At home, we delegate some of our housekeeping tasks.

Our cleaning ladies do a great job!

Dishes washed, counters cleared, sink disinfected; oven, refrigerator, and bathrooms disinfected; floors vacuumed or mopped and sparkling, random housewares put away.

However, there’s one little problem:

When they put things away, we can never find them.

Like any other house guest, the cleaning ladies haven’t learned Lori’s semi-random rules about “where things go”. (i.e., the drawer where the “round lids” go, the scissor drawer, the drawer where the “non-round lids” go).

Lori clears her entire bathroom counter to avoid searching for her toothbrush or hairbrush after the cleaning ladies visit.

Never can we find the missing things in the places we expect to find them. Sometimes we search for minutes; sometimes, we don’t find them for days.

Delegate and Lose Control: The Cost of Receiving Help

I’ve concluded that this is one of the less understood costs of having help: Other humans do things differently than me.

If I want it done “just so”, I may have to do it myself.

Short of paying them for hours to train them in the “house rules” of kitchen and bathroom storage, I’ve learned to expect them to have different priorities and expectations.

It’s rare to find a human being who has the same “common sense” I’ve built over years.

Delegate and Try to Keep Control: Drive all Creativity, Incentive, and Motivation Out of the Help

An alternative approach is trying to have others do the work, but micro-managing them to the point where their every action and result is dependent on guidance or feedback from you or someone else.

This works in the short-run, and can seem like a good idea.

However, very few people enjoy having their every move monitored and their every action pre-ordained.

Managing people or an organization this way can be counterproductive and will, ultimately lead to good people leaving the organization as they don’t want to be held back by over-intrusive “leadership”. In addition, this method of micro-managing every aspect of their work points to leadership that’s low in self-control and lacking in trust.

It also leads to low morale because those who stay behind will feel their contribution isn’t valued all that much. They’d argue that if their contribution was truly valued and they were truly a trusted member of the team, would they be micro-managed so much?

Delegate and Expand your Access to Expertise, Skills, Experience, and Resources

The flip side of losing control, or micro-managing, is gaining additional resources when you invite others to help.

Well-trained individuals eventually “personalize” their role and behavior to suit their own preferences and the unique characteristics of the situation as it evolves.

Furthermore, everyone knows and has different expertise, skills, experience, and resources than everyone else.

As a result, a team brings multiple types of expertise, skills, experience, and resources, compared to any individual on the team.

Delegate and give yourself the benefit of not only your team members’ expertise, skills, and experience, but also their relationships, time and, maybe, even their money.

Examples

• Here’s a story of a team that thought they would fail, until they asked for help. When they did so, they received unexpected resources.
• This story illustrates how important it is to delegate to the right person (and not give up when someone says it’s impossible). The first 3 people didn’t get the job done.
• Here’s the story of a person who shared her experience with someone else, and got a far more pleasant point of view.

Another Benefit of Delegation: The Cleaning Ladies Provide a Constant Source of Fun when Something Goes Missing around the House

And so it went when Lori’s car registration expired recently and she was going to renew it; but, she couldn’t find it.

She asked me if I knew where it was (we’d both talked about it while viewing incoming mail a few weeks ago).

I told her I’d sold it for $400.

She asked me for HER $400. I responded that it was MY $400; after all, I found it and, so, earned it.

Eventually, I admitted that I hadn’t sold her car registration. I didn’t even know where it was.

I told her perhaps the cleaning ladies had found and sold it for $400.

We quickly moved past that theory (Really, we joke about the cleaning ladies, but we know we’re the likely cause of most missing items –except in the day or two following their monthly visits).

Lost, Forgotten, Misplaced, or Stolen?

She’d already scoured the “mail counter”, so she was pretty sure it wasn’t there.

Then she looked at her office space. “Maybe I put it here…”

As she did so, I wondered whether she’d taken it out to her car (the obvious place to move it) but I was making breakfast and our banter continued, so I lost the thought before I shared it.

As though she’d read my mind, Lori asked if she’d put it out in her car.

I said that would be the obvious place to put it.

Then she asked where in the car she might have put it.

I told her it probably wasn’t in the glove compartment.

“Why would you ever put it there?” (Sarcasm is a skill I learned early and am still perfecting –although it often gets me in trouble).

Forgetfulness or Mishandling is the Common Causes of Things Getting “Lost” (“the Help” is Generally not to Blame)

Then I recalled a collection of “homeless bags” she put in her car a couple of years ago. They contained socks, food, and hygiene items for people who wave at her at stop lights. She gave away most that year, but there were still several left in a box in her back seat.

I mentioned it to her that maybe she’d put the registration in the box and then promptly forget about it, since it wasn’t a place she’d usually put things.

Be consistent: build a habit and misplace fewer things

She walked over and gave me a hug.

Consider this:

• What areas of your life or responsibilities do you currently delegate?
  • How often do you delegate?
  • Do you trust others to get the job done?
  • Which of your current responsibilities are you willing to delegate?
• Recall a time you “broke a habit” or, more likely, created a new one.
  • What was your motivation?
  • Do you recall how you did it?
  • How would you create or eliminate another habit if you had to start today?
• Is there a connection between things that amuse you, objects of jokes, and sources of irritation in your life?
  • What are the common sources of amusement in your household or workplace?
  • Who or what is the object of jokes around your house or office?
  • What are the constant sources of irritation in your life?

For more Information:

• about how to delegate
• about building habits
• on why you keep losing things and what you can do to stop it

Photo Credits:

• Lady mops the floor: Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash
• Papers piled on desk: Photo by Steve Baker, (CC BY-ND 2.0), Link
• Birthday card: Image by rawpixel.com