Hardest delegating lesson to learn: Trust but verify.

I think the author is trying to encourage the practice in general. There are certainly ways to do it right and ways to do it wrong.

Just blindly asking for status emails so you have some numbers and justifications for your charts would probably not go over well. Asking for status emails regarding real milestones and to verify functionality, check metrics, or suggest current progress be analyzed can be very helpful.

Good management seems to include knowing when someone needs some guidance or help and when they just need you to stay out of their hair.

True.

However, scrum-like standups mitigate it since you always report the status everyday like clockwork, so it doesn't feel personal for that particular task. Projects should be broken down into things that can be done within a day or less, so it is easier for a dev to stay in the zone.

I like the method described by Tim Ferris when he used Indian outsourcers: (1) Have them repeat the task in their own words before the task (2) Set a time limit, 1 - 3 hours into the task before they have to report back and you can make a decision to move forward and complete the task or cut your losses.

Agreed. The "trust" part of "trust but verify" is important, too.

For me, it was learning to build ways where I could invisibly monitor someone's progress without bothering them. Setting up Subversion/Git to alert me at commits. Having the database show me a progress of tasks completed/uncompleted, etc.

But yeah definitely: interrupting people doing good work, asking them to do things with "status" in them, is the worst way to go.

I think his message is not so much to trust that their statement about progress is truthful, but rather to trust that others can do a good job and get it done well.

I'm sure many of us have had that feeling of, "I know I can do this better, I should just do it." The point of this is to trust them and instead say, "I know I can do this better, but I need to delegate, so I trust that this other person can do a good job." That's the first part of delegation. The second part is to verify that the work did get done to a high standard, and make it clear what else needs to get done.

You need to be able to trust employees to get the job done, and you need to verify that it did get done in case it did not.

It seems like, in the context of this quote, "trust" is used to mean "delegate thoroughly and without reservation".

It may sound illogical but experience proves it to be true

I think it can make sense, although I'm not Russian.

It's not that the OP doesn't trust his subordinate. It's that he doesn't trust the communication between them. It could be that the project wasn't described clearly, or that its high priority wasn't understood.

You could say it's like "Trust Allah, but tie your camel". http://www.google.com/search?q=trust+allah+but+tie+your+came...

But really it means when you delegate, do it thoroughly. Don't just say it once and assume it's done. Confirm that it's done. Set up a system to make sure that it's done.

You can be verifying that they did what you had in your head that they would do. It may be that you didn't communicate the task well enough so you're really verifying your message.

Trust now, verify later (that they are still worthy of your trust).

Verification doesn't have to be about trust. It's a feedback loop.

When delegating work, I always trust the people I delegate to. However, I verify what's done in order to make sure we're on the same page in terms of how things got done, and even to make sure that I communicated what I needed done effectively.

You can distrust and verify as well, but you're verifying for different reasons.

In Russian, "trust but verify" is not a paradox but a wise saying. I think all cultures have something similar, maybe not so succinctly put.

I think it simply refers to avoiding micromanagement but still checking the validity of results.

I have always hated this phrase. It isn't "wisdom," it's just dumb saying that makes no sense if you think about it for more than two seconds. Either you trust someone, or you do not. People who go around spouting this line as an example of what a sage leader Reagan was annoy me to no end.

There is no joke and no paradox.

"Trust, but verify" captures the attitude that you're verifying not because of any suspicion of wrongdoing, but because there is a remote possibility of major problems. So the person who is being checked up on is not under suspicion, and shouldn't be concerned about the verification process. It is just a standard procedure because you'd have to be crazy not to check.

How is the link related to your comment?

The link is absolutely irrelevant.

I think this is the first time in many months that I modded someone down.