How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 396
us to define the level or risk and growth potential (for the delegate) a
decision to delegate will have on your goals.
The first scale is the employee’s competence level. Each of your
employees will have a unique position on this scale. It’s clear everyone
has unique talents and developmental needs. We all have both.
Competence is measured from low to high. Low competence is an
employee who has limited to no cognitive, technical or interpersonal
competence. High competence is an employee who has exceptional
cognitive, technical or interpersonal competence. Once you identify the
placement of the employee on this scale, it is time to analyze the task.
The second scale measures the difficulty in completing the task. Like the
first scale, every task is unique as well. When using this tool, you are not
measuring the risk of all your tasks against all your employees. Instead
you are measuring each task uniquely with each employee. The task
difficulty is measured from simple to complex. A simple task is one that
involves very little training and few steps. These tasks are usually linear.
That is the steps are sequential and involve little to no deviance from the
standard. A complex task may involve in depth training and multiple
steps. These tasks may be non-linear. That is there may be a need to
make decisions. Once you identify the placement of the task difficulty,
you can cross reference the two positions to determine the risk
quadrant.
The risk quadrant is not a warning to avoid delegating. It is a warning
that you have to put parameters into your strategy to ensure the
delegate is successful. There are four quadrants that classify the risk and
growth potential of a decision to delegate.
Quadrant 1 – Low Risk / High Growth
Quadrant 2 – High Risk / Low Growth
Quadrant 3 – Low Risk / Low Growth
Quadrant 4 – High Risk / High Growth
Quadrant 1 is for low to moderate competence delegates and the task is
simple. Growth is high because the assignment is manageable for them
yet is unique to their routine. It creates an opportunity for this employee
to grow towards the High Competence end of the scale. Quadrant one
also prepares this employee for more complex tasks in F