Why You Should Learn To Micromanage
Somehow, somewhere, the term “micromanage” got a bad name.If you have a team or confident experts, yeah, sure, micromanagement is a poor strategy, but what about the opposite?
How can micromanagement make sense?
If your new hire is low in skill and also low in confidence, you may need to use micromanagement to get them to proficiency.They need job knowledge first, which can require hand holding and frequent check-ins. A high level of accountability and transparency will also help make expectations clear and failures/successes visible.Gaining job knowledge will lead to successful completions of tasks and projects which will lead to opportunities for praise which will lead to increased confidence.To be clear: I’m NOT saying micromanagement is the answer to all management issues, it’s just a tool in the tool-belt of a competent manager.
2 Minute Action
Who is someone on your team or in your life who needs support, coaching, or feedback?Categorize them, here. Are they high or low in confidence? Are they high or low in skill/job knowledge?If they are high in both, consider using a hands-off approach.If they are low in both, consider using a micromanagement approach.
The First Thing To Do When You're Disorganized
You've got more emails.The phone is ringing.Your boss walks in and tells you about 3 things you need to do.. . .Does any of this sound or feel familiar?This is one of those classic cases of "fire of the day" management style.
When I've brought the Agile framework into a new team, the first thing that we do to help alleviate this is 2 fold:
- We discuss the Eisenhower Decision Matrix
- We put up a Scrum Board.
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix helps the team prioritize/triage the tasks coming in. It helps them respond and focus on the important stuff instead of trying to react to every loud, shiny alarm bell.Here's a picture I've used before that is easy to follow. Photo credit goes to ArtofManliness.com
The Scrum board puts tasks into three categories: To-Do, Doing, Done.
"To-Do" (later we'll call it the Backlog) is the place for tasks that we know we need to get done eventually and they might not be super clear or well defined yet."Doing" (later called the Sprint Backlog) is ONLY for the tasks that we know we need to get done in the next week or two. In order for a task to be ready for the sprint, it needs to be prioritized, have a task owner, and it needs to be defined enough that someone can "check the box" and say it's done.The "Done" column is, you guessed it, for completed tasks. This allows the manager to walk in and quality-check everything that's ready to go.Whether you're on a team or not, this structure allows you to take control of all the crises and respond to only the critical ones.The other cool benefit?You feel more calm and collected because you've suddenly got a lot more control over your workflow.
2 Minute Action:
Draw up a scrum board real quick. 3 columns.It can be on a piece of paper, a whiteboard, or on a napkin.Fill it with all the tasks you've got in your face.You will be amazed at how this simple framework will help you categorize and start to prioritize your work.
Make This Mistake And Be Stuck forever
As soon as you wake up, you’re thinking about everything you’ve got to do.But even when you put your to-do list together, you get blindsided by firey hot crises.Phone calls come in, old tasks resurface, and you feel like you’re being pulled in a million directions at once.At the end of the day, you feel like you did a TON of work, but you can’t really point to any “checked” boxes.This is called “Fire of the Day” management style and it’s a great way to ensure burnout, anxiety, and unhappiness.If you’re struggling to keep up with tasks, remember that reacting is not going to help.Its how you choose to respond (not just react) that will keep you focused.Reacting to every phone call and every email will ensure that you stay a slave to urgency—but you’re smarter than that.Tasks can be important and urgent, that’s called a crisis.But tasks can also be urgent and not important, in which case you’d be better off delegating them to someone else on your team or not doing them at all.Conflatig urgency and importance is one of the most common mistakes I see when diagnosing “Fire of the Day” management style.Recognize the difference and you’ll be able to focus on what’s important without being a slave to every burning hot urgency that comes flying at you.If you want a useful tool for helping you with this, check out the Eisenhower Decisions matrix. I share this tool with everyone I work with and point to it all the time.
2 Minute Action:
Create a quick to-do list (spend 1 minute on this).Spend the next minute assigning a number to each task.Once you have your numbers you’ve got a prioritized list of things to do.Go get ‘em.