One of my favorite bits of business advice combines two important words delegating and deliverable.

Arynne SIMON SAYS: Don't deliver bad news deliver a plan.

Unfortunately many business people have learned only one side of the communication coin, to be forthright about negative news. Indeed, being up front with your boss or manager about problems is very important but I advise that you remember to deliver good news as well; that's equally productive. Positive news helps get your boss recognition and praise at company meetings. And managers attend meetings to get the bigger budgets that will support your work, or for more headcount so that your vision can be more important to the company. The upbeat information your boss has when he/she goes to a meeting will enhance the positive image he/she is trying to create. So deliver positive news of a win, a sale, or some other accomplishment to your boss just before a meeting. It will help them and, in time, it will help you, as well. There is no better way to support up than by delivering both good news at the right time and on a regular basis.

And surely the success can be replicated to make more money for the company. This is how you can be valued as a problem solver, respected for your information, and considered for promotion up the ladder.

As for the delivering bad news. See the Arynne SIMON SAYS advice at the beginning of this article. Deliver the negative news but then remember to follow it with a plan to correct the situation. Your information, especially negative news, is always more valuable if you have thought of ways to prevent it from happening again, or can offer how the experience can be applied to another part of the company operation. Any employee is more valuable if he/she can think things through and offer possibilities for the boss to consider.

The meaning of the word "deliverable" usually applies to work that has been assigned to you. It is your obligation to get it done by a specific time in the best way you can. The reality is that many times you will be given an assignment without a deliverable date. Okay, managers often leave that important detail out and then ding you later for not delivering on time. Take it from me, it's up to you to check on when something is due and how your manager wants it done. Yup, it's YOUR responsibility to be sure that you know how to succeed. And then just get it done. If you're going to be even an hour late, be sure to let your boss know early enough. At hotels, you are expected to give them 24 hours notice if you cancel a stay. If you don't let them know, your credit card will be charged. Your boss deserves the same kind of heads-up when your timetable changes.

And when you're managing other people, you are managing their deliverables. In the manager role, you must find a way to keep track of each assignment that you have asked to be done, and the due date. If your direct reports know that you are precise about their deliverables, and accurate about dates and times, they will learn to follow through. This aspect of their work should be considered a top priority and should be the number one on your list whenever you do a performance review. Deliverables are what business is based on; they are the tactical steps behind the strategies that make or break any business.

As for delegating, Arynne SIMON SAYS "delegate what you do best and what you have the most experience doing."

Most people delegate jobs they hate doing, or jobs they feel inadequate about. Wrong! Let me explain.

If you're really good at something, your experience has taught you how long it should take and how much it should cost; perhaps you've even developed a theory about the best way to get the work done. That experience means you're able to manage the person who is assigned to do the job. You're capable of judging the quality of their work and the cost/time factors. You might even be able to suggest a better way of getting something done in the time allotted. And your ability to do this chore sets you up to determine its value.

Experience, it has been said, is the word people give to their mistakes. And that's often absolutely true as well as funny. Your having made mistakes puts you in the position of being able to help others avoid making them and wasting your company's time and money. That's what experience is all about and why you were hired for your current position. Education is also a form of experience but does not substitute for what people get from work done on the job in the real world.

If a manager delegates away what he/she knows best how to do, what does the boss do? Teaches, trains, goes to meetings, thinks strategically, and keeps track of the budget and the deliverables, as well as helping to motivate and move her team forward.

But managers always need to be watchful about being pushed backwards into being supervisors, meaning a person who micro-manages the work of his/her people, breathing down their necks, or doing their work for them because he/she can do it faster and better. The supervisor emerges but the manager disappears.

Managers must always keep learning. By staying on the cutting edge of new ideas, a manager can one day pay off big for the company.

Recently I observed a manager who, frustrated with the slow work his people were doing, scooped up a pile of papers from the desks of several of them. He sat down at a desk and began to add his experience to the work load with the intent of getting lots of work caught up for the division. When I saw him, at 7:30 one night, working furiously away, his people had all gone home and left it to him to do. The next morning it was all, "Joe you're the greatest. You can do anything in half the time it takes us. No wonder you're the manager now." From then on Joe pitched into help to be sure the work got done. He had demoted himself out of his manager's role, extended his work day at least by a couple of hours, and taught his people all the wrong lessons. Joe, the manager, was gone; he had become Joe the clerk once again.

Learn to delegate and to deliver. Arynne SIMON SAYS that when you have these two career skills down pat, your success is assured. Then, when you become a boss, be really tough about your people delivering on time what they have been tasked to do.