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2015-08-25 09:05:31
Rebecca Knight
August 21, 2015
Micromanaging is a hard habit to break. You may downplay your propensities by
labeling yourself a control freak or by claiming that you just like to keep
close tabs on your team, but those are poor excuses for excessive meddling.
What can you do to give your people the space they need to succeed and learn?
How should you prioritize what matters? And how do you get comfortable stepping
back?
What the Experts Say
If you re the kind of boss who lasers in on details, prefers to be cc ed on
emails, and is rarely satisfied with your team s work, then there s no kind way
to say this you re a micromanager. For the sake of your team, you need to
stop, says Muriel Maignan Wilkins, coauthor of Own the Room and managing
partner of Paravis Partners, an executive coaching and leadership development
firm. Micromanaging dents your team s morale by establishing a tone of
mistrust and it limits your team s capacity to grow, she says. It also hampers
your ability to focus on what s really important, adds Karen Dillon, author of
the HBR Guide to Office Politics. If your mind is filled with the micro-level
details of a number of jobs, there s no room for big picture thoughts, she
says. As hard as it may be to change your ways, the challenge is one that will
pay off in the long run, says Jennifer Chatman, a professor at UC Berkeley s
Haas School of Business. There may be a few failures as your team learns to
step up, but ultimately they will perform much, much better with greater
accountability and less interference. Here are some pointers on how to let go.
Reflect on your behavior
The first step is to develop an awareness of why you micromanage. You need to
understand where this is coming from, says Dillon. Most likely it s because
of some insecurity you re afraid it will reflect badly on you if your team
doesn t do something exactly the way you would do it or you re worried you ll
look out of touch if you re not immersed in the details, so you overcompensate,
she says. Wilkins recommends asking yourself: what excuses am I using to
micromanage? Common justifications include: It will save time if I do it
myself. Or Too much is at stake to allow this to go wrong. She advises
focusing on the reasons why you should not micromanage it s bad for your team
as they don t learn and grow and the benefits you d derive if you stopped,
chiefly more time to do your own job.
Get feedback
Often there is a significant disconnect between what leaders intend and what
the team is actually experiencing, says Chatman. You may merely suspect you
have a problem while your team members are already annoyed by your constant
hovering Feedback is essential to see how significant the issue is. To get a
handle on what your direct reports really think and whether it lines up with
your intentions, she recommends undertaking a cross-evaluation assessment.
Gather confidential data from your people or better yet, have a third party do
it and aggregate those results so employees know you can t find out exactly who
said what. What you hear may be sobering, but it s critical to understanding
the broader patterns and reactions and the impact [your micromanaging has] on
your team, she says.
Prioritize what matters and what doesn t
A good manager trains and delegates, says Dillon, and you can t do that if
you re taking on everything regardless of how important the task is yourself.
Start by determining what work is critical for you to be involved in (e.g.
strategic planning) and what items are less important (e.g. proofreading the
presentation). Wilkins suggests looking at your to do list to determine which
low-hanging fruit you can pass on to a team member. You should also highlight
the priorities on your list, meaning the big ticket items where you truly add
value, and ensure you are spending most of your energy on those, she adds.
Remember, says Chatman, Micromanaging displaces the real work of leaders,
which is developing and articulating a compelling and strategically relevant
vision for your team.
Talk to your team
Once you ve determined your priorities, the next step is communicating them to
your team, says Dillon. Have a conversation about the things that really
matter to you the things that they ll need to seek your guidance and approval
on so your direct reports can get ahead of your anxiety, she says. Tell them
how you d like to be kept in the loop and how often they should provide status
updates. Be explicit with your direct reports about the level of detail you
will engage in, adds Wilkins. At the same time, enlist their help in making
sure you don t fall back into your old micromanaging ways. Chatman suggests:
Tell them you are trying to work on this and ask targeted questions such as:
How can I help you best? Are there things I can do differently? Are our overall
objectives clear to you and do you feel you have the support and resources to
accomplish them?
Step back slowly
Fighting your micromanaging impulses might be hard at first so pull back
slowly. You need to get comfortable, too. Do a test run on a project that is a
bit less urgent and give your team full accountability and see how it goes,
Chatman says. Recognize that your way is not the only, or even necessarily,
the best way. The acid test of leadership, she says, is how well the team
does when you re gone. Another way to ease out of micromanaging is to
discretely seek feedback from other coworkers about how your team is operating,
says Dillon. Ask a colleague you trust: How s that project going? The
answer will provide valuable information, says Dillon. You may feel better
knowing that everything is fine, or you may realize you pulled back too much.
In the latter case, you need to find a way [to support the work] that doesn t
involve peering over your employees shoulders.
Build trust
Because your team members are used to you not trusting them, they may want to
come to you for approval before taking charge of a project. Acknowledge this
is a growth opportunity for the person and say that you know in your heart of
hearts he or she will rise to the challenge, says Dillon. This is more than a
pep talk. You re in effect giving your employee the psychological power to
lead. Making sure your team members know you trust them and have faith in
their abilities is actually very simple, says Wilkins. Tell them so. Say, I
fully trust you can make this decision. And then, walk the talk, she says.
