ASK LEE: When and How to Delegate

Lee Coulter has an "Ask Lee" column at Ascension Health's Ministry Service Center, which means his staff can ask him any questions, and he broadcasts his answers to the entire Ministry Service Center team every week. He's kindly agreed to share these columns with SSON Question: Lee, what’s your philosophy of delegation as a leader? Lee: In short, whenever you can, delegate. There are a bunch of dynamics here. I find my personal philosophy very similar to the Catholic principle of Subsidiarity. What is that, you ask? Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that says matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority. People in general like to have control, but control comes at a cost of distance. The more stuff you "control", the less you actually control it – because it is impossible to continue to be close enough to everything going on to be in the best position to decide or act. I divide everything into two groups: negotiables and non-negotiables. I try to get as much as possible into the negotiables bucket. As I have said previously, most of our decisions are kind of irrelevant. Therefore, why spend time worrying about "how we get to the grocery store"? Did we get there? Good enough. Every once in a while, there are things that need to be held by the leader, but my experience has been that leaders that don’t delegate as much as possible are destined to hit a ceiling in terms of how much stuff they can lead. If control is really important, then there are only so many hours in the day available to manage so many tasks or decisions. There is a very real upper limit. Really great leaders work hardest on inspiring others to what is possible and leaving as much of the detail as possible to those that are smarter and closer to it. My default is to ask who is in the best position to take something on, rather than debate myself over whether it is something I should be doing. Only if I come to the conclusion that I am closest to a thing do I consider not delegating. [inlinead] Question: If you could take any college or gradual-level course in any subject – just for fun – what would it be? I like to cook. I love eating and, well, I cook so I can eat what I like to eat. My wife Shannon and I regularly watch some of the cooking shows (who would have thought Food Network would become so freakishly popular). I would like to take some culinary classes to learn some of the basics. When we watch a show, we sometimes observe that I would fail big time for lack of some of the basics. For instance, I have no idea of the basic proportions in a mix to make ice cream or to make different breads or cakes. There are a hundred other things I would take given time, but I would start there. NOTE: Lee heads Ascension Health's Ministry Service Center, which is in the third year of a six-year implementation for all healthcare entities in Ascension, the largest not-for-profit health system in the United States. By the end of calendar year 2014, the Ministry Service Center will support 150,000 associates as clients across the US. MSC is also in the early stages of supporting other key initiatives within Ascension, such as the creation of a unified travel services division and physician back-office services. The Ministry Service Center was the winner across two categories in SSON's 2014 Shared Services Excellence Awards: once for "Culture Creation", and a second time for "Improvement and Innovation." About Lee Coulter: Lee Coulter has had an impressive career, and is broadly considered one of the leading Shared Services practitioners in North America today. Now in his 8th industry, Lee was previously Senior Vice President of Global Shared Services at Kraft Foods and a leader of Kraft’s corporate wide "Organize for Growth" transformation initiative. In this role he implemented shared services in nine global functions, delivering support across more than 70 countries and completing major outsourcing transformation "mega-deals" in IT, HR, and facilities management. He created and led the Shared Services Center of Excellence and the Outsourcing Center of Excellence at Kraft. While there, he also received Chairman Roger Deromedi¹s CEO Award for his efforts. Prior to joining Kraft, Lee served as Vice President of Infrastructure Services at AON Corporation, where he implemented ITIL and shared services, reduced costs by more than 35%, and integrated legacy infrastructure from a long acquisition strategy, finally outsourcing IT to CSC. Lee spent 15 years with GE in a multitude of roles culminating in VP of GE’s outsourcing business. He also spearheaded the Company’s global Y2K initiative and served as a technical and operating executive in its Healthcare Services business, including as an expatriate in China. He received the President¹s Award from GE CEO Jeff Immelt. Lee holds a BS in Electronics Engineering from DeVry University and has completed all course work for a BS in Electrical Engineering and a Masters Degree in Biomedical Engineering at California State University at Long Beach. When not leading MSC, Lee can be found in his workshop, making sculptures out of wood and stone. He will be writing a weekly column for SSON's website in which he will share (nearly) everything that comes across his desk these days. More from Lee next week...

ASK LEE: When and How to Delegate

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