Micromanagement – Don’t be a jack-in-the-box

Sue was like a Jack-in-the-Box.  She would sit at her desk chomping noisily on her Jaffa Cakes and then bang, she would bounce up out of her chair to check how the team were doing. She would swirl across the office floor speaking with her team, checking on case updates and of course double checking whether they had done the tasks she had given them that morning. After she was satisfied, Sue would scoot back to her desk and jump back into her box for another 30 or so minutes, before springing back out and starting all over again.

In Sue’s head, she was managing her team effectively.  She knew what everyone was up to and felt she had her finger firmly on the pulse. In reality, Sue’s team thought she was a real pain in the backside and thought she was a complete control freak.  I’ve no doubt Sue’s heart was in the right place.  In her head, she was trying to support and help her team, but in doing so, she was unknowingly creating a culture of complete distrust and disharmony.

Sue needed to put the brakes on.  She needed to take a step back and implement some of these tips:

• Updates – Instead of hovering over people, agree pre-arranged update meeting times with individuals in the team. Stick to the times agreed.
• Empower the team – Hand over accountability and responsibility for certain tasks and projects to individuals. Be there to support them if they need you, but definitely don’t interfere.
• Ask the team – Ask your team/individuals how they want to work. Do they want quick regular meetings, or one a week? Fit in with their needs instead of your own.
• Assess the team – Don’t treat everyone the same. New people will need more handholding, whereas the more experienced members of your team will need less attention.

If Sue had implemented these steps, she would very quickly have started to nurture a culture of mutual trust and respect within the team. Undoubtedly, over time, the atmosphere would change for the better and as a result, individual and team performance would see improvements too.

Don’t be like Sue!

Book Recommendation 

If you are looking develop your micromanagement skills you’ll love; Moving From Micromanagement to Masterful Leadership by Rhonda Geddis. 

Pic by Charles Barsotti

Communication – Do you offer enough clarity?

I’ve been lucky down the years.  I’ve worked for plenty of managers who treated me and others with respect.  More importantly, they made the brews and even bought cakes on a Friday.  What more could I ask for?!

Being a great leader is much more than displaying honesty, integrity, knowledge and generally being nice.  Of course, these are important, but if you want to create leaders in your business that people want to follow, they also need another vital ingredient – clarity.

Leaders who don’t provide enough clarity around their expectations, their vision, performance objectives and so on will ultimately lose the respect of those around them.  Employees won’t know what’s expected of them, or in what direction the business is heading.  They won’t be clear on the fundamental things that are key to their own and their company’s success. Ultimately of course, this poses a significant risk that employees will simply coast along waiting patiently until the Friday cakes arrive and will never really help to drive the business forward.

As a manager, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you provide enough clarity?
• On the clarity scale of 1-10 (-with 1 being non-existent), how would your team score you? Why?
• In what ways could you improve?
• What obstacles/challenges might you face in increasing your level of clarity?
• How do you intend to overcome these obstacles?

Book Recommendation 

We’d highly recommend; Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action by Simon Sinek.  A brilliant book that will help you to identify your own purpose and more importantly how that can be communicated to your own team.

Managing Conflict – Preventing it all from kicking off

Karen was notorious for flying off the handle, especially when faced with conflict. Her pupils would turn green and she would explode into a ranting rage. Her fists would immediately go up and she would get defensive and blame anyone and everyone but herself. All in all, it looked like she’d had one too many fruit shoots!

Karen was well known for diving in with both feet when dealing with a conflicting situation. In her opinion, “It got everything out in the open and sorted”. In reality of course, she made matters far worse. The divide between her and her team was getting wider by the day. Her biggest failure was that she never took a step back to analyse the situation and figure out how best to resolve it.

The PU View

We would advise Karen to take an hour out and think about which of the following techniques she could use to resolve her conflict situations. She could:

Compromise – Find common ground to maintain the relationship
Compete – Very much a win/lose situation. (I suspect she would love this approach)
Avoid – A lose/lose situation.
Accommodate – This approach is generally used when one party is willing to forfeit their position
Collaborate – Very much a win/win situation. Requires trust and commitment on both sides (I can’t see her adopting this approach)

The key when trying to resolve conflict is to take a considered step back to reflect. Do you really want to resolve the conflict? If so, which technique/strategy is likely to have the best effect in order to achieve the desired goal? How will the other party react? More importantly, how will you react?

Sadly for Karen, she will always be picking up the pieces of conflict. Conflict will never get resolved in her eyes and all because she won’t take that essential step back to reflect and consider each situation objectively.

Book Recommendation 

This book will change how you see all conflict.  Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute 

Tacit Knowledge – Get it out of their heads

Mel managed a team of stars. Her small but perfectly formed HR Team of three had worked together for five years. They knew each other and their respective roles inside out. They all worked on autopilot. Managing them was the easiest job Mel had ever had. That was until one fateful wet and windy November morning…

Mel was always first into the office, so she thought it unusual to find all of her team members sat waiting for her. The expression on their faces didn’t look good. They didn’t waste any time in thrusting their one months’ notice letters in front of her. Mel looked aghast as they each apologised feebly and went on to explain that they had been offered more money by one of their competitors and that their minds were well and truly made up.

Four weeks passed quickly and before Mel knew it they were all gone. Not only did they take their belongings, they also took a staggering combined total of 15 years’ experience with them. All that was left was a mouldy pack of fig rolls, an out of date procedures manual and some complicated flow charts. Sadly for Mel, a high percentage of their knowledge had been in their heads. In other words, they had legged it with a multitude of tacit knowledge – knowledge that was now lost forever.

Mel sat back, ate three of the mouldy fig rolls and began to deeply regret never surfacing some of their tacit knowledge during the five years they had all worked together.

How much tacit knowledge is swirling around in your team or business?
Are you in danger of falling into Mel’s trap?
Who would leave a massive gap if they left your team tomorrow?
What can you proactively do to surface some of their tacit knowledge?

After a few bottles of Pino Grigio, Mel dusted herself down, recruited three replacements and put a plan in place to ensure this could never happen again in the future. Amongst other things, she introduced regular knowledge sharing sessions so that knowledge and best practice could be shared amongst the team and introduced a mentoring, coaching and job shadowing scheme.

At least if any of Mel’s new team members ever decided to jump ship, all would not be lost again.

Do you need a hand helping to surface the tacit knowledge of your employees? Why not get in touch now to see how our ‘Sharing Best Practice’ training course can help.