Stopping Micromanagers!

One of the most common complaints my clients bring to our coaching sessions is dealing with micromanagers. This problem of bosses engaging in micromanagement is so ubiquitous that no matter how many clients bring this complaint to our session they all sound the same: suffocating supervision by their immediate manager; constantly wanting to know the status of the most trivial tasks and gratuitously sticking their nose in how to do them better; double-checking their inputs with other team members; going directly to the team members and re-directing them without checking with my clients, who manage them; and on and on. Here, they simply fail to see what part of their leadership really adds value (none!) and what part of their leadership adds nuisance (all!).

The worst trait most of these micromanagers often share is that when it comes to meaningful contributions to the development of their teams and solving real problems they face to penetrate a tough situation, these managers abdicate their responsibilities by excusing themselves to solve urgent problems, such as attending important meetings (buttering higher-ups), politicking, and not having the time to provide real help because they have too many things to do—harassing others with micromanaging; what a surprise!

Although I have written several blogs on this topic in the past, my primary focus in those blogs has been on equipping the victims of micromanagement—my clients. In this blog I am going to focus on what micromanagers themselves can do to make it easy for their team members to work with them and how they can increase their effectiveness as a leader and a doer by having more time on their hands to do the right things to benefit their team. The larger problem I face here in their approach is getting these micromanagers to accept who they are and taking to heart some of these recommendations to change their ways. In that vein what I found is that their instinctive righteous indignation gets in their way when someone insinuates that they are, indeed, micromanagers. Without further self-inquiry, they move on, casually dismissing such suggestions and going on their way to further micromanage!

But, if they decide to now listen, in so engaging with their teams embracing a new outlook, they will be helping their own growth, earning the respect and trust of their teams, and going home feeling rewarded and more secure by how they carried out their leadership responsibilities.

But, if they decide to now listen, in so engaging with their teams embracing a new outlook, they will be helping their own growth, earning the respect and trust of their teams, and going home feeling rewarded and more secure by how they carried out their leadership responsibilities. If they believe in data-based responses, see how their next 360 will have a different response from their own team in how the teams view their new leadership avatar. Concomitantly, I am also including some tips for the team members that suffer from micromanagers on what they can do to disabuse their managers and put them on a path to redemption. 

Managers’ Responsibilities: 

1.    Hands-on Vs micromanaging:Most managers confuse being hands-on with being a micromanager. Thoughtful, hands-on managers typically spend strategic time planning, carefully parceling out different tasks that each team member can execute and creating clear accountabilities across team members. This approach requires deep knowledge of what a task entails and how each team member is aligned to that task with their skill and how long such an assignment would typically take to complete.

Good managers also have an intimate understanding of their teams’ capacity and capabilities and what they can do in challenging times. So, when their higher-ups place unreasonable demands on their teams, they take a stand to defend and protect their teams from abusive and unreasonable expectations.  As more and more teams embrace agile methods these managers spend their time coaching and mentoring their teams and providing them leadership when they feel that their challenges require an experienced hand.

Recovering micromanagers must focus on how they can adopt these behaviors to earn the respect of their teams. They must have or develop a deep technical understanding in the areas of their domain and know how to coach their teams to ratchet-up their capabilities by constantly challenging themselves with stretch missions and helping their teams to achieve those missions. In so doing these managers have equipped themselves to be more marketable in today’s job market and concurrently helped themselves in regaining their teams’ respect. 

2.   Manage by Exception: Micromanagers constantly want to know where every electron is on their software project. This is because they do not know how to plan a project, set clear accountabilities with measurable milestones, how to resource properly, how to manage risk, and how to manage by exception. All of this requires a solid understanding of what is technically required from their teams, how to plan properly, and how to create accountabilities. This is management work. 

Instead, micromanagers willy-nilly take on random assignments from their superiors merely to please them, without proper assessment of the task, and then dump them on their teams without much planning or creating accountabilities. Up-front work of accepting the properly scoped assignments and then parceling them out to their teams is a serious management responsibility. If done diligently the only responsibility the manager then has is to manage the project by exception—only when assigned tasks get off track. This requires much less time and attention, but it requires up-front work that is the true job of a manager. 

3.   Team Trust: A good manager must develop their teams and build trust among their team members, so that the team members feel safe in their role. Confident team members do not hesitate to tell what is true without fear of reprisals from their peers or their managers. Set the rules and enforce them so that team members know what is acceptable and what is not. If you create a PowerPoint template and enforce it uniformly across the team your review must focus on the content and its impact, not on the colors, font sizes, and other style issues. This is what adds value to the team during reviews and helps you earn their respect. Not when you focus on the niggling details that do not matter in the long run. 

My belief is that we learn and grow only when we operate at the edge of our expanding capabilities.

