Preface: This is the second of a two-part article. If you have not yet read it, start your reading today with:
How to Stop Micromanaging, Part One.
Part One defines micromanagement and its root cause, and it outlines the benefits to be gained when you work to replace the micromanagement habit with a better one. Today’s posting covers what your better habits can include via a very systematic, problem-solving approach.
I gave you an assignment a week ago: Have you made some progress with kicking your micromanagement habit?
It’s a toughie, I know. Trust me, I speak from experience! Micromanagement can still sneak into my own workday, especially when I find I am working with someone new, and our best possible working rhythm hasn’t quite found a pleasing melody yet. I am thinking of one young man as I write these very words, and if he happens to be reading this I can bet you he is nodding his head in complete understanding (and hopefully laughing more than groaning).
I’ve asked for his help with getting to our better rhythm, and I hope you asked for help as well, having decided that peer-to-peer coaching would help you too.
To Stop Micromanagement, Solve the Puzzle
Stopping micromanagement is like solving a puzzle with 5 pieces. These 5 pieces have to be framed as a prettier picture:
- You and your role
- Another person and their role
- The work involved in the process
- The values at play in the work culture
- Available energy for work performance
This is good news! There is way more that goes on in every workplace from day to day, and you can streamline them into only these 5 puzzle pieces.
When I’m the one in the role of the manager, that will be my first impulse in any self-correcting I am doing: I return to the clarity of what my role should be.
First: Make this about YOU
You will recall from Part One that the underlying culprits in the micromanagement habit are impatience, the desire for expediency, and the blame game. All of those things are actually about the person you are micromanaging in a lesser and secondary way – if it all. What they are really about is you:
- You are impatient
- You want expediency
- You are shifting blame to someone else
You might think you have good reasons, but you’re better off thinking of those reasons as triggers that you need to put a safety lock on.
You can move on to better solutions only after you accept that these areas are where micromanagement is about you. However don’t despair! All three of these are in your circle of control and influence.
Now, you can: Make it about THEM
However make it about the other person in a more beneficial way: As their Alaka‘i manager and coach with the good intention of helping them.
This is what we have said about How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture:
1. People: Managers concentrate on strengths and make weaknesses irrelevant.
Managers discover what strengths each of the people they manage possess. They then place people where they are called on to employ those strengths and capitalize on them, giving them the authority to completely own their responsibilities and perform brilliantly.
2. Place: Managers create great workplaces where people thrive.
Managers focus on creating an environment where rewarding work happens. They continually work to remove obstacles (such as negativity), barriers, and excuses, while adding the needed support, tools and resources. Great managers are the stewards of healthy organizational cultures.
3. Mission: Managers get the work to make perfect sense.
Managers connect the work to be done with the meaning why. They plan to succeed with a viable business model, so people always see realistic possibility, and they encourage people to work on the enterprise with them, not just within it.
4. Vision: Managers expect and promote the exceptional.
Great managers never settle for mediocrity; they champion excellence so people rise to the occasion. Managers lead too; they mentor and coach, harnessing energy and driving action. They foster sequential and consequential learning so people continue to grow.
You are going to evaluate the situations where any impulse to micromanage kicks in for you, and you are going to use the checklist above – a checklist about your role, and the work you should be doing – to help you focus on how to best help them in the long term:
1. Is it a People issue? Managers concentrate on strengths and make weaknesses irrelevant. So how can you help the other person approach the situation using their strengths and better compensating for their weaknesses?
2. Is it a Place issue? Managers create great workplaces where people thrive. Are there any other obstacles or barriers in the way? How might the workplace itself be interfering with better performance?
3. Is it a Mission issue? Managers get the work to make perfect sense. If you are sure that people and place are as they should be, you need to start investigating systems and processes, challenging auto-pilot and getting any sacred cows up on your radar.
4. Is it a Vision issue? Managers expect and promote the exceptional. The first three are largely management issues. This one is your leadership issue. You can both be nailing the mission-related work, but it’s no longer relevant because the vision has changed.
