Weekend Story- Delegation Without Abdication

Mark was a Regional Sales Head at a large Technology company. An old acquaintance of Mark, working with a large enterprise, reached out to him to let him know that a division in his firm was looking for a technology partner to drive their transformation agenda.

“They are serious about using technology to transform the division. I remember you mentioning the different solutions your company offers. So, I thought I would refer your company. First, I’ll send you the details of the division head.Then,you can have someone from your team connect with him.”

Mark immediately delegated the task to one of his senior sales leaders and asked him to deal with this requirement. But unfortunately, the sales leader was busy handling multiple other tasks. So he further delegated the job to a sales executive who promptly reached out to the Divisional manager to understand the requirements. 

Based on the requirements gathered, the sales executive submitted a proposal to the client. Unfortunately, there were many errors in the proposal. The unhappy Divisional manager passed on his feedback to the colleague who had referred the technology company. The embarrassed colleague escalated the issue back to Mark- “I had referred this requirement to you thinking that you would take care of it.”

Mark apologized profusely- “I am sorry, I had delegated this to a senior colleague of mine, thinking he would handle it. I should have kept an eye on my side.“

“It would have been nice if you had delegated the task and not abdicated your responsibility,” Mark’s friend retorted wistfully.