The blog

When I held a course in struc­ture in Troll­hät­tan, Swe­den, not too long ago, one of the par­tic­i­pants shared a trick which I thought was quite inge­nious, dif­fer­ent and fun. I am there­fore glad to pass it on and share it with you today.

If I remem­ber and under­stood it cor­rect­ly, he works as a con­sul­tant in orga­ni­za­tions which are either in the process of down­siz­ing their oper­a­tions and staff, or liq­ui­da­tion. The mood amongst the employ­ees tends to not be the best, and when peo­ple feel res­ig­na­tion, it can be dif­fi­cult get­ting things done. And in spite of this, he can­not man­age to do every­thing that need to be done regard­less of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion alone, and hence still needs to del­e­gate most things to others.

Moti­vate more …
He told me that in order to raise the will­ing­ness and moti­va­tion amongst those he del­e­gates tasks to, he usu­al­ly includes some­thing that appeals a lit­tle extra to the per­son receiv­ing a del­e­gat­ed task. Some­times he attach­es a few sweets to doc­u­ments he needs some­one to attend to. Or he might cre­ate small and fun con­tests along the lines of ​”Whomev­er responds to the meet­ing-request first will receive a lot­tery ticket!”.

…by stim­u­lat­ing more!
Through his actions, this nice and gen­er­ous course-par­tic­i­pant is increas­ing the attrac­tive­ness of the del­e­gat­ed task. He charges the task with more val­ue, so when we com­plete the task we do not only get to feel good about hav­ing accom­plished some­thing and receive a thank you and a pat on the back, but also some­thing extra that stim­u­lates our sens­es and curiosity.

Do this
If you want to, take a few min­utes now and try to think of what you could spice up your del­e­gat­ed tasks with. Use a blank sheet of paper or a white­board to get your inspi­ra­tion flowing.

• Could it be some­thing that tastes good?


• Would it be pos­si­ble to some­how make it into a con­test and allow your col­leagues to com­pete for who gets to com­plete the task?


• Are you going to promise them a par­tic­u­lar­ly tasty treat when they report back to you?


• Could you swop tasks with a col­league, so that you offer to com­plete part of her ​”sourdough”-task if she helps you with what you need to do right now?


• Or, can you think of some­thing else?

Make it worth its while
If you charge the tasks you del­e­gate to oth­ers with some­thing extra, your task will most like­ly be more pri­or­i­tized by the per­son who is in charge of com­plet­ing it. And if you use this trick with a twin­kle in your eye and a smile on your lips, you and your col­leagues will sim­ply have more fun at work. If your col­leagues are inspired by your method and decide to fol­low suit, then you might be the one receiv­ing a sweet or a treat next time.