Don t excessively scrutinize. Don t insist on being cc d on every email. And
don t renege on your vote of confidence. Let them do it and don t back pedal
and change everything they did.
And if things don t go exactly as you d like, try your hardest not to overact.
Take a breath; go for a walk; do whatever you need to do to come back from
that agitated micro-managerial moment, says Dillon. After all, does it really
matter if the memo isn t formatted exactly to your liking? For most things,
nothing is so bad it can t be corrected.
Know your employees limitations
Some people will over correct by pulling away too much; but it s smart to give
appropriate support, says Dillon. Talk about how you will help them problem
solve and how you ll support them even if you re not deeply involved in a
particular project or task. At the same time, keeping a closer eye on certain
projects or certain employees is sometimes warranted, she adds. If your report
is junior, say, or not yet ready to be trusted, you will need to keep close
tabs on her work. Similarly, says Wilkins, when the deliverable is urgent and
high stakes it may make sense to intervene or ask to be kept regularly
apprised of things. In this case, it s helpful if you explain to the person
why you are being so hands on, she says. You should also give feedback to the
employee and coach them, so they can complete the task on their own over time.
Principles to Remember
Do:
Ask yourself why you micromanage and reflect on your need for control
Refine your to do list by prioritizing the tasks and projects that matter most
to you
Talk to your team about how you d like to be kept apprised of their progress
Don t:
Renege on your vote of confidence tell your reports you trust them and let them
do their jobs
Overact when things don t go exactly as you d like them to take a breath and
figure out a way to correct the situation if it s truly necessary
Go too far you don t want to become a hands-off boss
Case Study #1: Clarify your priorities
Jordan Fliegel, the founder and CEO, of CoachUp the Boston-based startup that
connects athletes with private coaches, learned to deal with his micromanaging
tendencies after a bad experience early in the life of his company.
It was fall 2013 CoachUp s second year of business. The company s summer
interns had completed a big blogging project, and CoachUp s content team was
responsible for editing the posts and tagging them for maximal search engine
optimization. Given that the company was experimenting with blogs for the first
time and the fact that Jordan is a formidable writer in his own right, he says
he felt attached to the project.
The content team, however, was not moving fast enough on the project. He
figured it would be easier and faster if he did it himself. I took me three
weekends to finish the work.
When he presented the completed product to his team, his employees responded
with a mixture of annoyance and puzzlement. Their reaction was, was this
really the most important or high-impact thing you could have been doing with
your time? And, if you really thought this project was that important you
should have told us, he recalls.
Jordan understood that by completing the project he had, in effect, been doing
other people s jobs which is a sure way to undermine their creativity and
drive, he says.
He now knows to be more explicit about his reasons when he s delegating certain
tasks. I realize that if I want something to get done, I need to explain the
context and the return on investment to the team, he says. If there s
pushback meaning that the team disagrees that it should be a priority there can
be a debate. But I shouldn t shy away from saying what I think needs to get
done.
He attributes his earlier meddling to his newbie CEO status. I hadn t had a
lot of experience managing people at that point, he says. And as the founder,
I was used to doing everything myself. It was hard to let go. When it s your
business your baby you want to be involved.
Today, Jordan is much more hands-off and tries to focus on working on the
business and not in it.
Case Study #2: Explain why you re being hands on
Mike Faith, the founder and CEO of Headsets.com, the San Francisco-based
headset supplier, says that sometimes micromanaging can be a necessary part of
leadership especially when it comes to training new hires. I ve come to the
conclusion based on experience that I need to stay close to new employees early
on to give encouragement, correction, and learning, he says. I can t let the
fear of being called a micromanager prevent me from staying close at first.
Mike is explicit about his management style with new recruits. It s important
that they know what to expect. I tell them I am going to check in with you
early and often and then I follow through and do just that. Once they reach a
level of confidence and competence, I am more comfortable pulling back.
This policy occasionally applies to longtime executives, too. Recently, Mike
and his VP of Marketing embarked on a big new project related to how
Headsets.com handles online advertising. His VP will handle the day-to-day
operations of the project, but Mike has a keen interest in its progress. I
told him that for now, we re going to stay close to each other and learn as we
go. I will be checking in with him daily, and I want him to be checking in with
me, he says.
Mike told his VP that the constant need for status updates wouldn t be required
forever. I told him that once we get the hang of it and we re hitting our
numbers, we ll check in with each other monthly or just as needed. There is no
perfect recipe or perfect formula, he says.
Mike also offered his support. I told him that I had confidence he can do it,
he says. I said: We are going to try our damndest, and I ve got your back.
Rebecca Knight is a freelance journalist in Boston and a lecturer at Wesleyan
University. Her work has been published in The New York Times, USA Today, and
The Financial Times.