Welcome back in your Leadership. I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo, and welcome to
this week's Thoughtful Thursday. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube at Hacking your
Leadership and leave us a review whatever podcast platform you're listening to on this Thoughtful
Thursday, I want to talk about micro management. Oh I like this.
You like being micromanaged? Uh no, but I like talking about not being
micromanaged. So you don't like being micromanaged? Not my preference, not perce
Have you been micromanaged? Yes? I do feel like there were times in
my career where I felt I was being micro managed. Have you ever deserved
it? Like in the moment of your thought, I'm being micromanaged, but
I deserve this, Well, I wouldn't say necessarily deserve I think in sentences,
is I needed it? I needed a leader to like be very clear
directive, like make sure that what I'm doing, like we say, like
crossing every tea dot and every eye, like really being on top of making
sure that the process that I was doing was very very correct. But did
you did you believe that in the moment it was happening or is it something
you just look back on and think, yeah, that was the right thing
to do. I think it depended upon the leader. I think for some
leaders it felt like kind of over the shoulder, like as if you were
checking my work you didn't trust me to get it done. With other leaders,
it felt like, look, I'm I'm making sure that you're getting this
right because this is imperative to either the company or that you really know you
need to know how to do this so that you don't fall into traps and
maybe make a mistake when you shouldn't make a mistake. What do you think
the difference was between those two examples of leaders, Like what caused you to
take one instance one way and one instance another way? I think the approach,
and then I think like the explanation of why they were doing it.
Like one leader was very much like, hey, I need you to learn
how to do this, so like, you know, here's the thing,
like show me what you're doing, and then it's kind of like okay,
like I feel like I get this right. Another leader is like, hey,
let me tell you why this is really really important and why we have
to make sure this has done this way exactly every single time, and now
I want you to go ahead and show me how you would do that,
and then let's refine that is kind of like the approach and then the explanation.
So I brought up Wikipedia here, and I'm just looking at what the
definition of micromanagement is. And the thing I want to bring up is that
there's a there's always a negative connotation to the word micromanagement because it shows a
lack of freedom and trust in the workplace. And that's that's directly from from
Wikipedia there. If you have to adhere to a certain process, then that's
a lack of freedom, and if a person's watching over your shoulder, that
can imply a lack of trust. In mind, when I think of instances
in my career where I have felt like I've been micromanaged, there's another element
of it too, which is I feel singled out in that. And I'll
give you a perfect example. You know, you know that you'll you see
in movies when someone has to open a bank vault and they can't do it
by themselves. You have to have like three people with three different keys to
open it at the same time. No one ever thinks, oh that the
bank doesn't trust me. It's like they think, well, the bank trust
no one. They want to have a process in place so they can say,
hey, it's impossible to get in here without three people all at the
same time and three different co keys or whatever it is, and that gives
a credibility to the process. Nobody feels like they're being micromanagement or a lack
of there's a lack of trust. When when I feel like I'm being micromanaged
it and it brings a lack of trust. It's when I can look at
my coworkers and they're not being micromanaged, So what makes them trusted but me
not trusted? And it's kind of like everybody has a key to the safe,
but the only time that a security guard goes in is when you're the
one over exactly, yeah, exactly. So yeah, this is this is
interesting because, um, there are times, basically what you're saying is,
there are times when micromanagement seems to be needed. Now absolutely, I think
immediately of um, the kind of the situational leadership concept and like the for
those that are familiar with it, like the first step in there is like
as a leader, like meeting people where they're at and what they need.
But the first step in that is being very as directive, like I need
to tell you what to do, how to do it, and where it
needs to be done and when it needs to be completed. So like you're
very much like being clear about all of these things, and it can feel
like like like I'm micromanaging, but I think that it's needed a lot of
times in those spaces where like in my own example, where I was learning
something new and I needed to understand the weight of how important this was and
why it needed to be so clear and why I had to do it a
very very specific way. I needed that initially to make sure that I was
doing it the right way, and then I wasn't going to cause some type
of an issue when it becomes I think when it turns into a negative connotation
is when I've done it now thirty times the right way every time, and
then you show up on time number thirty one and you're just like, we'll
show me what you're doing here. Now it feels like like do you not
trust me? Like have you not seen that I've done this consistently over time?
Like if we haven't been able to move on into a place where like
I need more of like a supportive behavior or I need some you know,
just an element of empowerment to know that it's being taken care of. That's
when I think it turns into this feeling of a negative micromanaging. Yeah,
you know, you're you're not wrong about that. I also think there's an
element of not if you're a leader, and people believe if you've been called
a micromanager as a leader, chances are you're you're just not taking a step
back for a moment to see what's happening before interjecting. Meaning a lot of
times when I have felt like I was being micromanaged, it's when I have
received a kind of direction on doing something that I was already doing or that
or that I was in the process of beginning or starting whatever it was,
and the person didn't just take a few seconds to look and see that that's
what was happening already. They just said it, almost like it was their
job to say something, regardless of the situation. And I think that can
lead to a feeling of micromanaging because it's like, you know, if you
if you felt like you had to tell me this, that means you feel
like I wouldn't have done it on my own anyway, which if I wasn't
doing it on my own and I have a history of not doing on my
own, maybe I need that right. But if I'm actually doing it in
the moment, and I don't have a history of not doing it when I'm
supposed to be doing it, then why would you need to say it to
begin with? If you're saying it because you need to kind of feel like
you are contributing to this process as the leader, and your way of contributing
is to make sure that people are doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Sometimes people are already doing what they're supposed to be doing and you don't need
to say anything, and you contribute by just taking a step back and watching.
