Leadership notes: Quick tips on how CDI leaders can effectively delegate

by Barbara Anderson, RN, MSM, CCDS

Merriam Webster describes delegation as the act of giving control, authority, a job, a duty, etc., to another person.

This would mean that you as a leader, with much thought and strategy, assign a task that you currently own to someone else. Perhaps it is just one task for a limited time or it could be an ongoing assignment of duties.

Why is task delegation important?

Delegation is valuable to the leader and to the one on the receiving end of delegation. The leader, who successfully delegates workload tasks and/or projects, creates additional time to accomplish more appropriate, effective, and desirable work. This might be designing program strategy, identifying and driving key metrics, or building relationships rather than drowning in daily details.

Delegation, when handled well, provides experience and career growth for the CDI professionals on your team and over time helps make the team more successful, builds the overall talent and skill-set within the team, while also building potential succession paths for future leaders.

It can be a proverbial win-win situation for everyone involved.

Why is delegation difficult?

Delegation can take more time up front to explain tasks and projects, to nurture a staff person through a process which might come second-nature to the leader.

The delegee may not have the skills, experience, and important contacts that the leader does and may not appreciate the value of the task or project. There might be a fear of looking weak when asking for help or being perceived as turning over undesirable tasks to subordinates.

How can leaders overcome delegation difficulties?

Let’s consider the “coconut in your backpack” analogy, based on a monkey analogy described by Onken and Wass. I choose coconuts because they remind me of tropical breezes, majestic palm trees, and sunny beaches. But too many coconuts in your backpack equal a load too heavy to carry—one that could ruin your peaceful day, even side-track your success as a leader on bigger issues. Besides, too much of a good thing is never good.

In every meeting, some coconuts fall, representing issues and/or problem ownership. As a leader, you will want total awareness of what coconuts you are accepting and which ones to give to the team (as well as which team member to give them to), thus avoiding taking all those coconuts into your own backpack and taking on everything. For the best outcomes, when a staff member brings an issue to the CDI leader in a meeting, the CDI specialist leaves the meeting with ownership of the issue—equipped with action items to help ensure his/her success in handling the concern, whenever that makes the most sense, of course.

As an example, suppose that in a CDI meeting, a staff member discusses that with a recent, long awaited EHR vendor change, the documentation related to ventilation start-and-stop times is not easily found in documentation by respiratory therapy. Below are some actions the CDI leader can take to delegate or to avoid accepting a coconut/issue in response:

• Discuss the available options for next steps, talking through the most appropriate steps to take.
• Elicit ideas and suggestions from the CDI specialist as she/he already knows what good, next steps might be towards resolution.
• If appropriate, allow the CDI specialist to take on the project to resolve the issue.
• Have a face-to-face meeting on a regular schedule to provide any support or direction and to follow progress being made.

Sometimes the coconut does come back to the leader, for instance if there is no progress with the issue and a leader-to-leader discussion is necessary. Yet consider the learning opportunities that can be provided to staff, as well as the unnecessary burdens you can avoid, when you delegate.

Besides watching where coconuts land and managing coconuts, the CDI program leader can also:

• Identify those on the team who are ready for more responsibility or desire more challenging work
• Consider that person’s capabilities, skills, and interests to make a good delegation match
• Give smaller tasks initially to test staff capabilities

Once you have trust, delegate the responsibility of an ongoing project. You would be monitoring those efforts more closely at first but eventually letting the staff member run with the project and reporting results. This provides the staff not only with those project management skills but also with a sense of pride in their capabilities.

Remember to circle back on a regular basis for updates and to provide support. By recognizing when to step in or when to simply cheer the CDI specialist on, the leader can assure delegation is successful.

Editor’s note: Anderson is an RN by background, having worked in various roles and settings. She has worked in performance improvement consulting for more than seven years, specializing in CDI, and currently is a Manager at Huron Consulting Group. Contact her at baanderson@huronconsultinggroup.com. Opinions expressed are that of the author and do not necessarily represent HCPro, ACDIS, or any of its subsidiaries.