Best Ways To Stop Micromanaging And Become Even More Effective

Professionals have a commitment to getting things done right, on budget, on time, first time. You can’t do that all your self so you assign tasks to members of your team, they try their best but they can’t see your vision and they’re not necessarily going in the direction you had in mind. Perhaps you need to take over or tell them how to do it your way.

Stop there!

You don’t buy a dog and chase your neighbours cats yourself so why have a team on side if you’re just going to do their jobs for them? Let’s assume you’re working with other professionally minded people, they have the same objectives as you do, they have skills which made them suitable for the role that they’ve been tasked with so, beyond keeping an eye on things, making sure your assignment isn’t going way off track, you don’t need to keep looking over their shoulders.

What you’re looking for is accountability. If your team know that they’re accountable for their work then they will put the effort in; take too much charge and you destroy that sense of responsibility. An employee who doesn’t fee responsible for their work doesn’t care if they do a sloppy job so by micromanaging you’re not making people do a better job, you’re actually making them do it worse!

Entrepreneur magazine published a list of the best SMEs to work for last year. Employees at 90 percent of these companies said that they knew their managers trusted them without looking over their shoulders while 92 percent say that they have a lot of responsibility.

But, like a bad habit, micromanaging is a hard thing to give up once you get started. Once people know that you’re going to be hovering there, watching their every move, picking up on every misstep before they’ve even had a chance to hit the backspace key they come to expect it. Once that starts to happen people are less likely to watch out for little mistakes for themselves because they know you’ll pick it up. You’ve just created an environment where mistakes are OK and responsibility is someone else’s job.

So How Can You Step Back?

First of all, hiring the right people is the foundation to an autonomous, successful team. If you genuinely have to look over people’s shoulders to check that they’re doing their job right, you’ve got the wrong people for the job. But that’s not always a bad thing. Introduce a training programme. Good training means that you’ll see your people working in a unified manner better than they ever did before. However, if you’re starting with the right team, a gang who take full responsibility for their work, are accountable, and good at their jobs just give them the brief and let them get on with it. If they have any questions, they’ll ask you.

Add a little peer pressure. Some people react very badly to being incorporated into a team. I’m one of them. I hate the idea of being in a group where success depends not only on my activities but the efficiency of other people. Instead of team building, make people accountable to one another. Encourage your staff to review each other’s work and progress, not as a critique but as a creative dialectic. You can steer brainstorming and ‘talk it through’ sessions in a general direction where good ideas become great ideas but good ideas are elusive, trying to force them just won’t work.

Be clear about what you want from the outset and don’t keep changing you mind. The best way to really irritate the people who’re working on your campaign is to constantly move the goalposts. If the objective really does have to change, talk it through in one of your progress meetings. Tell the team where they need to be directing their efforts and let them talk it out. Micromanagement is often the child of ill communication. If your role isn’t campaign based, set realistic, achievable targets for each quarter, talk to your staff about what they should be and how they are monitored and reviewed. Talking these things through not only gives your staff a clear sense of what’s expected of them and when, it gives you a chance to get a better understanding of your people’s skills and abilities meaning you can target tasks to suit individuals and see if indeed there are any skills voids which need addressing.

Wield the power of empowerment!

Like accountability and responsibility, a sense of power and control in decision making is an invaluable tool to the reformed micromanager! A direct complement to communication, empowerment makes people feel far more that they ‘own’ the campaign or project. Once they feel that it is theirs it becomes important and valuable to them. Taking votes on every decision that has to be made defies logic but making staff a part of decision making processes really is a great way of getting people committed to the company and the campaign (as do bonuses, regular pay rises and performance related prizes).

As I said above, breaking the micromanagement habit won’t be easy but trying out the suggestions one at a time will mean that you become a better manager with more time to deal with the things you should be dealing with and letting your team deal with the things they should be dealing with.

About the Author: @DanCash is a content manager and former press officer for a national environmental charity. Taking the pressure off through man-management, automation, fleet tracking and fixed asset software all makes time for you to concentrate on getting your own job done better.

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