[00:00:00] Okay. Well I know this one, you know, some of the cards are really just inspired by something somebody says. Right? And this is a good example of that because literally, I, I was having a conversation with the COO and she said, you know, I wasn’t sure if this person really delegated or abdicated the task or abdicated the responsibility.
And, you know, we were talking about this briefly on the. Sort of responsibility versus accountability and so on and so on. So this really stuck with me and adding a couple more stories. You know, the card was just born. What did you think? Read it. Abdication rather than, yeah, abdication rather than delegation.
I think this is an interesting one, isn’t it? Because. We’ve probably all seen someone abdicate their responsibilities or accountabilities rather than delegate. And it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a passion in large organizations for sure. Now someone throws something over the wall and then just uses that as an excuse to not be held accountable.
And you know, getting, getting [00:01:00] clear on that difference between delegation and abdication is, is a good topic for today, I think. Absolutely. But I will correct you with your permission and that is it. I’ve seen it in small companies as well. It’s a, it, it, it more depends on the leader than on the environment.
Yes. Mm-hmm. The environment and the culture. If the culture of accountability is not well set, you can see this more often. But that does not necessarily depend on the size of the organization. No, no, for sure. But I think a lot of it comes down to our experiences and I’ve, I’ve seen it most in large organizations where it’s rife, you see it everywhere. And I think that’s just because the way large organizations tend to function or, or not function. They’re normally highly dysfunctional. Anyway, coming back to abdication rather than delegation. What’s the, what’s the difference here? Well I think that you used the, the word accountability, and I think that that’s [00:02:00] important, right?
Because you cannot delegate accountability.. You have your accountability, and yes, you can give somebody accountability of their own, but it’s not releasing you of yours. You can give them a responsibility for a task. You can give them a problem to solve. You can give them part of the project to deal with, but the accountability stays with your, and basically the OR stays, stays with you.
Sorry. And the. Abdication really is the idea of, Hey, it’s yours, it’s off my desk, type of thing, right? You can do that in one very specific case, and that is when you’re doing to a peer, when you agree that a peer on your team is actually taking over that, let’s say, priority because they are better suited to do it or have access to a better resources, and then it’s truly off your desk because they’re taking over the accountability, but it’s not a delegation, it’s a handover.
When you are delegating to somebody who reports to you, you always [00:03:00] maintain the. Accountability of the ultimate outcome versus just saying, yeah, you know, that’s somebody else’s problem. And you know, the second story on the card is talking about the extreme example, right? When somebody literally said in the leadership team that somebody reporting to them screwed up and that was the reason why the project goes on.
It’s not my fault. It’s just, you know, one of those people like, what am I supposed to do it? That is. Typical and extreme case of abdication. So, so what does abdication look like? There are a couple of things in in your card that sort of made me sort of know, made me sort in know, think, think for a minute.
You know, you used the term when someone abdicates some their, their responsibility or their accountability. They’re effectively creating a scapegoat for the inevitable failure of that task or that project or, or that initiative. And, and I’ve, I’ve not really thought of it in that way because you, by doing that, you’re absolutely setting someone up to [00:04:00] fail.
You, you, you’re probably doing it knowing that they’re not gonna be successful. So, you know, this, is this an an ego thing? Is this just a sort of, you know, a a not committing to the outcome now whatev, whatever it is. It’s if this lands on your desk, you probably don’t want it, but you’ve probably got no choice.
Well, you were or I was, sorry, A bit brutal in that card. And you know, sometimes we are exaggerating for effect. And it’s not always malicious. Right. And you know, never suspect mal when incompetence is likely suspect here. And I think that some people do that or some leaders do that for. You know, fairly benign reasons.
They think that that’s how you actually give over a task. But they are creating a situation in which the chance of success is significantly lowered because by abandoning the accountability, [00:05:00] you are taking away your own responsibility to support and to ensure that whoever is now getting the task or job or project is.
Equipped and supported to actually take it to its conclusion. Mm-hmm. So when you abdicate, you say, oh, I, I want it off my desk. I don’t want to think about it. Right. And I, I will not. And that is definitely a problem. Yeah. And yeah. And then you have actual situations where they’re saying, oh yeah, I can then blame it on you when it inevitably fails. I’ve seen that unfortunately happening as well. Yeah. So, so delegation is you are handing off a task or an activity or a priority to someone else, but you are still very clear that you are, if you are the accountable person, you are still very clear that you still own it. You still got ownership for the effective, successful completion of whatever it is that you are delegating.
You know? And some people might say, [00:06:00] well, you know. I wanna be comfortable just handing tasks over and no, and not having to check back on them. And, and, and that’s okay, but you still need to set them up for success to be able to do that. So the abdication piece is not necessarily handing it over to someone else, so they run with it.
