Good delegation requires active participation from the delegator but not overbearing involvement in the delegated thing, which is why, in the beginni… - Dave Stitt

Frank Sinatra never moved pianos. He didn’t worry about lighting, stage sets, or ticket sales.

The first is your Zone of Mastery, or Unique Ability, the zone you inhabit when you’re doing what you love most, what only you can do, and where the results are remarkable. However, since this is your work or professional life, you need to apply a second filter, which is the field of activity most necessary to get your organisation heading in the direction it needs to go. Where those two filters overlap, that’s what you should be doing. All accountabilities falling outside those boundaries are ripe for delegation, which will win you time.

Another is regularly to measure and appreciate progress as the distance travelled from the starting point, which lifts morale, rather than solely against the desired end point, which deflates morale. The clever delegator instils confidence, too, by framing the thing to be delegated not as a test to pass or fail but as an exercise in capacity development: ‘Lessons will be learned, and we will get there in the end’ is liberating, while ‘If you can’t do this there is something wrong with you’ is debilitating.