4.   Over-delegate:Micromanagers maintain control by incrementally giving instructions to their teams, rather then delegating the whole task through proper planning and through accountability, as mentioned in #1, above. What I found is that when you give team members tasks that stretch their skills they often come through and feel proud of themselves in how they have gone beyond their limits of capabilities. My belief is that we learn and grow only when we operate at the edge of our expanding capabilities. A confident manager knows how to challenge their team members with assignments that stretch their capabilities. The manger’s role now becomes watching them and catching them before they fail and making sure that they don’t. Using this approach, the team members grow in their role and the manager becomes increasingly more capable of taking on bigger challenges for themselves for their own ongoing growth. 

5.    Rewards:One of the most important aspect of growing a team and its members is to reward them once they come through on their stretch assignments. These rewards do not even have to be financial. Often, a well-deserved acknowledgement in an email with specific details of why this acknowledgment is worthy of note for a team member or even the whole team can make a big difference in how they respond to such simple yet important gestures of leadership. A hand-written note with specifics, a verbal kudo in a large meeting, a night out on town with their spouse, are all simple gestures that carry more meaning to those receiving them than most realize. Constant and appropriate kudos can help team stay motivated and help in getting more commitment from the team.

Team Members’ Responsibilities:

Much hullabaloo about micromanagement stems from what the team members fail to do as they deal with their micromanaging boss. Although it is not always a team member’s or team’s fault that they are under the iron fist of a micromanager, they often share some burden of their own plight than they realize. This is because they find it easier to surrender to the ways of their manager and to complain about it than doing something preemptively to make it easier for them to adopt what works. 

When it comes to any management, follow a simple rule: If you cannot manage your manager, she cannot manage you. What that means is that you must set the parameters of how the management process works for you vis-à-vis your manager early in your engagement with them otherwise your manager will preempt that process by virtue of how they decide to manage you—in that battle they’ll always win and you’ll always lose. This is because once you get on a track set by your manager it is much harder to change its course later on. Additionally, if your styles are not in alignment you may end up getting on a downward spiral with your manager on how you interact, and it will be difficult for you to extricate yourself from that cycle. Such a spiral often and inevitably ends-up in a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) and an eventual termination for no other reason than a simple misalignment of expectations.  

So, what is your role to reign-in a micromanager and get them to accommodate what works for you? Her is my list:

1.    Setting Operating Parameters:This is one of the most crucial first steps any team member must do in their early interactions with their new manager. Discuss openly how you like to work and what works best for you in a working arrangement. Present this discussion in a way that makes your manager feel as though by giving you this operating leeway they are going to benefit equally by your autonomy, empowerment, and what you deliver to them. 

Explain to your boss how by giving you a full picture of what they expect from you and the resources to provide you the ability to deliver they have to manage you by exception (see this in #2 above). What this means is also that you do not take on assignments that are vague, confusing, and that are ill-thought out. Here, you now own the burden of kicking back any assignment that have these vagaries or are errant in your judgment. You now have the responsibility to stop any arrant (and errant) assignment from your boss that comes your way. 

2.   Catching Your Errant Boss:Once you develop this mutual understanding and get into a rhythm of this framework any violation of this from your manager’s side must be openly confronted and discussed for remedy. Remind your boss on what you both agreed to and find a way to reframe what is required in ways that works for you both. This requires your ability to confront your boss, have a meaningful discussion in a civil way, and agreeing to mutually workable solution—not always an easy thing to undertake. But, taking this on early and often will set the right tone for your interactions with your otherwise micromanaging boss. 

3.   Checking with Others:If you think that your boss is micromanaging, you are not alone in your plight. Check with other team members and assess how they are affected by what is happening to them. Do not go around as an act of mutiny against your boss, but discreetly check and see how other team members are affected by your manager’s working style. If you are making your case to your boss for them to change their approach to managing you, you may have a better case if you have some data points from others to make your case with more conviction. If others are not noticing your manager’s toxic approach to getting things done, then it is likely that you are coming up short in how your manager views you. In that case you need to do some introspection and have a different discussion with your boss. 

4.   Staying on Track:As you demand your own approach to how you manage your boss and vice versa staying in good stead with them is the sine qua non. When you make your case to your manager about how they should manage you, it is critical that you have met all your obligations, so they do not have an excuse to justify why you need to be micromanaged. This is why taking on the right assignments, giving realistic timelines, and honoring all your commitments is so important. If you do not do this the first argument your boss is going to attack you with is your inability to complete your tasks and then all your pleas to change your working arrangement with your boss do not get a hearing they deserve. 

5.   Making Your Boss Look Good:Underneath any manager’s operating system is their desire to look good to their higher-ups. So, if you want to get anything from your boss in return for some concessions you want from them you must ascertain what things you can do for them to look good to their superiors. This requires some understanding of what makes them tick and what their hidden agenda is. This is where your political savvy can help you better manage these meetings to get what you want. Always remember, your boss will go out of their way to help you if you make them look good in front of their superiors. 

Although you may end up with a micromanaging boss, using some of these tips and strategies may help you mitigate the adverse impact of their style and give you some relief from micromanagement. Remember, even if your boss is not a micromanager, nearly 80% of the bosses are dysfunctional, incompetent, or indifferent. In all such cases the prescription here is equally applicable. 

Good luck!