The Art of Delegation
| Published date | 01 June 1965 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1965.tb01607.x |
| Date | 01 June 1965 |
| Author | R.J.S. BAKER |
The
Art
of
Delegation
li..J
.S
.UA
KER
7hzs
IJ
[fir
third
article
by
Mr.
Baker expresrin
hu
personal uiews on
thc
general
pocesscs
of
administration. Mr.€laker
is
an
Assirtant
Secretary in
the
Personnel
Ihkartnirnt
of
the
Post
0Jk-e.
Ikspite the mass
of
literature that has been puMished on the subject over
the past
txvo
decades and the number of respectable definitions that now
exist, many
people
who talk and write about management-or who
practise management, or who attempt to teach management
-
appear to
have different, and indeed not always at all precise, ideas as to what the
word signifies. (Mr.P.D.Nairne
for
instance in his recent stimulating
article
on
‘Management and the Administrative Class’’ gives some inter-
esting examples and descriptions
of
the management process, but never
seems
to
get anything like a precise definition.) The confusion is even
greater xvhrn people start to discuss precisely how management should be
taught.
For
some
people the teaching of management seems to mean general
stutlies about the economic state of the nation, sociology, psychology, and
so
011
-
which can certainly form a useful background education for
managers
-
combined with instruction in certain techniques or ‘tools’ of
manage:nejit
such
as statistics, cost analysis, operational research, and
personjicl selection But
-
valuable as these things are for mana-
qers
-
indeed, often essential
-
they are not management
-
any more than
weapon training is tactics or strategy. For other people management
teaching
is
to a large extent teaching about particular activities to which
the ski!ls and processes of management may be applied
-
such as pur-
chasing, marketing, production and labour relations. But such things are
aspects not of management but of manufacturing industry. Similarly a
Imok
on
farm management might have chapters on the rotation of crops
1Pu6Lic
Administration,
Summer
1964,
Vol.
4.2,
pp.
I
13-122.
‘1,ord
Franks in his Report on
British
Business
Schools
(British Institute
of
Management,
19G+,
pp.
0-9)
says it is clear that useful knowlcdge to
be
imparted in the highest level
of
managrmrnt training
is
of
two main kinds, first
‘
“framework” knowledge: applied
rconomim, sociology and psychology’ and second ‘certain skills
or
techniques
of
manage-
ment
. .
.
operational research, linear programming, resource allocation and strategic and
business planning, derision-theory and
its
applications, the
use
and application
of
computer
tcchniquc~s
. .
.
.’
‘55
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
and the care of livestock; but these are farming subjects, not management
subjects. If management is a general skill, art or science applicable to all
forms of large-scale activity, it cannot consist of the sub-divisions of any
one such activity
-
be it industry, commerce, agriculture, government,
education or anything else.
Now management surely means getting things done
-
and deciding how
to get things done, and to some extent what things to get done
-
through
other people
-
usually on a fairly large scale. (Doing things oneself by
oneself is not management. Direct personal oversight of people carrying
out tasks determined precisely by some higher authority
is
not manage-
ment: it is supervision.) The basic principles of the true management
process are concerned with such matters
as
foresight, planning, com-
munication, organization, delegation and control. Even assuming that one
can get these functions defined sufficiently clearly and fully, and in
a
way
that will command
a
reasonably wide measure of assent, is there really
enough
-
of practical use
-
to
be said about them to make them the subject
of teaching? How far can the essentials of management itself
-
as distinct
from its background, its tools and its subject matter
-
be effectively taught?
DELEGATION
-
THE PARAMOUNT NECESSITY
OF
MANi\CF,MI:N'l'
When I raised this question in a discussion with a senior colleague some
little while ago, he replied that there were at least some elements
of
management that could be directly taught
-
'for instance', he said
'you
can
surely teach delegation'.
The present article is really a response to the challenge thus thrown
out.
Apart from merely stating baldly that delegation is a Good Thing, how
can one dissect and analyze what it involves and teach people how
-
and
when and why
-
to delegate
-
and when not to delegate? If we look
at
management training from the practical and not the theoretical anglr,
we might start by asking what are the most striking features of bad manage-
ment and bad managers that we have all met at some time or other
-
and
what is the most usual failing
of
otherwise good managers? What is the first
thing a man ought to learn on being transferred from some other activity
to one of management? The answer
is
'delegation' nearly every time.
Although in this respect
I
have not suffered personally for many years,
nearly everyone at some time in his career has known the man who seemed
unwilling to trust his subordinates or allow them any initiative, who
would never give his mind to essentials because he was fussing with some
unimportant detail he could have left
to
someone else. Such people arc'
often elderly men who have got into ruts, but failure to delegate is just
;is
common among younger men trying to make their names and fearful
of
ever having to admit ignorance of any detail. Again there
is
the professional
man
-
be he doctor, solicitor, scientist or engineer
-
who has made himself
To continue reading
Request your trial