Don’t Micromanage: 6 Tips to Keep Your Team Happy
Management! I just love management! At least, I love it when it’s done right.
My good friend Pat Productive led a team of 12 happy employees for over a decade. Through good times and bad, they delivered rock-solid products to happy customers. Pat was the rock star of the division. The team delivered concrete results. They never rocked the boat.
Then the reorg happened.
Pat was transferred to report to Bossy McManager. Bossy McManager cared. Bossy cared a lot. Cared too much. About every single detail, no matter how unimportant. Bossy would re-examine the team’s every decision and offer helpful corrections. By “corrections,” I mean Bossy would dictate a different way of doing things.
Despite 12 years of a super-happy career, in just three months, half the team had quit. Morale plummeted. Pat asked for my help. I suggested giving Bossy McManager a peace offering, like a full-grown carnivorous Audrey II as a tasteful office decoration. Pat didn’t like that suggestion and quit instead.
Just like that, the company’s most amazing 12-year team was destroyed. All by Bossy McManager’s micromanaging. So, here are my six tips to help you avoid micromanaging.
#1 – Understand That Management Happens at Many Levels
A lot of people think that managers are bosses; they think a manager’s job is to boss people around. And who doesn’t like to be bossed around, right? Wrong. When your shmoopie asks what you want for your birthday, you don’t say “I want to be bossed around.” (Well, some of you do, but that has nothing to do with work.) People don’t want to be bossed around. But they do want managers who provide direction.
Different people need direction at different levels of detail. If Erin Expert has run a dozen project launches, you probably just need to say, “Hey, Erin, please launch our latest line of Play-Doh-based electronic erector sets.” They can take it from there. When you check in on them, you can ask big-picture questions. “Where will our initial launch be? What is our media mix? Is computer scientist Grace Hopper available for an endorsement?”
People don’t want to be bossed around. But they do want managers who provide direction.
The less-experienced Norton Newbie may need more detailed direction. “First, you choose the cities where we’ll sell the erector sets. Next, schedule a launch party. Finally, invite the press, to get favorable media coverage.” You’ll check in on Norton with lots of detailed questions. You might make specific recommendations about what to do. “Why did you choose Schenectady for the launch? Please choose a city that’s easier to spell. You invited the press by email using an ugly font. Format future email using Palatino.” Norton will be grateful that you’re helping them do a good job at something new.
#2 – Match Your Employee’s Level of Thinking
Pat’s team didn’t need detailed direction. They had been delivering for over a decade. They were successful. They were tight. They just needed the big picture and they could do the rest.
But Bossy McManager insisted on giving detailed direction to people who already knew what they were doing. They became resentful and lost patience.
When someone is used to filling in their own details, and you insist they do things your way, you’ve got a recipe for conflict. This is why micromanaging is a problem. Do too much of it and you’ll discover that “employee turnover” is more than just a pastry from Mrs. Lovett’s Pie Shop.
Decide how closely to manage by taking your cue from Goldilocks. Goldilocks and the Three Bears is not really about bears. It’s about resource optimization, ownership, economic justice, and appropriate punishment for breaking and entering. The bears hardly appear in the story, but Goldilocks looms large.
Take a cue from Goldilocks. You want to manage just right.
Once she’d picked the locks and entered the Bears’ house, Goldi tried a bowl of porridge. It was “too hot.” The second bowl was “too cold.” But the third was “just right.” (A thief with a discriminating palate. The reality TV show writes itself.)
You don’t want to micromanage. Like porridge that is too hot, micromanaging is too much. You’ll demoralize your team and drive them crazy imposing your details on their work.
You don’t want to undermanage. That’s managing too little—it’s cold porridge. Your team may be paralyzed, not knowing what to do next.
You want to manage just right.
If you aren’t managing just right, people won’t necessarily tell you. They may be afraid of your Terrible and Mighty Wrath. They may think they’re wrong for not being able to follow your guidance. Or they might not even realize that things could be better with different management.
It’s up to you to raise the issue. Which brings me to my next tip.
#3 – Ask Your Employees What They Need
When you get a new employee, ask how much management they need to do their job best. Then adapt to their needs. Then, instead of being the obnoxious Bossy McManager, you’ll be the spectacular Stacy Supportive.
Ask what works for them:
- How often would you like to touch base?
- Where would you like me to make recommendations and where would you prefer I be hands-off?
Harvard Business Review presents research that the most effective way to manage is to give someone clear goals and then let them decide how they’ll reach them. You just need to know how detailed those goals should be.
Whatever they tell you, try it for a few weeks. Find out if they really deliver under that level of management. If so, you’re off and running!
#4 – Check in About Management Style
Your team members might be wrong about how they work best. Not everyone knows their own work style. So check in regularly and adjust course. Ask “Am I checking in too often? Not often enough? Just right?” And “Where would you like me to be more hands-on or more hands-off?”
If they give an answer you disagree with, bite your tongue. Hard. Smile pleasantly and agree. This isn’t about your needs. As a manager, your job is satisfying their needs. You’re Stacy Supportive, remember? Do another cycle and see if the tune-up helps them improve.
#5 – Know That You Might Disagree
Your job may be satisfying their needs, but you do have needs of your own. And you need to manage yourself during this process.
If you’re a details person, you might give detailed directions. Then, if your team does things differently from how you’d do them, you might find that it drives you nuts.
That’s OK. You’re not supposed to agree with how they do things. My first boss told me “If we agree on everything, then one of us is redundant.” Take that to heart.
In this case, you might be the redundant one. And that’s OK. If you’re doing your job perfectly as a manager, your team should be able to get along without you, for the most part. Your job is coordination, not direction.
#6 – Check Progress and Results
Even though you shouldn’t overmanage how people are doing things, you should check in about progress. My favorite unobtrusive check-in is the 5-minute daily checkin from episode 359. It lets you track progress in a non-obtrusive, non-judgmental way.
After they’ve finished a job, evaluate how well they did. If they did a worse job than you would have, help them understand how to improve. If they did a better job than you would have, acknowledge it, and learn so you can do better in the future.
Either way, if the job they did is acceptable, tell them they did a good job. Because at the end of the day, they did, even if it wasn’t how you’d do it.
#7 – If They Did Wrong, Coach Them
Sometimes, though, your fears come to pass. Your team member forgot a crucial detail. They did things the wrong way. And they didn’t recover, so they did not deliver an acceptable outcome.
If you’ve already made several course corrections, there may be a deeper problem than management style. They might be in the wrong job. They might need training. You might be giving them the wrong goals. Or you might be communicating the goals in a way that’s unclear.
But if it’s the first or second course correction, point out that they may need more detailed management than they thought. Then work with them to redesign the next go-around.
Ideally, you’ll be Goldilocks, minus the breaking-and-entering. You’ll be “just right” at managing your employees. You’ll be as hands-on or hands-off as they need. Negotiate how often you check in, and how directive you should be. Make adjustments for each person until you find the sweet spot. If Bossy McManager knew this, they would still have a happy team led by Pat Productive. And from here on out, you’ll be able to customize your management style so your team can shoot for the moon. And this time, they won’t miss.
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I’m Stever Robbins. Follow Get-It-Done Guy on Twitter and Facebook. If you’re an executive, manager, or sales professional and you want a partner to help you get even better at what you do, hire me as your coach. Learn more at SteverRobbins .
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About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
