管理技巧：如何恰当处理任务分配问题？

Everyone knows leaders should delegate to ensure that they are working on the right projects and deliverables.  But if you find yourself frequently miscommunicating with your team on deliverables, hearing about issues at the last minute, and misunderstanding how your team set their priorities, it may be a sign you’ve delegated too much, leaving their employees to feel abandoned and unmotivated. At that point, it’s important to take back responsibility for certain tasks to insure you’re providing your team the guidance and structure they need. Here are three steps you can take.

每个人都知道领导者应该授权以确保他们在正确的项目和可交付成果上工作。但如果你发现自己经常在可交付成果方面与团队沟通不畅，在最后一刻才听到问题，并误解了团队如何设定优先级，这可能是你委派过多任务的一个信号，让他们的员工感到被抛弃、没有动力。在这一点上，承担起某些任务的责任是很重要的，以确保你正在为你的团队提供他们需要的指导和结构。以下是你可以采取的三个步骤。

Take on a symbolic project. Obviously, you don’t want to overcorrect and start doing a myriad of low-level tasks in order to reconnect with your team. But taking on a symbolic project or task can be a visible way of demonstrating your re-engagement, as well as helping the company and advancing your own learning goals. For instance, I coached one senior advertising executive who realized she had delegated too much. She decided to get back into the details by learning a new piece of software. This gave her a new skill to share with other leaders in the company and her own team. Her time spent on the software also helped in the long run because when it was time to delegate, she understood all of the specifics of getting the work accomplished.

承担一个象征性的项目。显然，你不希望为了重新与你的团队建立联系而过度纠正，以及开始执行大量低级任务。但是，接受一个象征性的项目或任务可以是一种可见的方式来展示你的重新参与，以及帮助公司和推进你自己的学习目标。例如，我曾指导过一位资深广告主管，她意识到自己委派的任务太多了。她决定通过学习一种新的软件来了解细节。这给了她一种新的技能，可以与公司的其他领导和她自己的团队分享。从长远来看，她花在软件上的时间也是有帮助的，因为当她需要授权的时候，她了解完成工作的所有细节。

Reset with your team. One CTO I coached realized he’d been delegating too much because he no longer had proper visibility into what his teams were working on.  He’d been frustrated that departmental projects he had delegated — such as a dashboard and internal training, (which he felt would differentiate their department in the marketplace) got lost and forgotten with looming client deadlines. To combat this, he scheduled an offsite to reconfirm the vision for the department and get everyone on the same page again about goals and expectations.

重置团队。我教过的一名首席技术官意识到，他委派的任务太多了，因为他已经无法正确地了解他的团队在做什么。他曾委托的部门项目——比如仪表盘和内部培训（他觉得这会让他们的部门在市场上与众不同）在客户截止日期的迫近中迷失了方向，并被遗忘，这让他很沮丧。为了解决这一问题，他安排了一个额外项目来重新确认部门的愿景，并让每个人再次对目标和期望达成一致。

He realized through the offsite process that his team hadn’t understood the rationale or urgency behind the internal projects.  Afterward, he could follow up more effectively and make smarter determinations about where he could delegate without going too far, and his team was much more willing to focus on internal projects, as well.

通过从外查看，他意识到他的团队没有理解内部项目背后的基本原理和紧迫性。之后，他可以更有效地跟进，并做出更明智的决定，即他可以在哪里委派任务，而不会走得太远，他的团队也更愿意专注于内部项目。

Recommunicate the vision. The biggest over-delegation risk for leaders is leaving the  vision or culture of the company to others.  Of course, most leaders don’t think they’ve done this. Instead, they believe they’ve delivered and communicated the vision innumerable times. And yet, their teams are confused and missteps occur with delivering the work on a consistent basis. If you’re noticing that output on projects has stalled, there’s excessive disagreement on tasks and process, or unexpected and inconsistent behavior among team members, it may be a sign that you’ve over-delegated the vision to the point where team members feel they’re interpreting it or making it up on their own. A particularly obvious clue is receiving repeated questions from different team members asking you to clarify the vision.

重构愿景。对领导者来说，过度授权的最大风险是将公司的愿景或文化留给他人去构建。当然，大多数领导者并不认为他们这么做。相反，他们相信他们已经无数次地传达和传达了这个愿景。然而，他们的团队在一致的基础上交付工作时出现了混乱和失误。如果你注意到输出项目停滞不前,有过多的分歧任务和过程中,团队成员之间的或意想不到的和不一致的行为,它可能是一个信号,表明你已经过度分配你的愿景，团队成员认为他们已经在展现或自己创造愿景。一个特别明显的线索是，收到来自不同的团队成员的提问，要求你阐明远景。

For example, one CMO told me a story of how he had been working on a key partnership initiative for his company. He believed the partnership fit with the overall vision of the company laid out by the CEO. Unfortunately, the CEO had over-delegated the vision to other members of the executive committee and didn’t properly communicate a shift in his revenue strategy. When it was time to present the partnership to the board, the CEO rejected the work because it didn’t track with his new vision and the partnership stalled, wasting the CMO’s time and causing needless conflict and frustration.

例如，一位首席营销官向我讲述了他是如何为公司的一个关键合作项目工作的。他认为，这种合作关系符合首席执行官提出的公司总体愿景。不幸的是，这位首席执行官把愿景过多地委托给了执行委员会的其他成员，没有恰当地传达他的收入战略的转变。当向董事会展示合作关系的时候，CEO拒绝了这份工作，因为这份工作与他的新愿景不符，合作关系陷入停滞，浪费了首席营销官的时间，造成了不必要的冲突和挫折。

As a leader, to combat this form of over-delegation, make sure you’re using every public communication opportunity you have to stress and reinforce the message. For instance, you could remind people about the overarching vision at the beginning of a project, during town halls and other forums, at senior leadership meetings, or periodically through email communications. Without this approach, there can be a cascading effect of morale issues, loss of creativity, and a lack of teamwork.  But most, importantly, there is a loss of credibility for the leader.

作为一名领导者，要克服这种过度授权的形式，要确保你利用所有的公共沟通机会来强调和强化信息。例如，你可以提醒人们在项目开始的时候，在市政厅和其他论坛上，在高层领导会议上，或者定期通过电子邮件交流来实现这个远景。如果没有这种方法，就会出现士气问题、创造力丧失和缺乏团队合作的连锁效应。但最重要的是，这位领导人失去了信誉。

While there are times as a leader to step back and delegate to let teams grow, over delegation can backfire.  By using the steps above, you can ensure your department, team, and company are moving in the right direction together.

虽然有时作为一个领导者需要后退一步，授权让团队成长，但过度授权可能会适得其反。通过使用上述步骤，你可以确保你的部门、团队和公司共同朝着正确的方向前进。