By Debbie Depp
Over the past couple of decades, micromanagement, defined
as "managing with great or excessive control or
attention to detail," has fallen out of favor.
However, in view of the inconsistent results that companies
have been delivering, some executives are reconsidering
the concept. Bruce Tulgan, president of
Rainmaker Thinking, says, "At some point in
time, the 'nice guy' manager came into fashion, and
bosses started being afraid to act like bosses."
Tulgan says, "But when we ask employees what they
want from the people above them, the first thing they
mention is never a raise. It's always:
- More coaching
- More guidance
- Clearer goals
- More constructive criticism
- More recognition for achievements"
Results of a McKinsey study confirm this by summarizing
that 80% of the people on the job don't know what to do
and 90% don't know how to do it.
Of course, star performers in any organization always
want a certain degree of autonomy and flexibility. "But
it turns out that the only managers who succeed in giving
their best people flexibility are those managers who
are highly engaged and hands-on and demand strict accountability
for results," says Tulgan.
"So who are the real 'nice guy' managers? Is
'micromanagment' a red herring?" Or put it another
way, have we become so leery of micro that we've stopped
managing altogether? Maybe so. In an effort to figure
out how bosses interact with their underlings, Tulgan
and his team of coaches have conducted in-depth interviews
with hundreds of managers over the past couple of years.
They found an "epidemic of undermanagement,"
he says.
It seems that hardly anyone is consistently stepping
up to the plate, when it comes to what Rainmaker defines
as the five management basics.
- Clear statements of what's expected of each employee
- Explicit and measurable goals and deadlines
- Detailed evaluation of each person's work
- Clear feedback
- Rewards fairly meted out
Only 10% of managers provide their direct reports with
all five of the basics at least once a week. Only 25%
do so at least once a month. And about a third of managers,
it seems, fail to get around to the basics even once
a year.
Well, without regular attention to these matters, employee
performance can quickly get derailed. Managers need
to be anticipatory; otherwise you're constantly putting
out fires. When you can't delegate you get overwhelmed
by needless details. This is why, when people tell me
they don't have time to manage and measure consistently,
I tell them they don't have time not to!
In my three decades of working with diverse companies,
I have seen all too many situations in which a manager
is not adequately trained to carry out his or her job.
The result? Not knowing what to do, when to do it, or
how to do it, the manager does nothing. Top-performing
companies value management skills highly and make significant
investments in training, coaching and educating their
managers. In those companies, the managers actually
manage.
It's time to pay more attention to your employees,
so that you can improve productivity and performance.
You have to retain your high performers one day at a
time, one person at a time. Look for the needle in the
haystack that is the thing that person wants, and make
sure he or she doesn't feel the need to go elsewhere
to get it. Only hands-on, results-driven managers are
able to do this - and, by happy coincidence, to give
their own careers a boost as well.
|
