow you to learn by practicing
and having fun. You’ll have to put some time into it, but real learning doesn’t happen in five minutes.

Gamelearn is a world leader in corporate training through video games. It has trained over 100,000 people on five
continents and in more than 600 corporations (many of them in the Fortune 500), and it has been recognized
internationally with a multitude of prizes and awards.

Delegate

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it”.

Andrew Carnegie. Padre de la filantropía moderna.

Managing a team is a full-time job with hundreds of associated tasks and responsibilities. Over the course of the
program, you’ll discover all the things it involves. Having the time to do all of them means that you have to delegate.

By delegating:

-- You’ll have more time for tasks that have greater added value.
-- You’ll multiply your capacity to get results (through people).
-- You’ll develop your team members’ self-confidence and skills.
-- You’ll demonstrate your confidence in them, motivate them, and earn their loyalty.

“When I give a minister an order, I leave it to him to find the means to carry it out”.

Napoleón Bonaparte. Militar y gobernante francés.

Soft skills training

through video games
www.game-learn.com

Copyright © 2015 Gamelearn · All rights reserved. Modification and/or reproduction, total or partial, is strictly forbidden without prior written permission by the copyright holder.
Pacific Lesson 1: Delegate Effectively

Tips for effective delegation

-- Delegate more. You are most certainly doing things at the moment that someone else could be doing.
-- Don’t expect your team members to do things as you would: It’s not going to happen. But that’s not
necessarily a bad thing. What interests you is the result, not how it is achieved. Does the difference really
make up for the time and effort you would have to invest to do it yourself?
-- Specify exactly the result you expect: Lack of detail in this point is the main reason for problems, conflicts,
delays, and inefficiencies in the delegation process. Explain how you want to report to be, the design you
need, the proposal, the presentation... Visualize the final result with the person you’re delegating it to before
asking them to start work. Define how success will be evaluated at the end of the process.
-- Each task must have just one responsible party: When the responsibility is unclear, there is a high probability
that the task won’t get done. You should avoid diluting responsibility. If you want something done, clearly
define who is responsible for it.
-- Each task should have a deadline: Otherwise it probably won’t get done. Agree on this date with the person
you’re delegating to; this will increase their commitment to it. Don’t worry, the other person will be much
more ambitious than you are when it comes to defining a deadline. Later, it will be much easier to be strict,
since, after all, the other person proposed it.
-- Provide the necessary resources: If you expect the task to be done right, you’ll have to make sure that the
person has the information, training, tools, and budget necessary to do it.
-- Give the person the freedom to decide how to do it: Ask for a specific result, define some basic lines of
action, and let them decide how to carry out the task from there. Don’t work “through” the person. A puppet
will always need you to move the strings. You want each person on your team to work with true autonomy.
-- Trust the person to be able to do it: If you transmit this trust, the person will do everything possible to
deserve it. [See the lesson on the “Pygmalion Effect” on the motivation sheet]
-- Define a tracking plan: The goal is not to monitor what the person is doing but to analyze progress, detect
deviations, and to be able to fix them in time. If the person understands from the outset that review meetings
are planned, they will see them as part of the work system and not as meddling.
-- Don’t solve the person’s problems: Problems will arise along the way. You can solve them faster and better.
But if you do, each time a new problem arises, you’ll have to come to the rescue again. Help the person think
of solutions. Don’t answer their questions. Help them come up with the answers on their own. At first, it will
take longer, but in the medium term, you’ll make them learn to do things independently and you won’t have
to step in again.
-- Give feedback: During the process you should provide feedback, both positive and negative. You should
understand what the person is doing right and what they are doing wrong. [We’ll go into greater depth in
the lesson on feedback] Recognize and celebrate achievements and progress along the way. Feedback is not
something you give at the end of the project; it’s an ongoing and evolving process.

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in them-
selves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish”.

Sam Walton. Founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club.

[This lesson will enable you to activate the “Delegate” button in the game so that you can use it, by clicking on the
characters, to ask them to execute tasks for survival and building the hot-air balloon to get off the island. You can start
to delegate now; there’s no need to take any other action. From now on, delegate tasks to every person, everyday. It’s
important, but not essential, that the characteristics of the task fit with those of the person. Try not to leave anybody idle.]

Soft skills training

through video games
www.game-learn.com

Copyright © 2015 Gamelearn · All rights reserved. Modification and/or reproduction, total or partial, is strictly forbidden without prior written permission by the copyright holder.