Empowering Through Delegation

Teaching others across North America what I had been applying personally in our local behavior-based safety process sharpened every aspect of how I understood the methodology it was based on. Further, it forced me to learn those concepts so well that I could explain them to people with varying backgrounds and native languages. Truth be told, that experience also helped me develop communication skills that have served me in every other role I’ve taken on since. But if that had been my sole focus, I would have found myself looking for employment since I had committed to keeping my local responsibilities as my top priority. As thin as this stretched me, it led to many opportunities for me to pay forward the lessons I had learned from my mentors.

After only a few trips to other facilities, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to juggle everything that had required 40 hours of my time each week, spend close to 40 hours on the road and in the air each month, and another 40 hours working with the folks in those other locations. Much of my time locally was tied to entering data from the hundreds of behavior-based safety observations completed each month, running reports on that data, and working with our steering committee and management team to analyze those reports in mitigating risks throughout our facility. Our local IT manager was amazing; he worked his magic on the nearly obsolete laptop the corporate office provided me for use while traveling, allowing me to keep up with most of the data entry from airports and hotel rooms. That helped me get back ten to fifteen hours each month, but there was just no saving the other 65 to 70 that I had previously been able to spend one-on-one coaching the observers and steering team members volunteering in our local process. 

This challenge taught me the value of being empowered to think outside the box. It also provided me with an opportunity to learn how empowering others through delegation fosters their growth, strengthens team bonds, and often produces results that would never happen otherwise. Before detailing how I learned each lesson, consider this statement as it relates to empowerment: “The truest form of torture is to assign responsibility without authority.” Interestingly enough, the guy who said this had done exactly that with a small group of volunteers I was part of a while back. He had set very specific goals for us to achieve, without any budget for doing so, and squashed every idea we implemented that hadn’t received his complete approval - regardless how effective we were. He told early on that we were empowered to make things happen, but his words and deeds did nothing to back that initial statement.

Once I realized there was no way I could juggle everything necessary in our local process and spend nearly half my working hours each month out of the building, I floated an idea to Rod and Kevin. I asked for their support in tasking each of our steering committee members with some of the duties I couldn’t do remotely. Since it would only be one or two hours per week from each of them, Rod and Kevin gave me their blessing to seek support from the supervisors and managers the steering committee members reported to. The sense of empowerment I felt from Rod and Kevin gave me hope, but I still had to learn how to provide someone else with that same feeling…

Most of the supervisors and managers I talked with offered reluctant approval. The real work for me started when I had to provide each of those steering team members with enough autonomy to perform the tasks a little differently than I had as long as they were achieving the necessary results. That was tough. But since I had no authority with any of them and needed their help, I chose to tread lightly. The results that followed are some of the most fulfilling that I’ve experienced professionally to this day.

Through that empowerment, from me to take on new responsibilities in the behavior-based safety process and from their supervisors to have time away from their regular duties to do so, each of them performed at a higher level; in their normal jobs and with the new tasks they took on. The training I was delivering at other locations was producing positive results but the team that formed locally through this new sense of empowerment yielded what was widely recognized as the most effective behavior-based process in the company. Even better, though, has been the long term results so many of those steering committee members have achieved since. 

Rod and Kevin trusted me enough to empower me. I had a lot to learn to pass that empowerment on to the team around me. Delegating some of the most crucial tasks then allows them to have autonomy to complete those tasks with their own unique approach showed that I trusted them too. While that resulted in some longstanding relationships, my favorite part continues to be watching the success each of them have achieved since as they’ve built on those initial tasks that were delegated to them. That said, each of them needed a different type of support and the only way I could provide that was by listening closely enough to help unlock their potential - so we’ll pick up there soon.