”With a simple Google search for “micromanagement”, we get 2,900,000 results. On Amazon.com, I found 143 pages with books having this word in the title; multiplied by 10 titles on each page, we have 1,430 books.

Much has been written on this subject and is still being written. However, people still complain about their manager, promotions in managerial positions are made without taking into account the fact that that manager needs support to be at least as efficient as he was when he was a specialist.

With all the written case studies, with all the examples, it looks like there is something that we’re missing.

What is micromanagement? You are a micromanager if:

  • You need to monitor constantly;
  • You set unrealistic deadlines;
  • You have the feeling that you are the only one who can do things the way you want them to;
  • You give too much information;
  • Request reports over reports;
  • The people in your team always complain about how much they have to do, how much you check on them;
  • You control how long people in your team are online, you make sure they work – if you don’t see them active, you react immediately, call them to order;
  • You complain that you have a lot on your mind, you always work until late at night;
  • You don’t take the time to look critically at what you do, to see if there are alternatives, to look at your own work from above, as you look at a theater stage, from the balcony.

Micromanagement: What to do?

Relax! You don’t have to know everything, to be in the center of all activities – that shows insecurity.

Allow people to do the job in their own way, don’t crush their spirits. Unless you are undergoing major medical surgery or are in charge of the control tower at Heathrow Airport, you can allow your team to do things differently from you, it is important to have the desired results in an ethical manner, taking into account the values of the company.

If you allow people to do things their way, they will flourish, they will amaze you (of course, provided you have chosen people well, according to your values, the company’s values).

Be patient with people. Good delegation requires patience, tolerance for error.

Leave them alone, trust that they know what they are doing, don’t look over their shoulder to see if they are doing things right. Refrain from behaving like in the folk tales with the mother-in-law walking behind her daughter-in-law to check if she wiped the dust well! She was the micromanager of the family, a toxic one, who did not contribute to the well-being of the whole family, but to its disintegration, little by little, killing any trace of passion between the two married people.

When you recruit, check the integrity, the values of those you choose. This way, you will have a better chance of trusting them yourself.

Try a playful (or flexible, if you find it too much to play) attitude with the way you do and think things: experiment, see what comes out, act, test.

You may remember Marshal Goldsmith’s book “What Brought You Here Will Not Take You There.” Paraphrasing the title of the book, we can say that “what brought you here will not keep you here.”

Let me explain a little: you had exceptional results; you have been promoted, you no longer take care of some tasks, but you end up coordinating people; you need to do other things, you have a lot of responsibilities, you have to trust those in your team that they know, can and want to do things at least as well as you.

But it’s hard. Your success has been built on a certain way of being, of doing things, of behaving. However, all this no longer works in the new position and you are ambivalent about change. How could you give up everything that has built you up?

Yes, you’ve been to classes before, you’ve read some, your boss told you that you need to change something. Rationally, you understand, you know the theory. If you go to a delegation course, it seems like a waste of time because YOU KNOW! You know, right, but it’s not about what you know anymore, it’s about what you do with what you know, about how well you implement all the ideas.

How do you get rid of the stupid habit of doing micromanagement? Change your perspective on yourself and your job.

To make your job better, you can make some perspective changes.

How you see your job: it’s not about delivering the results yourself, but about facilitating the delivery of the results by a team.

Remember: people want three things from a manager: direction (it’s important to know where you’re going together); protection (going somewhere also means they need to feel safe); order (clarity, well-established rules from the beginning, a level of discipline helps not only with setting boundaries, but also gives space for creativity).

The way you see yourself: maybe you are a very competitive person, who wants to succeed, to always be the first, to be very good, to deliver well and on time. But think about it: can a football coach win the match alone? Even if his name was Mourinho, he will not succeed. He has to prepare the other 11, to trust them that they will do the right thing.

Ubiquity (the quality of being present everywhere) is a utopia, even in your case!

Put things in perspective. Your life (like any other) has many dimensions: job, health, family, relationships, friends, education, finance, spirituality, sports, to name a few.

Try to make room for all aspects in your week. 16 hours of work a day has not made anyone happier, they will not make you happy, just as they will not make your team happy.

Determine what you have to do, set a deadline, make sure you made yourself clear and that the tasks and targets are realistic, then make sure that every person in your team has a balanced life, variety every week. Otherwise, with too much control and unrealistic deadlines, you will end up in a burnout situation.

All this is difficult to do, no one changed from one day to the next, from one month to the next. Don’t hesitate to have a coach, a mentor. They will be the people in the shadow who will support you to be successful.”

via: spotmedia.ro