It is making sure that they’re set up for success rather than set up for failure, and then only checking up. On how they’re going at the level that’s needed, depending on their capability and their experience. I’m a, I’m a big fan of situational leadership. You know, Ken Blanchard’s situational Leadership, and in that model, he basically explains four ways of leading, depending on someone’s experience and competency and how able they are to take over a situation that you’ve given to them.
So if someone’s very inexperienced, then checking in on them might be twice a day. If someone is super experienced and can do this with their eyes closed, well, you might just say, well, let me know if you’ve got any problems. No, [00:07:00] no. Tell me if you need anything, otherwise, let me know when it’s done. So it’s, it’s at the level that’s appropriate to the individual and the situation.
It’s not a, you know, it’s not a, this is how you delegate. It’s gotta be appropriate to the person and the situation. You know, I am a, I’m a fan of Don Martel’s 10 80 10 principle, you know, which is like setting the project while them, letting people do their, do their work and then, you know, giving the last 10% on when, when that happens.
And as you’re saying, that is highly situationally relevant or, you know, situationally aware or it needs to be. I am, you know, you said the word handover or the expression handover. I’m almost thinking of delegation as an invitation to collaborate. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Right? When you’re basically saying, Hey, this is, this is some, this is an [00:08:00] accountability I have, I would like your help on that, and this is how we are.
Divide what needs to happen. And it might be that. You’ll do it all and I’ll check that it’s okay. Or you know, this is how we’re going to cooperate. And then the situational awareness comes in. How do you set up the communication around it? Mm-hmm. And yes, that can be experienced based, it can be based on pure logistics, like where are you in the world?
You know, what are the time zones and all of those things. It’s highly dependent on that specific case, but I like the idea of inviting for collaboration rather than. Giving an order to execute. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s me. I quite, I quite like that, that way of framing things because, you know, we’ve spoken at lengths about how do you, you know, how do you define delegation?
And I think that’s really, really clear. You know, abdication is probably a little bit harder to explain, but you’ll know it when you see it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, because I know you can see the expression on someone’s face. [00:09:00] Yeah. Yeah. If you don’t like it, that you are getting it and you know, it’s like, oh my goodness, I’m being set up here.
You’re probably a subject to abdication. Yeah. And, and in that situation, why would you commit to a successful outcome? You know, you haven’t, you don’t feel that you’re empowered, you haven’t been given what you need. You know, you haven’t got the, the resources that, that is gonna help you be successful. So why on earth would you commit to a successful outcome?
You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t. Yeah. Well, if you find yourself on a receiving end of abdication, you are probably in a environment, in an organization that is culturally not very open to you not committing to the outcome. So that’s where, that’s where your quiet waiting comes in, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because I will say yes, because.
Nobody’s asking me what I actually think, but I notice it’s not gonna help happen. So I’m not [00:10:00] going to put, you know, significant effort into it. Yeah. That is exactly the response you get. Yeah. So many of these conversations come back to five dysfunctions of a team, don’t they? Oh, 100%. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
No, it’s, it’s a very, very powerful framework. Yep. Yep. So, Milan, one of the questions I had was when you. When you created the concept for the card itself, the graphic on the card, what, what was your thinking there? ’cause I, I like, I like the image of the of the, the one bunny running away and one startled bunny being left behind.
What was your thinking there? Well, that’s, that’s the abdication and to be perfectly honest, that’s not me. I write a card and my illustrator. Goes and figures out something, right. Sometimes they ask me for an idea and sometimes they don’t. And then I, so I usually, you know, I get a good laugh every time I see the illustration, so it’s, mm-hmm.
It’s a [00:11:00] lot of fun. So you’ve got a who there? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, this whole project, oh my goodness. Like, we will, we will be talking about who not how, and you know, first who then what. The whole project of these cards has been so illustrative of that principle. I could never do it right.
Like you could say today that, hey, you could use AI to write a freaking thing. But it would a, it wouldn’t be me and it, it wouldn’t be the principle. So there are so many who’s in it, you know?. The team that’s doing the branding and the illustration, the next page publishing that is helping me with the with the editorial work.
It’s yeah, it’s, it’s a team effort and then you who’s asking the questions. So, you know, this, this all collaboration. Yeah, I just, well that, that put some, I just put some words into Google Doc and then a whole bunch of other people are doing other stuff [00:12:00] with it. Well, that sets us up nicely for the card where we do actually talk about who not how, because I’m sure that’s gonna be an interesting conversation.
Yeah, I do believe that very often you know, this is who not how is one of the most frequently. Reference books in the cards so far. Mm-hmm. So we’ll definitely touch up on that in the future. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let’s, that’s a wrap. Let’s wrap this up. Wrap, let’s wrap this up. So, delegation versus abdication.
Abdication. Bad delegation. Good delegate. Exactly in the right way. That sets someone up for success. Delegation, done well, invitation to help with something, and yes, very, very good that way.
