I had a chat yesterday with my friend Chris I. about how we learned to delegate tasks to our team.
I still remember a session with Yannis M., the most experienced Agile coach in Greece, seven years ago (!) when we were about to scale the Product team at efood.
Yannis said, “We need to significantly scale the team.”
I asked, “Why? I just need two PMs to help with XYZ tasks.”
He replied, “Your current model won’t scale. You handle too much on your own.”
I wondered, “Am I handling tasks the wrong way?”
He said, “No, but that approach doesn’t work. You must build a team you trust and delegate well. That lets you focus on the strategic side of your role. It is less tangible than completing tasks, but it matters and you’re a good fit for it.”
At first, I found it hard to let go of tasks, especially those in my core skill area, product marketing. Over the years, I improved. But I never paused to think how I learned. Yesterday’s chat made me realize it was mostly by doing and by failing.
No courses. No books. No formal trainings with real value (although I had multiple ones). Just action and feedback from colleagues. I tried frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix, but I never made them work in real life.
In order to become better at delegation, I needed:
- Humility to accept that, since I didn’t know how to delegate, I would make many mistakes.
- Business understanding to avoid risking important projects: start with simple ones, but gradually delegate more critical tasks when the odds of success are high.
- A strong team, which requires good hiring skills. I was lucky to build a great team, and that made delegation much more effective.
- Patience, because it won’t work perfectly from day one.
- No ego. It’s not about you anymore; it’s about your team. You succeed through your team, not through yourself. It may sound cliché, but it’s the most important lesson. Not all individual contributors are meant to be managers, and that’s okay.
PS: I truly believe a good manager should have been an IC first, but I might be biased since that was my path. I’ll write another post on that topic specifically.
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