Feb. 26, 2018 "Are you guilty of micromanaging?": Today I found this article by Merge Gupta-Sunderji in the Globe and Mail:
Merge Gupta-Sunderji, leadership speaker and consultant, is the founder of Turning Managers Into Leaders
Ask the countless employees who find themselves working for a micromanager, and they'll tell you that it is not only maddening, but wearisome and demoralizing.
Dealing with a controlling boss who needs to question and redo everything you do can be gruelling. But if you look carefully enough, the symptoms of micromanagement are there to see. You just may not have paid attention to them.
Dealing with a controlling boss who needs to question and redo everything you do can be gruelling. But if you look carefully enough, the symptoms of micromanagement are there to see. You just may not have paid attention to them.
The signs of a micromanager
You would have done it differently. The results never seem to be up to your high standards. You're the master of details, and you're proud of it; in fact, you take great satisfaction in catching typos and calculation errors. You constantly ask for frequent updates so that you can stay in the loop, and the best way to do that is to be cc'd on all e-mails. You love to edit and rewrite someone else's work. And it gives you great comfort to know exactly what your employees are working on and where they are at any given time.
If this sounds like you, then you probably also think that this defines good management – after all, getting the details right means that your department is putting out good work. But when this happens constantly, for every task, big or small, and with every employee, rookie or experienced, then it is micromanagement.
And the problem with micromanagement is, over time, it harms your team's morale, and eventually their performance and productivity. When employees don't feel trusted, when they feel disempowered and disengaged, then it's easier for them to not bother making an effort.
Why invest in good decision-making and high performance when the boss is going to do it over anyway? Micromanagement doesn't just hurt your team, it hurts you as well. Focusing on the minutiae means that you have less time to spend on strategic, high-level responsibilities. And as your workload increases, your efficiency decreases.
Why invest in good decision-making and high performance when the boss is going to do it over anyway? Micromanagement doesn't just hurt your team, it hurts you as well. Focusing on the minutiae means that you have less time to spend on strategic, high-level responsibilities. And as your workload increases, your efficiency decreases.
So, if you're willing to admit that you're a micromanager and that you want to change, what can you do? Here are four ideas.
Focus on results
Shift from "what" to "how." As a leader, it's your job to set expectations about deliverables. But there's a huge difference between stating what you expect and spelling out, step-by-step, how to get there. Trust that your staff has the capability to figure out the details – that's why you hired them. You might be pleasantly surprised to discover that their approach, perhaps not the way you would have done it, yields exceptional results.
Lose the perfection mindset
Everything does not have to be 100-per-cent perfect. Sure, there are notable exceptions, such as anything having to do with safety or life and death situations.
But the vast majority of workplace activities does not require flawless execution: "good" may be entirely acceptable. Realize that your need for perfection is your vulnerability, and it comes at a cost – lower efficiency and disengaged employees.
But the vast majority of workplace activities does not require flawless execution: "good" may be entirely acceptable. Realize that your need for perfection is your vulnerability, and it comes at a cost – lower efficiency and disengaged employees.
Hold weekly update meetings
The fear of loss of control is what often drives the need to micromanage. So feed that need by holding weekly update meetings with your people. Your objective should be to obtain updates on progress, not to get bogged down in the minutiae.
So fight the urge to sink into the "how," no matter how enticing it may seem. In reality, your rise in the leadership ranks means you should increasingly be paying more attention to strategic issues, so put your focus up high instead of down low.
So fight the urge to sink into the "how," no matter how enticing it may seem. In reality, your rise in the leadership ranks means you should increasingly be paying more attention to strategic issues, so put your focus up high instead of down low.
Enlist support from your staff
Let your direct reports know that you are working on becoming less of a micromanager. Ask them to respectfully point out when you shift to micromanaging. And assure them that you won't shoot the messenger. It takes courage and vulnerability to solicit assistance from your people, but this is what characterizes exceptional leaders.