So what I want to ask you, Lorenzo, is have you ever
been in a situation as a leader where someone needed to be micromanaged for whatever
reason it was, they didn't believe they needed to be micromanaged, and you
kind of had to get them on board with that process because it was for
the betterment of them and their growth and their development and the organization as a
whole. So I want to ask you that At first, I want to
give it a word from one of our sponsors. All right, Lorenzo,
No one wants to be micro managed, but sometimes it's needed. Have you
ever had a time when you had to micromanage somebody and make them aware that
this was not a bad thing, that they kind of this was part of
the job because of the situation kind of called for it. I tend my
brain immediately goes to the spaces around things like conversations around like performance management,
where like you have a leader responsible for people or a team and they have
to have a conversation about somebody who maybe not meeting whatever the expectations are sure,
and what ends up happening sometimes is you know, again, if it's
a new leader, my hope is that we've built a system that allows them
to have a mentor or somebody to work with them to make sure that they
are comfortable as much as possible in these spaces, because they're gonna have to
learn through experience. Where I find it is that if there's a space where
maybe a leader's responsible for it, it's not going the way that it should
be going. Maybe there's a lack of clarity, maybe there's maybe there's some
feelings because you know, it wasn't approached the right way, where then I
have to sit down with a leader and say, okay, like we're going
to work through how do you have this conversation with someone and how do you
Again, the intent is that somebody can walk away with clarity, they can
walk away with an understanding of the work they need to do. They can
feel you know, inspired or empowered to make sure that they know that they
can go in and improve whatever they want to improve upon. And so there's
a couple of things going to happen here. I'm going to ask you to
treat me like the employee and walk me through how you would have that conversation.
But then I also I'm gonna sit in. I'm gonna sit in and
hear the dialogue. But I'm not gonna just show up and say, okay,
I want to sit in the next time you talk to this employee,
and then just do what you're gonna do, because I feel that it's not
right of us to continue maybe a bad behavior or a lack of expectation on
how that conversation should be. So we're going to practice here and I'm gonna
hear, and then we're gonna go back and forth and I'm gonna provide you
with some notes if we're gonna practice again, and then I'm gonna sit in
so again. Like that's where you can feel like, Okay, is there
a lack of freedom to go have the conversation. Is there a lack of
trust because I don't like want you need to go talk to this employee by
yourself without me being there. That's kind of, by definition a little bit
of what micromanaging is. But I think again, in my experience, when
you explain it, when you talk about it, when you're aware of it
and you and you're sharing why it's needed in this moment, that's where I
tend to find myself kind of doing more micromanaging is in those spaces where leaders
are either struggling with how to have these conversations or and this is what leaders
maybe have never had these experiences or conversations, where then I have to step
into that, you know that situation leaders in place of being very directive clear,
having them practice, having them go over and over and over again,
right, because at the end of the day, you have a responsibility to
that employee who is being performance managed to get them the performance management that will
a help them get better or be make sure that all of your ducks are
in a row if it if it's time to move to the next step,
and you can't move to the next step unless all of the previous steps were
done correctly. So you know that that obligation sometimes superseds an ability to just
say, yeah, guy, trust you to go get done. Let chips
follow where they may. So, yeah, it really has to do with
what does the potential fall out of a person doing something incorrectly, And that
has to be way, really really in every decision. But but you're right,
if you talk about it with the employee in advance, you know they'll
if they want to interpret it as a lack of trust and freedom, that's
fine. They're going to anyway. So if you say flat out there is
a one percent lack of freedom in this, not for you, but for
us as an organization. This is the process and these are this is why
the process is in place. There is no lack There is no freedom in
this process. And that goes for me too. If I have to performance
manage to someone, I don't have freedom to do it the way that I
want to do it. It has to be done in a certain way.
To make sure that we're we're adhering by the rules of the organization and so
that when when a person is managed on their perform that they don't feel singled
out, that it's done in a way that is uniform to all employees.
And in order to do that, there has to be a process, So
you have to watch the process. So no, you're you're spot on with
that. I think this it's the idea of explaining it in advance and making
sure that person understands even if it's validating what they already think. You know,
sometimes it's the you know, if they think it's lack of trust and
lack of freedom, but that you're trying to hide it and going no,
no, no, no, it's I, Oh, I trust you implicitly,
you of all the freedom in the world, but I'm gonna watch you
anyway. That's when they go really like that. That's when it doesn't work
out well. But if you say, yeah, it's a lack of trust
and a lack of freedom, that's why I'm watching it because I don't trust
that the process is being done right yet and you have no freedom to do
this, not you, but all of us. And here's why it goes
over a lot more smoothly. No one feels single out absolutely and with that
it brings us to the end of this episode. This is hacking your leadership.
I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and have a great day.