Micro-Management’s True Costs
By: Edward Iftody
Tags: Work, Micromanagement, Management, Leadership, Self Improvement

Have you ever been micro-managed?

Although bring micro-managed is annoying, frustrating and irritating, the true cost of micro-management is more than just an inconvenience to you and your colleagues.

Micro-management of staff undercuts efforts to build a confident, autonomous team that can be trusted to achieve results even in times of stress and uncertainty.

Micro-managing staff exposes the weakness of a leader and undermines the trust of subordinates in management’s decision-making ability and in each other.

In this article I will discuss how;

Micro-managing your staff destroys their sense of autonomy and can seriously delay the professional development of your team members.

Micro-managing your staff delays development of team trust; a critical component of a self-starting, problem-solving and entrepreneurial-thinking team.

Strategies for overcoming micro-management

I’ve worked for companies, I’ve run my own company, and I’ve coached staff for many years. When I run into examples of micro-management it usually falls under one of two categories;

I’m so worried about my job, I have to control everything so I don’t get in trouble from someone above me on the corporate ladder. I don’t really know what my job is and/or I don’t know how to handle people, so I may as well look like I’m in charge.

Both of these situations are obvious to staff and it makes a manager look very, very weak. Don’t panic if you think you might fall into one of these categories! There are no operators manuals for management when you get promoted.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I was failing as a leader when I was first promoted to a middle management role — based on my own feelings and the reactions of my staff. Relax — just acknowledge you’re little over your head and be open to the idea of making a course correction in your behavior with the people you supervise.

Don’t worry boss! I can handle it. | Pixabay – rawpixel

Micro-managing your staff destroys their sense of autonomy and can seriously delay the professional development of your team members.

I remember working under a low-level (and first-time) manager early in my professional career. She insisted on everything being done her way, down to the smallest detail. When things went wrong, she would isolate the individual who made the error rather than taking responsibility as the person calling all the shots. When things went well, individuals were rarely singled out for their contributions because all major decisions were directly made by our supervisor.

I recall feeling very bitter about the situation and thinking that if our manager wanted to run things like the military, then she should fall on her own sword when things blew up.

I think it’s critical we think about the line between training and micro-managing. On one hand, it would be irresponsible to demand a new hire take on a big project with no input from you, on the other hand, if we are over-riding too many decisions being made by experienced staff, we might be unintentionally removing accountability from the experience.

In the example I just mentioned above, I and my colleagues had wrongly assumed true accountability laid only at the feet of our supervisor. By being over-cautious and over-bearing, our supervisor undermined our sense of being responsible for team outcomes.

Since we weren’t even part of any of the big decisions, there was no way for any of us to take credit for any of the results. Even if our supervisor said, ‘Great work team!’ it rang very hollow since all of us felt like bit-players in a production. We simply didn’t feel like we had any skin in the game.

Micro-managing your staff delays development of team trust; a critical component of a self-starting, problem-solving and entrepreneurial-thinking team.

I frequently have been asked by line managers to develop ‘strategic thinking’ workshops for their staff to help correct the lack of self-starting, problem-solving and independent thinking on their teams. To their credit, these managers recognize they have inherited (or accidentally created) a team that has been micro-managed for too long.

I always make sure the manager is part of these workshops since a big first step to overcoming this kind of team issue is to reinforce the idea that the manager is just one voice on the team, not the voice of the team.

It’s important to keep your eye on the prize. The real goal of managing people is not ‘control’. Rather the goal should be skill development, confidence building, a sense of responsibility, and ultimately creating a team that trusts itself.

All of these characteristics can be encouraged through increasing levels of autonomy. Holding back too much of the decision-making process encourages staff to come back to you for approval on every detail of a project.

This obviously leads to an overall slowdown of the project, a lack of meaningful staff skill development, and mounting frustrations and headaches for you.

Pixabay.com – geralt

Strategies for overcoming micro-management

Whether you consider yourself a micro-manager or not, it’s worth thinking about decisions affecting your subordinates before taking action to make sure you aren’t unintentionally undermining your staff’s professional development or your own credibility.

Ask yourself, will this action increase the sense of autonomy in my subordinate or will it increase their dependency on me? Is this action a ‘learning experience’ for my subordinate or is this an exercise in teaching how I would solve the problem? Will this action increase my subordinate’s sense of ownership of the project or leave them feeling like a cog in the machine?

If your goal is to encourage an intrinsically-motivated, entrepreneurial team, then after explaining why you are assigning the task (what’s the business case) you should ask your staff to answer three basic questions before handing over the reins;

1. How long do you think it will take to solve this problem? — think about the steps needed to complete this project

2. How much will it cost to solve this problem? — in terms of money and human resources

3. How might this project affect CAPA (corrective actions preventative actions)? — what will the organization/process look like after the project is finished? Are there any potential SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) components that may arise from these changes?

If you’re mostly satisfied with the answers and the explanations, approve the project and move on. If you have a problem with one of the answers, ask for clarification, or more justification, or assign more homework — but resist suggesting your own solution.

Yes, you are ultimately responsible for outcomes, but who’s project is this? If you believe ownership should belong to your subordinate(s), then your subordinates should come up with the solutions. If ownership belongs to you, then why are you delegating this work?

In my experience, not all staff respond to this kind of freedom right away, especially if they’ve been heavily micro-managed for a long time. Not all staff get all the answers right, particularly if they are inexperienced. However, most people are incredibly receptive to this approach and will happily run with the ball as soon as they realize you’re serious.

So what should you do if results don’t meet your expectations?

I talked today with a long-time manager and trusted colleague of mine. She’s Japanese and I’m Canadian, but we instantly were on the same page when it comes to managing people — give as much autonomy to people as you can, otherwise, you’re only encouraging staff to become more and more dependent on you for all the answers. However, we had slightly differing opinions on how to handle staff who don’t output the results you were expecting.

My colleague feels people might have different definitions of what level of output is expected at work — she pointed out a critical question;

How do we know when someone is trying their best and not meeting expectations and when is someone slacking?

GIPHY

Great question! After all, who wants to wrongly accuse a colleague of being lazy, when in fact they have a skills gap? Who wants to get into a drag-out argument trying to get your colleague to admit that the work they submitted isn’t their best?

I think you can answer this question by asking your colleague if they are satisfied with the level of work they presented to you.

‘Are you satisfied this work fairly represents your professional brand?’

In my experience, when you ask for this level of personal accountability, you get one of two answers — Your colleague will pick up their work, turn around and walk back to their desk to get back to work or they will say, ‘Yes! I’m really proud of this!’

Either way, you know what the situation is — either your colleague didn’t put their best work forward or you have a training/development issue you need to address. You’re also not pointlessly arguing with or coercing your team members. Rather, you’re allowing them to self-assess and self-correct their own output.

I’m Edward Alexander Iftody, founder of Edward Alexander Consulting and author of ‘Surviving Work’.

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