N. Raghuraman's column: Why do even good managers fail to get promoted?

A deputy managing director (MD) in a Faridabad-based industry was impressed by the work of an Operational General Manager (GM) and decided to promote him to top management. He called the GM for an informal review before sending a recommendation to the MD for the promotion. GM did better in the review, even though he didn't know it was part of the promotion process. But when the group's promotion list came, the GM's name was not in it. Do you know why they are lagging behind in this race? Because the last question of the MD stopped his promotion. The question was, if you are sent somewhere else for a year, who will take over your responsibility? The GM's reply was, "Where, sir, in the last several years, I have not seen a single person who can take my place. It is difficult to find an employee who can become a GM in this market. Perhaps he felt that he was proving his excellence and telling that he could not be easily replaced. But unfortunately he proved his weakness, which became an obstacle to the promotion. So welcome to the world of managers – where they show off their skills brilliantly but fail to recognize talent within the group due to their failure to delegate responsibility to others. The ability to delegate responsibility is the hallmark of a good manager. That's the conventional thinking, but if the delegation is so good, why is it so often wrong? Look around you, most managers fall into this delegation trap. They think of delegation as an on-off switch. That is, as soon as the employee is assigned the work, he himself is completely separated from it. They think that the employee will do everything right and if it does not happen, then they are frustrated. It's not that the GM has never handed over responsibility to anyone. But perhaps he asked, 'If I have to teach him by holding his hand like a child, why don't I do it myself in a short time.' But that was his stupidest decision. If you think the same way as that GM, then the problem for the company is not the team, it's you. Instead of handing over responsibility and disappearing, experts suggest a strategy, called the 'delegation dial'. It is a step-by-step method, in which it is decided how much knowledge, skills, and experience the employee has to perform the work you are assigning. He is then asked how he will complete this work. If you find the method wrong, tell them step-by-step how the work will be completed. Also explain why it is important to do the work in the same way. Now let the employee do it himself. The next level is 'coach', where you let the employee do the work assigned to him, but coach him through questions. For example, 'What other options did you think?' Then finally there is a 'safety net', in which the employee is asked to report directly to you. Then ask me what work was done and how did it work? Where did the interruption occur and why? How comfortable was he overall when taking on new work? If there is any doubt about the ability of the employee, it is better to divide the work into parts. Using the delegation dial accomplishes three goals – reduce your own work, grow the team, improve the quality of work without the rush of the end times. The trick is that a successful manager always has a three-pronged strategy — delegating departmental work wisely, learning the role of a senior intelligently, and making choices for his position.