The Busy Manager's Guide to Delegation

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This is a book for managers or others who have never delegated before. It uses a commonsense approach and various charts to help a manager determine what tasks should be delegated and to whom. This book uses a step-by-step guide to teach how to delegate to subordinates and would be of value for someone in an organization with many obligations and employees who are available for delegated work. Content is specific to managers in a business setting who are developing the skills of their subordinates by increasing their responsibilities and, therefore, their accountability. To illustrate their points, the authors focus on the business world, so the scenarios they give as examples include balancing travel schedules, project deadlines, and interdependent team relationships for meeting sales goals. The book content is not easily generalized to the perioperative environment and, therefore, may not be suitable for perioperative managers.

There are no special features to this small, tightly bound book. It is organized into chapters according to the overview that is presented at the beginning. The author outlines the “Five Step Delegation Process,” which includes determining which tasks to delegate, identifying the right person for the job, assigning the task, monitoring progress and providing feedback, and evaluating performance. Each of these steps make up a chapter of the book in which the author goes into detail about that particular topic. The book also contains a very brief glossary and an index, which are not particularly helpful. Specific topics are easy to find based on chapter names, so these added pieces are a bit redundant.

The information presented in the book is brief, specific, and to the point. The authors' focus on beginners rather than those experienced with delegating makes it a “how to” book that would be most useful to a new manager with several direct reports under his or her charge.

The world of nursing seems very distant from the environment discussed in this book. Often, business principles can be transferred to the perioperative world, but this book is so specific that it is difficult to generalize the delegating concepts to another field. The Busy Manager's Guide to Delegation could be viewed as part of a collection of resources for a manager. Readers who choose this book may be inclined to seek out other books by the author, Richard A. Lueke, who has also written Manager's Toolkit, Coaching and Mentoring, and How to Become a Better Negotiator. Mr Lueke's coauthor, Perry McIntosh, has also coauthored a self-study course for aspiring managers.