Happy Friday!

I don't know about you, but I'm busy bouncing between lots of different things this month. A lot of my activities are related to beekeeping, so I'll spare you those details, though I did restructure my ryanlatta.com site to help with SEO. If you bookmarked any articles on my site, they may be broken.

One of the experiments I want to try is to focus my writing a bit more specifically on two audiences—technical leaders and product managers. So, let me know what you think about the content of my newsletters. I really value your input!

One technique I've noticed a lot of leaders struggling with is delegation, so I thought I'd write a bit about a common trap I see when leaders delegate or you realize you've been delegated to.

The Trap

So what is the trap you might be asking? The trap is that the delegation happened on ambiguous terms, leading to disappointment from both parties and potentially stunting the growth of the person to whom it was delegated.

For the leader, the ambiguous terms make them feel frustrated and disappointed that the person they chose didn't perform well, can't be trusted, or even made things worse. Many leaders would treat this as a test of the person they delegated to's abilities instead of attributing the disappointment to their poor delegation.

For the person who was delegated to, they feel stress, disappointment, and frustration as well. They feel like they were set up to fail, and that with better guidance they could have absolutely performed well, but instead their career is set back and relationship with the leader may be damaged.

The Solution

It doesn't matter if you're the leader delegating or the person they delegate to; the trap stems from a lack of clarity. A lot of information was never communicated, which creates a high probability of disappointment. So, the answer is to either give that information or ask questions to get that information.

If you're a leader you'll want to proactively answer these questions, and if you're the person they delegate to, you want to ask them if they don't provide the information.

• What would success look like?
• What are areas I should avoid discussing?
• What can I negotiate on?
• What can I not negotiate on?
• How would you like to be informed afterward?
• If there is a main point to convey or convince people of, what is it?
• What is the information I need to succeed?

This may seem like a lot of questions, but not all of them will apply to every circumstance. Here's a little test for you, though: think back to a time you delegated and felt this trap. Would answers to these questions have avoided the trap?

Delegation is an amazing skill and technique to develop, and developing it correctly is vital. Next time you delegate, keep these questions nearby and equip the person you delegate to for success. If you are getting delegated to, use these questions to succeed in your task and impress the leadership around you.

Sincerely,

Ryan

PS: Did you know I build exceptional software teams and products? A recent client saw a 20% improvement in their teams' productivity across the entire engineering organization. If those kinds of results are interesting, we should talk.