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Balance is Everything: The Flaws of Micromanagement

Balance is Everything: The Flaws of Micromanagement

By Kirstin Miller
English: Berlin, office building of Schering c...
English: Berlin, office building of Schering company Deutsch: Berlin, Bürokomplex von Schering in der Müllerstraße (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Management is a juggling act. Where to devote precious resources, where to allocate key assets, and when to delegate certain tasks: these are the questions and challenges faced daily by business leaders all over the world. While a lack of management can slow a company down and sap it of its vision and drive, perhaps even deadlier is micromanagement. Where there is micromanagement there is loss, there is discouragement, and there is a huge opportunity cost in the time wasted by the manager, who should be doing more important things. Unfortunately, whether out of fear or a character flaw, every manager struggles with the temptation to overstep his bounds and fail to delegate appropriately.

The number one problem with micromanagement is the lack of trust it displays in the leader. Without trust, you have no real relationships or synergy with your coworkers, employees, or superiors in your business. Trust is absolutely essential, and if you fail to allow people to manage their own ares–even if they fail at first–you fail to show them you have confidence in them and value their input. Let people fall. Let people make their own mistakes, from which they will learn valuable lessons they’ll carry with them through the rest of their careers.

If you’re on board with the idea of proper delegation, it’s time to look at practical ways to implement that. Does every situation that might crop up in the company have a defined process? Do you have hard, written workflows that can be adapted to any circumstance? If not, it’s time to look at simple project management software. While many smaller companies may not see the need to invest in new software, upgrading or purchasing project management implementations can have a huge impact on any organization. You may have used Microsoft Project here and there, but if you haven’t done a comprehensive analysis of your structure and current projects, you could find fatal flaws in your hierarchy that are contributing to a lack of trust in your people.

To strike the optimal balance between leadership and hands-on involvement, consider looking at modern collaboration software with integrated online document management. These types of programs will allow you to access and analyze your company’s data any time of day from nearly any machine in the world. When you can see live numbers and adjust resources, key deadlines, and other assets on the fly, you don’t have to look over every employee’s shoulder at all hours of the day–not a convenice MS Project affords you. MS Project alternatives such as Basecamp, Workzone, and Smartsheet are examples of this modern, cloud based paradigm.

Once you have the proper tools and solutions, you can rightly discern where you can safely back off your people, and where you can encourage them to take ownership in order to improve their results. While more profits and greater efficiency will be side effects of this approach, ultimately you will sow the seeds of greater trust, which will pay the most dividends in the long run.