In a former article I wrote about Delegation vs. Abdication, I discussed how the difference between productive “delegation” and weak “abdication” came down to two things:
1. EMPOWERING and remaining invested in an assignment for an employee, show you care and are there to help to the best of your ability
VS.
2. ESCAPING a responsibility; simply dishing off an assignment and not providing much in the way of support for who you assigned the task to.
To favor the power of delegation, at Amazon Web Services (AWS), we were always encouraged to create mechanisms. Simply, a “mechanism” here is a complete process which converts inputs into desired outputs on an ongoing, recurring basis.
The key value of these mechanisms included allowing us to learn and improve from when things went wrong. These mechanisms enabled scalable process-based solutions and prevent tribal knowledge through documentation.
There are 3 components of this mechanism according to the Amazon Mechanism Workshop (internal course published in 2018): the tool, the adoption, and the inspection. The tool transforms inputs to outputs, the adoption provides incentives to the stakeholders, the inspection ensures continuous delivery of desired outputs.
One effective example of this we’ve employed at Cornerstone Technologies is our own Vendor Certification Table. This tool allows engineers to input courses and certifications to help the company to attain desired outputs (i.e. vendor status, etc.). The adoption has dismissed confusion around class scheduling and certification priorities. As we have adopted this tool, we have found ways to continue improvement and individual ownership. It’s adjusted for unexpected bumps in the road and clears the runway for healthy communication internally.
In short, mechanisms are empowering for delegation and help leaders to remain engaged throughout a significant assignment.