TMD: ANTI MICROMANAGEMENT

What’s up Kaizenovators, happy Tuesday Two Minute Drill. Today’s topic of conversation is anti-micromanagement and it is inspired by an email I recently received from one of my buddies asking for a status report copy.

Status Report

I was recently having an email exchange with one of my buddies and he had asked me for a copy of what’s called a status report. At the end of each week, all the members of our teams, send a status report. It is a summary sent to their leader of how the week went for each team member in terms of their KPIs, their goals, and the challenges that they faced up.

Now, why is this important for us?

First of all, it helps the leader understand where the team members might need support and help. Secondarily, and most importantly, it gets that individual team member thinking about the outcome of the week. What were the inputs that drove the outcome? How could they do even better next week and think about the things they need to control to improve their KPIs, improve progress towards a goal, or overcome a challenge?

I sent an example of a status report to a buddy of mine and he responded “Thanks so much, but does this feel like micromanagement?” I responded to him “If you have the wrong person on the team who looks at this as a task, yes! It might feel like micromanagement. But if you have somebody who understands the purpose behind the status report, that it’s to get them to think about the inputs that drove the result and what they can do even better the following week, it’s a game-changer”. In addition, that information at the end of the week helps us as leaders are prepared for the following week to support the members of our team.

If you’ve got the right people in the right seat, doing the right work in the right way at the right time, and they’re providing you with information as a leader on how they’re doing and where they need the most amount of support at the end of each week, you’ll find it is going to be much easier to help them achieve their goals and be the best version of themselves.

So, status reports, it’s anti-micromanagement.

That’s this week’s two-minute drill. Hope you guys have a great week.

Talk to you all next week.