Remember to watch for the trap: if you're a micro-manager, it's very easy to explain away your actions as "attention to detail" and "ensuring quality work." But the unfortunate reality is that this behaviour comes at an immense cost – employee morale, team performance and workplace productivity.
The Ladder: Rob St. Denis: Today I found this article by in the Globe and Mail:
Rob St. Denis, 42, is the youth labour market consultant, Community Futures Treaty Seven, in Calgary. (Treaty 7 is an agreement between the federal government and seven First Nations in southern Alberta.)
I grew up in Saskatoon. I am a registered band member in Beardy's & Okemasis's Cree Nation.
My role is to connect Treaty Seven youth (ages 18-30) with the labour market. I manage and hire for our training programs.
In high school, I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. I only liked basketball. I played with some former pro Western Basketball League players for a few years, then played at Brandon University [in Manitoba] where I blew out my knee. I didn't feel connected to school without basketball so I dropped out.
One of my good friends said, "Let's go to SAIT [the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology] and we'll play basketball together." So I went to school and made the team. I ended up there by myself. He didn't come.
I messed up my band funding transferring schools. I dropped out at after one term and the coach was pretty mad because I had good grades.
I went to work with the Harlem Comedy Kings, a smaller version of the Harlem Globetrotters that travelled through small towns and First Nations communities in Western Canada. I'd do community talks to youth before the game.
I returned to SAIT mainly because I had met the woman who would be my wife. The coach took me back and had me under high scrutiny. I couldn't swear or get mad.
I learned how to conduct myself, to act like a professional and to know I was marketing a product, instead of putting my frustrations out there. We won the [Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference] finals in 2000.
I was supported by the Treaty Seven Economic Development Corp. There was a lot of opportunity for a young First Nations man who was a student-athlete. I worked for the Friendship Centre, the Boys and Girls Club and the YMCA as a program manager. Then I won the competition for this job and stopped going to school.
After a few years, I hated that I didn't finish the business diploma. I had one year left before all my credits were going to expire. I said, "Forget it, I will start from the start." I had a son, so it took me six years at night.
One great mentor is my aunt Verna St. Denis [a professor at the University of Saskatchewan]. I wasn't going to go to my graduation and my aunt said, "It's a really important thing; I'm going to book my flight." She was so excited.
I went on to get a business degree from the University of Lethbridge. The classroom wasn't working for my people, so I needed to understand where we fit into these textbooks and this economy and how do we retain people when they do fit into these environments?
We place a lot of people, but retention is the challenge. I refer to it as the honeymoon and the marriage. A First Nations person goes to a non-Indigenous employer. Everyone is happy and celebrates and it's like a party for a year.
Then, differences start popping up and the honeymoon ends after about 18 to 24 months. I'm guessing the retention challenge is because of that culture clash. If you're bringing in diverse employees and you want them to function at 100 per cent, you have to let them be 100 per cent of themselves. So if that's a softer handshake and less eye contact, then you have to let that happen.
Then, differences start popping up and the honeymoon ends after about 18 to 24 months. I'm guessing the retention challenge is because of that culture clash. If you're bringing in diverse employees and you want them to function at 100 per cent, you have to let them be 100 per cent of themselves. So if that's a softer handshake and less eye contact, then you have to let that happen.
People don't like when I say this, but moving from reserve to city is like a foreign exchange. Understand we are coming from a different nation, custom, behaviours.
I now coach basketball on Tsuu T'ina [a reserve southwest of Calgary]. And eight- to 10-year-old boys … they won't make eye contact. It's a humility thing to show respect that way. It looks like they are not paying attention, but I know they are listening.
I've stayed in this job because of intrinsic rewards: to hear from people who've made positive change and to be a small part of that.
I have been lucky. I've had good mentors, a lot of good elders. My dad showed me the value of hard work. He just turned 69 and just quit working in Fort McMurray. He didn't see value in sports, but it gave me an entry into education.
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