How to Improve Micromanagement

Micromanagement disempowers employees and often causes them to quit.

A micromanager often paralyzes her employees and stifles creativity. If you find it hard to let your employee complete the assigned task without butting in every few moments to see how he is doing, consider yourself a micromanager. Micromanagers don't look at the result; they feel they must oversee every minute detail involved in completing the task. Employees tense up and get paranoid around micromanagers, and everyone's work suffers as a result.

Instructions

1. Empower your employees by removing yourself from the task's details. Set up points along the way to meet with your employee while he completes the project, but resist checking in every few minutes.

2. Delegate projects and tasks to employees even if it means you cannot control every aspect of the task. Be willing to let go and give room to your employee to make mistakes. Mistakes are only opportunities for learning and making improvements. Employees cannot learn if they do not have the opportunity to do so.

3. Leave your hands-on approach off for the moment. There are many roads and ways to complete certain projects; yours may not be the best. Be open to allow others to come up with step-saving ideas.

4. Listen to your employees. Take time to hear their concerns and address those rather than what you think they want to hear. Good managers are not only good orators; they are good listeners as well.

5. Take an overview approach rather than immersing yourself in the tiny details of the project. Look at the big picture and resist correcting details.

6. Let your employee finish the task. Don't take back a task when it is not complete. Allow employees to finish and then review the results, not the individual steps it took to get there.

7. Encourage employees to make independent decisions. Having employees consult with you on every decision, especially the small ones, wastes everyone's time. Allow employees to prioritize their workloads.

8. Quit being a control freak. Synergy always works better. Just because you have taken your obsession with detail and the hands-on approach to the extreme doesn't mean it's the best approach. Better ideas happen in a group when everyone is free to express his ideas.

Tips & Warnings

• Micromanagers seek to blame someone rather than correct the problem. If you find yourself blaming your employees for a poor work product, this is usually a sign of a micromanager. Blame does nothing except make a person feel small. Look for solutions to the problem without blame.

• Micromanagers prevent growth in their employees. Learning and growing, even with adults, requires making mistakes. The micromanager's need for perfection in detail may stifle and constrict employees, causing them to leave their jobs and look elsewhere for more fulfilling work. Learn to trust your staff.

References

• Mind Tools: Avoiding Micromanagement
• functionfox: Micromanagement -- Whose Fault Is it Anyway?