Finally companies, smart ones anyway, are realising managers who stifle their people are costing the company dearly.
COVID research says huge members of individuals, teams and organisations have been more productive working remotely.
In other words, individuals are not being effectively destroyed by over management.
What value to a team, project or organisation does a micromanager add? None, so why does it happen so regularly?
Answer - because so many managers haven’t got a clue how to manage effectively and the ‘my way or highway’ approach, which is straight out of the 1960s, is still in full flow.
What’s the alternative?
- Start with recruitment, if you take the time and effort to select staff effectively by using objective evidence from assessment centres and competency based interviewing you will hire the raw material that is ready and able to do the job you want and they want to do. Get someone external to run the process for you to ensure neutral consistency, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to what you spend on staff turnover.
- Make sure every member of your team understands exactly what they are required to do. Sounds so simple yet most employees say they don’t know what their boss wants. Most people fail because they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing (think about it, of course they do)
- Agree the parameters e.g. timescales and output and let them get on with it. Trust them, yes, trust, if you don’t trust them either you or they shouldn’t be there.
- Check in with them based on their level of skill and ability at pre-agreed intervals to see if they need any help (note to self, this is vastly different from micromanagement). Situational Leadership is a great model to help a manager work out how much supervision a team member really needs.
- Ask for their views (and mean it), 80% of the new lines at United Biscuits come from the staff suggestion box. Quality managers consult their staff.
It’s time to ship out the prehistoric managers who think if you’re not sat in the office for eight hours a day you’re not working.
Now is the time for business owners to realise if they want to survive in the world to come, they need a new breed of manager who really understands the value of flexible working, how to recruit and how to get the best out of people.
No-one has the time or money to waste on micro managers anymore, let’s make them a thing of the past.
By Peter Thorp, a senior coach at alterniq inspired growth.
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