Compulsive Micro-Management

Posted on April 21, 2011

Many executives and companies have a built in limiting factor, just like the governor on a gas pedal.  Here’s how you can prevent micro-management at the highest levels from stifling your growth.

I hated that governor! That nasty device didn’t let my rental truck exceed 55 mph. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, as part of my job, I would rent a 24′ bobtail truck with lift gate to pick up cargo at the port in San Francisco. You could floor the gas pedal but it would never go faster than 55. The rental company’s trucks were old but cheap, and they let me drive them even though I wasn’t anywhere close to 25 years old.

That frustrating, speed limiting driving experience reminds me of running a company where micro-management has taken root. The company’s growth rate is stifled, which limits its size, and if it breaks through even a bit — on a steep downhill stretch — it will most surely slow down again soon. This is true if the CEO is a micro-manager, also true if the top team suffers from the malady, or even if it’s infected significant numbers of executives at the next few levels.

Malady? Only if you wish to grow in your executive career. Malady? Only if you want your business to grow to the next level. Many business owners are content with things as they are, and I won’t quibble with that. But if you’re not satisfied; if you want more, then every executive on your team must stop doing their subordinates’ jobs for them — because that’s what micro-managing really is.

Origins of the Malady

This is largely a disease of those who have advanced from an entrepreneurial or supervisory role to an executive or leadership role. In the past, those executives were accustomed to doing the detail work themselves. They came to believe that their way was the best way, the only way, the perfect way. Many of these executives have never tasted the glory of letting other people perform those same tasks to an equal or higher standard.

Lack of Clarity or Training at the Higher Level

It is so much easier to fill our time with familiar tasks that we have mastered. After our promotion, while we intellectually know we should hand these tasks off to the lower level, generate surplus time in our day, and with this new-found time we should figure out our new focus. But in practice many people find this difficult. Most executives, especially entrepreneurs, are unclear on what their new job should be if they are not doing what they used to do. Certainly they’re not clear on exactly how to perform some of their new functions. They have never fully understood or internalized the critical strategic work they should be doing in the time they spend micro-managing.

Incompetent Subordinates

Most everyone who micro-manages will tell you that their team “doesn’t have what it takes” to do it on their own. Without doubt, that is true in many cases. Often with budgets tight, the team is filled with people without the experience or training they would need. Sometimes a company can’t afford to hire the right talent, and hires “helpers” who do in fact require the level of supervision that…..that a supervisor on a production line would deliver. This type of employee does in fact need micro-management (that is what supervisors actually do). But this also means that the business is not funded well enough to hire the right people, or isn’t profitable enough to grow. So an executive will be diverted to being a supervisor, and the executive work will languish. In many cases, hiring a stronger team is affordable, and this may be a better place to invest in the growth of the business, although it may feel like a risk at the start. There is certainly no point in paying an executive salary, then due to understaffing, having them do supervisory level work. One option is to fire them and hire a supervisor/manager at a much lower pay grade. Upgrade your team entirely when you’ve saved enough to afford it.

Another reason you may have an “incompetent team” is that “real” (aka truly competent) managers and executives will quit if micro-managed. Your firm may be collecting all the managers who will accept being micro-managed because they don’t have what it takes to be “real” managers or executives. This is a total catch 22. In some such cases, it may take the replacement of the micro-managing executive and all their subordinates to get a chance at recovery. There are other paths to attempting to fix these situations, but they all have risk of failure, and are costly. My favorite to start with is to put a good executive over the micro-manager, effectively demoting the micro-manager. The demotee may not stick around for long, but it gives you a chance to learn some of what needs to be learned.

Insufficient Training/Written Processes

We entrepreneurs and executives are by and large quite smart. We figure out our environment and create processes in our heads that allow us to get a lot done. Having created something from nothing, we can easily start thinking that everyone else can keep up, or learn at our rate. And it gets worse with age, since as we get older we accumulate knowledge and experience, forgetting how many years it took for us to get there. Our companies grow, we move up in management, and toss some of our work to our junior subordinates, then wonder at how they could not do it as well as us, or even do it our way. What is often missing is using known best practices for training and the development of written processes. Now I’ll be the first to admit, it is boring work to write down in agonizing step-by-step detail how to do things that I already fully know how to do. But it is essential, and far less tiresome that having to clean up the mess, over and over again.

