Every week organizations around the country begin new endeavors. They envision new products, new markets to be reached, new people who will be helped and ways in which their ministry or business will help people. Immediatly after that, most begin to craft a plan for achieving what they hope to. They do what we'll call drawing a map which - if followed - will take them to the future they want. After developing the plan to take them there, a leadership team will pass out assignments. Each person on the team and many others will be given a portion of the responsibility for reaching the destination. They do what we refer to as "delegate".  Every week in organizations all across the world, leaders delegate. They give part of the precious process into the hands of others and trust them with getting important things done.   And then months pass. There are occasional follow ups. Maybe weekly meeting where results are "checked", but it more about chastising those who don't meet objectives or don't hit targets. Later, after the results are not as hoped for, people are let go, or visions are abandoned.

No leader wants to fail.  Every leader is familier with the statement that "Failing to plan is planning to fail". Let me suggest another. Failing to monitor is guarenteed to give us bad results to measure later. This week we'll look at why monitoring is the thing which makes delegation effective. If we delegate but don't monitor, we've sent a very bad message to others. And we've almost certainly assured the future failure of whatever we've begun.