Coaching & Workshops
The manager who does everything themselves is usually your best individual contributor and your biggest single point of failure. This session works on why they hold on and what has to change for them to stop.
Why it matters
People who will not delegate almost never lack a system. They lack a way to be comfortable with work being done differently, and slightly worse, by someone still learning. Telling them to prioritise does nothing, because the barrier is not the calendar.
The cost compounds quietly. The manager burns out, the team never develops, nobody can cover a holiday, and your best person becomes the reason nobody else grows. It usually surfaces as a resignation, either theirs or from someone who got bored waiting.
What the session covers
In the room
Everything they did last month, sorted by whether it actually needed them. Most people are surprised by how much did not.
How to give work away with enough context that it succeeds, and enough room that the person owns it.
The moment something is late or imperfect and the instinct is to grab it back. This is where delegation usually dies.
Signs you need this
The tell is not busyness. It is that the team around this person has stopped developing, which is much harder to see and much more expensive.
If two or three of these are true you are past the point where it resolves on its own. None of them are unusual, and all of them are cheaper to fix than to wait out.
Sound familiar
Afterward
A specific list of things handed over, with names against them, rather than an intention to delegate more.
People who were waiting for permission get real work, which is usually the retention story underneath this.
The practical test. If the team functions for two weeks without them, it worked.
How it runs
Managers and senior individual contributors who are overloaded. Often run for a whole management layer at once, because the habit tends to be cultural rather than personal.
Sessions run on site or virtually, and they are built around situations attendees bring rather than case studies from a textbook. You get a fixed fee before we start, and the person who scopes it is the person who delivers it.
Practicalities
Questions
Managers and senior individual contributors who are overloaded, and anyone whose team cannot function when they are away.
No, and time-management training is usually why the problem persists. The barrier is rarely the system. It is discomfort with someone else doing the work.
Yes, and it often works better that way, because the people receiving the work get to say what they need to succeed with it.
Half a day, with a follow-up session about a month later to see what actually got handed over.
Sometimes true, and then you have a succession problem rather than a delegation problem. We will say so.
It will, at least once, and that moment is the whole workshop. We spend real time on what to do when the first handover comes back late or wrong, because that is where most people quietly take everything back.
Yes. Senior specialists who are a bottleneck have the same problem and often less support with it.
We recommend a short session about a month later to check what actually moved. Intentions are easy in a workshop and hard on a Tuesday.
Related
Handing work over only sticks if expectations are clear.
Expectations and Accountability →The skill that replaces doing it yourself.
Coaching Skills for Managers →Senior-led, delivered by the person you meet
Tell us who is drowning and we will scope a session. No obligation, and we will say if one of the others fits better.
Tell us what is going on