Tweet: Dealing with micromanagers requires awareness of their mindset and motivation. Learn these drivers and develop strategies to deal with them Dr. Marla Gottschalk’s latest blog, 5 Strategies to Curb Micromanagement, is a good reminder for the inveterate micromanagers to change their behaviors. Her suggestion are well crafted, but because of the way managers start micromanaging and their basic motivation behind that behavior it is difficult to change that unless those at the receiving end of this dysfunction take some aggressive actions and assume control of the situation. So, this blog was inspired, both by her blog’s content, and from the many of the comments that it elicited. This blog is, therefore, for those at the receiving end of micromanagement. In my view the reason managers micromanage is two-fold: First, they do not fully understand the role of a manager; and second, most people have problem differentiating micromanaging (a bad thing) from being hands-on (a good thing). The latter differentiation is important in a dialog when you confront your micromanager with a suggestion to change their behavior. Let’s take the first obstacle to a manager’s mindset that prevents them from being a micromanager. Most first-level managers get promoted from being individual contributors because they excel in their technical field and are better than the others in their work unit. However, in rewarding such talent with a manager title as the next step up their career ladder, the management fails to inculcate what they must do differently in their new role. The new manager, in the absence of this important intervention, assumes that since they have been promoted for their technical excellence they must multiply that excellence across the new team they are now given to manage. The only avenue they now see to do that is by making sure that other team members reporting to them copy their methods to the nth degree. Thus, they spend their time closely watching and “correcting” what everyone else in their team is doing and how they are doing it. This is micromanagement. This mindset then continues as they get further promoted in their careers. Instead, if they were re-educated in their new manager role as someone, who is responsible for bringing out the best from their team by applying the four functions of managing: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and setting up Controls, and then giving them the tools to show how each function can be applied in their new role through the various tasks that subsume that function, they can learn how to change their behavior. Of course, embracing the skills to be able to learn these functions does not absolve them from their technical responsibility for that team, but it provides a new perspective on how they should carry out those responsibilities in their new role. The second aspect of this confusion is the belief many hold that for someone to be hands-on one must micro-manage. Nothing could be further from the truth. Being hands-on for a manger mainly means that they have taken the trouble to parcel out the task in enough details, so that a team member understands it, right from the get-go. It also means that they have created clear waypoints and accountabilities so that the team member owns the given task and delivers what was agreed to also from the get-go. This is where most newbie managers fail and then perpetuate that behavior as they move up. They do not take the time and the trouble to do this important step up-front and set up ways to hold team members accountable (this is management work, part of the four functions, above). Being hands-on in this context now means having an early-warning system and then catching a team member doing things right and getting them back on track when they are not. This is now called mentoring. So, if you are on the other side of a micromanager what are some of the things you can do based on what I have already said above? Here is my prescription: If your manager has failed to grasp the concept of the four management functions, get together with them and remind them that despite their technical leadership you are unable to perform effectively merely because there is an expectation mismatch. Educate them that you are much more effective in your role as a team member if you are given the task up-front with its requirements spelled out, along with milestones and dependencies. Agree to provide your manager an early-warning alert if you feel stuck in your progress and are unable to meet your next milestone ahead of its due date. This way you are moving your manager from being a micromanager to making them more hands-on. Explain to them this subtle difference. Show them how much better you are able to perform with the new freedom and how much the team is collaborating as a result of this new regime. Even managers needs positive re-enforcement from its team members for them to change their behavior. Nothing pleases a manager—if they are technically good at what they do—than having their team members approach them for technical guidance, especially when they feel stuck. So, proactively approach your manager guru and make them feel important in how they were able to extricate you from a knotty problem that only they could solve. Do this with some discretion and caution, so you are also able to learn from these challenges. So, here is my prescription (and description) for dealing with micromanagers. I hope that you are able to use it and work with it to make it more useful in your own context by complementing it with what Dr. Gottschalk already published. Good luck!