Delegate Without Dropping It: Hand Off Work That Gets Done

The moment. You hand someone a task - "put together the deck" - and get back something that isn't what you needed.

What most people do

Assign the activity ("make a deck") without saying what a good result looks like or what it's for.

Why it misfires. A task without an outcome is a guess. They can complete exactly what you said and still miss the point, because you never defined the point.

The rewrite

"I need a deck that convinces the exec team to fund phase two - 5 slides, the case and the numbers. Success is they say yes. You own how."

The move: define done. Say the outcome, the audience, and what "good" looks like - not just the activity. Give them the destination and let them find the route.

Your turn

Rewrite a task handoff to lead with the outcome and what success looks like.

Edge cases. For creative or ambiguous work, the outcome might be a question to answer rather than a spec - still name it, so they're solving the right problem.

This week

Hand off one thing by defining the outcome, not just the task.