As you think about these things as relevant to the situation at hand, value-alignment (or non-alignment) will come up, and using the values chosen for your work culture will provide you with answers.
Make it about the Energy
The vision question will usually answer if there was enough leadership clarity for energy to kick in and get better engaged again.
When you evaluate strengths and weaknesses, you will discover why there was no sense of urgency in the situation at hand triggering your micromanagement (remember your impatience, and wanting expediency?): Weaknesses are energy-drainers.
For more suggestions about creating energy versus draining it, you might want to review this article in our archives:
3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces
I have one more tip for you, a very important one: Do with, not for.
You want long term results with work performance; not a short term fix. When you discover the culprit and reach to place that last piece in the puzzle of your solution, continue to curb any impatience, and be deliberate and diligent – not expedient. Teach and train where you must, and take the time to coach. Do with each other, and not for each other as each of your roles are corrected.
This may have seemed like a long and detailed article, but if you have been a reader of Say “Alaka‘i” you know it is largely a review of what we have already been talking story about. And you can do this! You never need be a micromanager again!
Isn’t that wonderful news?
Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?
Photo credit: Puzzle piece found on Flickr by Miss Blackbutterfly.
For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:
- How to Stop Micromanaging, Part One
- How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture
- 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces
- Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate
July 2009 ~
How to Stop Micromanaging: Part Two
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you! This is excellent and extremely well written. I can use it right away! As a manager, I’ve been focusing on strengths in my staff to great results. And trust me, there are a lot of weakness, but I’ve just not focused on them. Managing up is harder as the people who own my company are more used to hierchical style of leadership. So we’ve bumped heads at time. But they can’t argue with the results my team is getting. I find that old style management is excessivly focused on controlling weakness. this does nothing but get people mad. Thanks again!
Thank you so much for visiting and commenting for me Michiko, I appreciate having this opportunity to meet you. Thrilled to know this will be immediately useful for you!
I have been a fan of the Gallup Organization’s strengths revolution movement, now championed by Marcus Buckingham as well, and it sounds to me that you would really enjoy his book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work. What most appealed to me about it – making it very useful and not just academic or theoretical – was his focus on strengths and weaknesses as activities rather than character flaws which negate the talent you have.
I believe that “managing up” is fairly straightforward (though admittedly not always simple): We manage up by making it easier on our superiors, so they too can focus on their most effective strengths. What you are doing – delivering stellar results – is exactly that, so well done!
Aloha Rosa,
Often, my intention to help develop and monitor processes is mistaken for getting into areas deemed ‘their kuleana’. I also think managers I manager prefer that their processes or how they go about achieving the goals not be measured. I believe in management for results and by process instead of management by results.
I also feel that at times the word ‘micromanagement’ is used to defend against ‘scrutiny’.
Great article, thanks for bringing light on to this important topic.
Mike Han
Aloha Mike,
I appreciate your feedback, and I’m guessing what you say will resonate with other managers who read this as well.
That bucket above I framed as “Is it a people issue?” involves those things you have mentioned: It includes the agreement between you of how their Kuleana is accurately defined (and hence, exactly how they are held accountable if they want you to otherwise stay out of what they accept as their responsibility). I agree that managers struggle with measurement and it needs to be more pragmatic and useful for them (you need not compromise on what you must measure in your business model and business plan). It includes their attitude, and their willingness to be a team player, preferring to collaborate with you versus exclude you. I feel it should be made clear in healthy work cultures that independently done work does not mean you are an island or a silo: Vibrant businesses are highly interconnected, and managers should use each other well, not keep each other at arms’ length.
And yes, it does mean that in a healthy work culture, no one should have to worry about coming under scrutiny, or staying off your radar. Self-protective behavior is usually a warning sign of a bigger problem or developmental/learning need.
Mike, I have an article queued up to post on July 30th which is called “The 30-70 Rule in Managing and Leading” and I think you will find it useful, for it is about metrics and measurement.
Thank you so much for commenting here so we could continue the conversation within the Talking Story Ho‘ohana Community!
Rosa