Week 29 Day 6: What to Do When Delegated Work Comes Back Wrong

The default reaction when work comes back wrong is to blame the person who did the work. But in most cases, the failure is in the delegation, not the execution. The person did their best with the information they had. If the information was incomplete, inaccurate, or ambiguous, the failure belongs to the person who provided it -- which is you.

Here is the diagnostic process I use when delegated work comes back wrong. Step one: check the communication. Did I clearly define the expected outcome? Did I provide the context, constraints, and success criteria? If I cannot produce written evidence that I communicated these things, the failure is mine. Step two: check the understanding. Even if I communicated clearly, did the person understand correctly? The test: ask them to describe back to you what they were trying to achieve. If their description matches your intent, the failure is in execution. If their description does not match your intent, the failure is in communication -- regardless of how clearly you think you communicated. Step three: check the resources. Did the person have what they needed? The right tools, access, documentation, and time? Insufficient resources produce insufficient results. Step four: check the supervision. Was the check-in cadence appropriate? If you are discovering the problem only at the end, your check-in cadence was too infrequent for this task. Here is the conversation framework for addressing wrong work. Start with curiosity, not blame: 'Help me understand your approach here -- I want to make sure I set you up for success next time.' This framing accomplishes two things. First, it surfaces the actual cause of the misalignment, which is usually a communication gap. Second, it preserves the relationship by framing the issue as a process problem rather than a performance problem. After diagnosing the cause, fix the process, not the person. If the problem was unclear expectations, improve your delegation template. If the problem was insufficient check-ins, increase the cadence for this type of work. If the problem was a genuine skill gap, provide training or pair them with someone who has the skill. The only case where the person is the problem is if they had clear communication, adequate resources, appropriate supervision, and the right skills -- and still delivered wrong. That is a performance issue. In my experience, it accounts for less than 10% of delegation failures.

The diagnostic framework draws on Deming's (1986) 'Systems Thinking' principle, which holds that 94% of performance problems are attributable to the system (processes, tools, management) rather than the individual. This principle is supported by research on 'fundamental attribution error' (Ross, 1977), which demonstrates that observers systematically overattribute outcomes to individual disposition (laziness, incompetence) while underattributing outcomes to situational factors (unclear instructions, inadequate resources). In delegation contexts, the fundamental attribution error reliably causes leaders to blame the delegatee for failures that were actually caused by insufficient delegation quality. The 'describe back' technique in step two implements what communication researchers call 'closing the loop' (Broom, Casey, DeLucia, and Manning, 2009), which is the practice of having the message receiver paraphrase the message to verify shared understanding. Research in healthcare communication found that closing the loop reduced communication errors by 44%, making it one of the most effective single interventions for preventing misunderstanding-based failures. The curiosity-first conversation framework aligns with Argyris's (1991) 'Model II' communication pattern, which prioritizes inquiry (understanding the other person's reasoning) over advocacy (asserting your own position). Research by Beer, Eisenstat, and Spector (1990) on organizational change found that leaders who used inquiry-based feedback produced 35% more behavioral change than leaders who used directive feedback, because inquiry preserved the recipient's sense of agency and reduced defensive reactions.