Delegation, Discomfort and Decisions!

This blog is gonna be rather short, suprisingly short actually - not just because I am busy juggling a bunch of things in my life at the moment, but also because this is more so a self-reflection than a full fledged analysis of a research paper or the latest update on my Quadruped task.

The other day I was in the classroom, when someone brought up the idea of participating in a hackathon. And it was a reputed one so I gave a serious thought to participating in it. But then a thought quickly raced through my head, the thought that the people who were participating with me weren’t all that good, and me being me would end up doing most of the work even if it meant missing basketball - a sport that I love so dearly.

But hey, it’s not just cases like these, I manage a team of over 40 people where I also head multiple projects. As the work begins I put people on todo boards and assign tasks, but then as time goes on, I begin taking up most of the work and with time I have realized it is because of the following reasons:

1. The delay caused in assigning tasks, correcting their errors, explaining the workflow etc.
2. The discomfort in asking them to do a certain task on top the existing tasks that they have been assigned.

Okay valid, sometimes delegating tasks can slow things down, but then what I need to remind myself of the following things:

1. The initial steps are slow, but with time, the people whom you assign tasks also grow, and the work becomes easier
2. You have a better team to work with on new people, and also more time to do things that are meaningful.

Then comes the decisions part, and more than just decisions, this segment is related to having ideas of your own. More often than not, I find myself being swept by the barage of suggestions and ideas, with little to no room for those of my own. These have the following repurcussions:

1. When questioned I would have nothing better to say than “Oh It sounded right”, instead of being able to give a rational explanation about why the decision was made.
2. Sometimes this leads to obscene amount of time being wasted, because you keep switching from idea to another, because all of them sound fascinating/brilliant, compounded by the lack of thoughts of your own.

Now, don’t get me wrong, obviously suggestions from your team mates are invalulable and important, but what I want to stress here is the importance of having thoughts that are your own, and learning the art of delegating tasks in a way that help you and your team grow and learn.