"Set and Forget" Leadership - How to Delegate so You Don't Get Burned

Sep 28 2021 • 6 mins

‘Set and forget’ leadership: Hand off the task as fast as possible, move on to other things. It’s what we tend to do when we’re in a hurry, but the biggest speed advantage this approach confers may be how quickly it can get us into trouble. Here’s a way to think about how to delegate that task we’ve cooked up so that things function smoothly in the kitchen, and nobody gets burned.

Notes and Resources:

Prefer to read? Here’s the full post: ‘Set and Forget’ Leadership: How to Delegate So You Won’t Get Burned
Like so many of his books, Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw is both and entertaining and informative look into the quirks of being human.
Check out Delegate or Die and how to delegate for a deeper dive behind the idea of why we need to delegate, even if we can do the task best.
For a detailed look at how to conduct an after-action review, read The After Action Review: A Leader’s Guide – it gives a blow-by-blow approach to what to do before, during, and after the big event so that each time you keep getting better.

Quotable:

“If it happened in our kitchen, our fingers are scorched; we have to own it.” - Ken Downer

“Micromanaging our teammates can erode trust and foster disengagement almost as fast as blame-shifting can.” - Ken Downer

“’Set and forget’ is now way to run a kitchen, not if we want to avoid sullen chefs and dissatisfied diners.” - Ken Downer

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