What does it mean that verify delegation is working?

Delegation without verification is abdication. Build lightweight checks to ensure delegated work meets your standards.

Example: You delegate your weekly financial reconciliation to a spreadsheet automation. For three months, it runs without error. In month four, a data source changes its column format. The automation continues to run — it does not crash, it does not throw an error — but it now pulls the wrong numbers into the wrong fields. Your monthly reports look plausible. You present them to your team. Nobody catches the problem until a quarterly review reveals a $40,000 discrepancy. The automation did not fail in a way you could see. It failed in a way that only verification could catch. You delegated the work but not the quality assurance. The spreadsheet had no idea it was wrong. That was your job — and you abdicated it.

Try this: Choose one delegation in your life — a tool, a habit, a person, a system — that you set up more than a month ago and have not checked since. Design a verification protocol for it using the three layers: a signal (one number or artifact you can check in under sixty seconds), a sample (a deeper spot-check you perform weekly or monthly), and a structural audit (a thorough review you perform quarterly). Write down the specific check for each layer, the frequency, and what would constitute a failure signal. Implement the signal check today. You have just moved from abdication to delegation.