A vast majority of people at all levels of an organization will accuse their boss of micromanagement. However, those managers who think their boss micromanages them do not think that they micromanage. They believe that they are just exercising good control over their areas of responsibility.
One of my favorite quotes from a book comes from The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard and Bill Oncken. They say “Practice hands off management as much as possible and hands on management as much as necessary.” Truly effective leaders know when they need to be involved in the details and when they need to let go. Most err on the side of getting too involved in the details.
Micromanagement is unproductive behavior. Instead of working on his own tasks, the manager in essence is doing the work of others. It is highly unproductive for two people to do the work that one person should be able to do. The people being micromanaged lose productivity because they spend unproductive time in unnecessary reviews with their boss, instead of doing productive work. Since no employee likes to be micromanaged, it creates long term resentment towards the boss, and decreases commitment and engagement.
By being micromanaged, employees lose ownership for their own work. I hear managers complain all the time that employees don’t take responsibility, but at the same time won’t give people responsibility. People learn to take responsibility by being given responsibility. They learn to be accountable by being held accountable.
There are a number of reasons that managers will give to justify the need to micromanage. When you sort through all of the excuses, it comes down to one thing – trust. Yes part of it is that the manager may not trust her employees to do the right thing. Some of this may be based on past experience, but many times it is based on assumptions about what a person can or cannot do. I am always amazed at how managers underestimate the capabilities of their people.
But, I think in reality it comes down to the manager being able to trust himself to be a good leader. Too many managers use micromanagement as a substitute for sound leadership and performance management practices. Overcoming micromanagement involves three things:
1.The ability to manage by expectations. Expectations are a combination of desired outcomes and behaviors. I’ve seen some articles that suggest that managers should manager just by outcomes and let the employee determine how the job should be done. This is partially true. There needs to be some guidance given regarding the boundaries under which the job is to be performed. For example, it I tell a maintenance mechanic to fix a machine as quickly as possible with no boundaries or behavioral expectations, he may take unsafe shortcuts and risks to accomplish the job. If my expectations include following all safety procedures, then the mechanic still has flexibility to accomplish the repair in the best manner.
The clearer the expectations the less the need for micromanagement. If managers give people unclear or open ended expectations, then they will spend much more time on follow up and review.
2.The second part of performance management is reinforcement and follow up. People need feedback on how they are doing. When people meet the manager’s expectations, they need to know. If they fail to meet expectations, they need to know exactly what they failed to do. I’ve heard managers tell people something like “that’s not what I wanted”, but fail to tell them what they did want. The poor employee is sent off guessing what to do next. It becomes a trial and error process which is very unproductive.
Part of becoming less of a micromanager is to establish very specific expectations regarding when an employee should involve you in their work. Make the employee responsible for coming to you if they have problems that impact their ability to complete a task or project as expected. When setting up periodic status reviews, take into account the person’s track record on previous projects. Reward people who consistently meet your expectations with fewer reviews.
3.When someone fails to meet expectations, deal with that as an exception and treat it accordingly. Managers need to avoid the temptation to generalize that all people can’t be trusted just because one person failed to meet expectations. Again, I know micromanagers who get into excessive details with all their subordinates because one person did something in the past to betray their trust. They have jumped to the conclusion that no one can be trusted because of one incident.
The hardest part of overcoming being a micromanager is admitting that you are one. Solicit candid feedback from those you trust to give an honest opinion and accept it without being defensive. You will be on the road to becoming a more effective leader once you admit you can improve.
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Author Resource:
Ryan Scholz works with leaders whose success is dependent on getting commitment and high performance from others. He is author of Turning Potential into Action: Eight Principles for Creating a Highly Engaged Work Place. For more information, visit his web site at http://www.lead-strat-assoc.com .
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