But please note that training is not the only answer. I know several people who over-train, assuming that every time one of their incompetent staff does it wrong (again) that they just need to train (again). Incompetent people who don’t learn from well-delivered training likely need to be fired. At the same time, I know others who really believe (although they don’t admit it) that their “way” is the only and best way, and when they see a team member doing the job differently, jump into training mode (again and again) in an effort to disguise their micro-managing intentions.

No Process for Earning Trust

I’m sorry to admit that I’m not the trusting sort. When I first hire someone, I may give them the benefit of the doubt, but I won’t trust them until they’ve earned it. I’ve had too many disappointments. One of the most important aspects of the on-boarding process (for a new hire or a promotion) is coaching the new executive so that they have success after success, thus earning the trust of their peers and of their boss. Throwing them into the fire will likely destroy trust, as they are more likely to fail. Most all of us are guilty of this, and micro-managers have a great fear of allowing someone in, only to be surprised down the road by the horrible work and bad results. Instead, a newcomer should be given tasks and responsibilities in a stepwise manner, with close review and oversight (in addition to training/coaching). As we see them perform well on increasingly difficult projects, our trust grows and our need to supervise/micro-manage declines.

No Trust/Tolerance for Mistakes — A Culture of Micro-Management

This defines a bureaucracy. Delegation (the opposite of micro-management) does increase the risk that the work might be done wrong. Offsetting that is the opportunity for a top manager to do something positive and new to take the organization to the next level. But some organizations have such a “guillotine culture” that the risks are too high. I remember an early consulting assignment that involved writing a few short documents. I was astounded by the number of people that had to review, edit and approve the document. Everyone was afraid of upsetting other people. What should have been done in a day (and helped them solve a critical problem) took weeks. It made me crazy, but they thought it was normal!

Unbridled Perfectionism

This can be a beautiful thing. If I ever need a brain surgeon, I surely wish he or she is an unbridled perfectionist. But these people, if executives, have great difficulty scaling. Truly compulsive micro-managers. Chances are you’ll end up paying them well (if they are critical) and leaving them close to the work (this means at a lower level) or as a technical specialist, but not a leader of a team of any significant size. If this is the CEO, the company will have a natural limit to its growth and profitability.

Focus on the Cost of Not Stepping Up

Too many people only focus on the potential costs of having the delegated task “done wrong”. Instead, focus on the costs of not diving into strategic, higher level work. For a CEO, that might be competitive strategy or exit planning, or identifying new board members, and so on. If the micro-manager reports to you, sit down with him/her and make a list of the strategic, high level deliverables you need from them. Give them a deadline, and ask to see their project plans detailing their approach in each area. Make them break down their action items week by week, and in your weekly 1:1 meetings with them focus nearly all of the time on these areas, not their old duties. This method pushes up the consequences of not doing the strategic work, and often forces people to “let go” of their old responsibilities.

Results Focus

Too often we get wrapped up in how something is done, rather than the results. Getting crystal clear on what the actual results should be can validate the concept that new ways of doing things work just fine. Likewise, someone who won’t listen to known best practices that have been developed within the firm should get poorer results, signaling the need for training or dismissal.

So your Boss is the Micro-Manager? 

Ouch! But I’ll start by trying to be positive. First, you can try to put them at ease, hoping they’ll stop micro-managing. Here are some suggestions:

1. Paraphrase their instructions back to them, so they know that you heard and understood them.
2. Ask for deadlines and priorities on the work they give you, so you don’t disappoint, and start earning their trust. If there are challenges which may lead to delays or poor outcomes, let them know right away.
3. As you learn the job, start sharing with them what you think needs to happen and by when, and ask if you have it right. When they start telling you not to “tell them all the details” you have earned their trust.
4. Carefully try to highlight the “big picture” projects they need to be working on, and ask if you can support their efforts. The goal here is to get them focused on doing their own job, and not yours.
5. Give them frequent briefings on the status of things. Do this in your weekly 1:1 with them, and if you don’t do this, try to get regular meetings with them so you can bring them up to date, and in doing so help them have confidence in you.

The sad truth is that if your micro-managing boss doesn’t reform quickly, you ought to quit and go elsewhere. You can’t grow as an executive while you’re being micro-managed. And more than likely, your boss is stuck too. And if your boss is stuck, you are likely stuck on your rung on the corporate ladder with him/her.

Micro-managing is being stuck in a level of detail that should have been skillfully delegated. Micro-managing is a dead end career-wise, and is one of the causes of businesses getting stuck — of having their growth governed, and limited in scope and scale. Want to hit the accelerator and see your business or department respond? Eliminate micro-managing.