Some Strategies to Thwart Micromanagement!

Tweet: Dealing with micromanagers requires awareness of their mindset and motivation. Learn these drivers and develop strategies to deal with them

Dr. Marla Gottschalks latest blog, 5 Strategies to Curb Micromanagement, is a good reminder for the inveterate micromanagers to change their behaviors. Her suggestion are well crafted, but because of the way managers start micromanaging and their basic motivation behind that behavior it is difficult to change that unless those at the receiving end of this dysfunction take some aggressive actions and assume control of the situation. So, this blog was inspired, both by her blogs content, and from the many of the comments that it elicited. This blog is, therefore, for those at the receiving end of micromanagement.

In my view the reason managers micromanage is two-fold: First, they do not fully understand the role of a manager; and second, most people have problem differentiating micromanaging (a bad thing) from being hands-on (a good thing). The latter differentiation is important in a dialog when you confront your micromanager with a suggestion to change their behavior.

Lets take the first obstacle to a managers mindset that prevents them from being a micromanager. Most first-level managers get promoted from being individual contributors because they excel in their technical field and are better than the others in their work unit. However, in rewarding such talent with a manager title as the next step up their career ladder, the management fails to inculcate what they must do differently in their new role.

The new manager, in the absence of this important intervention, assumes that since they have been promoted for their technical excellence they must multiply that excellence across the new team they are now given to manage. The only avenue they now see to do that is by making sure that other team members reporting to them copy their methods to the nth degree. Thus, they spend their time closely watching and correcting what everyone else in their team is doing and how they are doing it. This is micromanagement. This mindset then continues as they get further promoted in their careers.

Instead, if they were re-educated in their new manager role as someone, who is responsible for bringing out the best from their team by applying the four functions of managing: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and setting up Controls, and then giving them the tools to show how each function can be applied in their new role through the various tasks that subsume that function, they can learn how to change their behavior. Of course, embracing the skills to be able to learn these functions does not absolve them from their technical responsibility for that team, but it provides a new perspective on how they should carry out those responsibilities in their new role.

The second aspect of this confusion is the belief many hold that for someone to be hands-on one must micro-manage. Nothing could be further from the truth. Being hands-on for a manger mainly means that they have taken the trouble to parcel out the task in enough details, so that a team member understands it, right from the get-go. It also means that they have created clear waypoints and accountabilities so that the team member owns the given task and delivers what was agreed to also from the get-go.

This is where most newbie managers fail and then perpetuate that behavior as they move up. They do not take the time and the trouble to do this important step up-front and set up ways to hold team members accountable (this is management work, part of the four functions, above). Being hands-on in this context now means having an early-warning system and then catching a team member doing things right and getting them back on track when they are not. This is now called mentoring.

So, if you are on the other side of a micromanager what are some of the things you can do based on what I have already said above? Here is my prescription:

1. If your manager has failed to grasp the concept of the four management functions, get together with them and remind them that despite their technical leadership you are unable to perform effectively merely because there is an expectation mismatch.
2. Educate them that you are much more effective in your role as a team member if you are given the task up-front with its requirements spelled out, along with milestones and dependencies.
3. Agree to provide your manager an early-warning alert if you feel stuck in your progress and are unable to meet your next milestone ahead of its due date. This way you are moving your manager from being a micromanager to making them more hands-on. Explain to them this subtle difference.
4. Show them how much better you are able to perform with the new freedom and how much the team is collaborating as a result of this new regime. Even managers needs positive re-enforcement from its team members for them to change their behavior.
5. Nothing pleases a managerif they are technically good at what they dothan having their team members approach them for technical guidance, especially when they feel stuck. So, proactively approach your manager guru and make them feel important in how they were able to extricate you from a knotty problem that only they could solve. Do this with some discretion and caution, so you are also able to learn from these challenges.

So, here is my prescription (and description) for dealing with micromanagers. I hope that you are able to use it and work with it to make it more useful in your own context by complementing it with what Dr. Gottschalk already published.

Good luck!

About Author

Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader.

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