I believe that a quick way to cripple a company with employee engagement/productivity challenges is to place greater emphasis on managing employees. This approach provides nothing more than a band aid solution for a much larger underlying problem.
Rather than choosing Option #1 to manage employees even more, choose instead Option #2 and improve your business by creating the right culture and assembling a super-team of employees that don’t need a lot of managing. In a healthy and thriving company, there should be very little managing going on and a whole lot of employees focused like crazy on “creating totally awesome and hero-like experiences” for their customers WHILE having a ton of fun doing it. Anything less is probably a huge pain in the “insert expletive here” and a serious drain of both time and money.
The often used term “micro-manager” is not viewed positively by most people and for good reason. If your company culture embraces the ideal that micro-managing produces great business results, ask yourself the following questions:
• On a scale of 1-10, how many of your customers are thrilled with your product/service and would refer others to your business?
• On a scale of 1-10, how would others assess the level of employee engagement and productivity in your business?
• On a scale of 1-10, how big of a problem is employee turnover?
If these answers bothered you, consider asking yourself… “How much managing is enough” and “is there such a thing as “too much managing?”
I believe it is not only possible but a best business practice to hire, inspire and teach people how to become great employees and to do great things at work. As part of this process, when employees learn how to self-lead in service to their co-workers and customers, the need for managers to manage others diminishes in a big way.
Start by focusing more on desired outcomes such as happier customers while investing in developing highly engaged and productive employees. As a result, you will see dramatic improvement in company profitability and cash flow. This is the law of human nature and business. Try it and see for yourself. #WinningInBusinessMasterAcademy!
6 Comments
David Ranney
July 28, 2014Hi Earl,
As usual, your ideas make a lot of sense. However, not being a manager myself, I wonder if managers really get what you are saying and if they would change the way they manage after reading your article. Especially if they already are a micro-managing type.
Earl
July 28, 2014Hi David,
Companies that embrace the micro-managing culture simply cannot compete and win in the game of business. The rules of the game are changing and it takes a super-team to win. This often means changing the culture which requires changing the systems in a business along with it’s employees.
Jeff Hora
July 28, 2014Nice post.
It reminds me of an interview the NY Times had about a month ago with Warren Buffet. He mentioned that he was catching some flak for the “lack of governance” amongst his employees and his reply is that he hired people he could trust and then let them do their jobs…..which requires very little governance! One point I got from that comment is that the company is responsible for hiring employees that can be trusted to do their jobs very well (that IS why they got hired, right?).
Your insights to the hobbling effect of micro-management are on target.
Earl Bell
July 28, 2014Hi Jeff,
Thanks! Not every day I get mentioned alongside Warren Buffet. Have to say we both are “stating the obvious” in this case. Companies that consistently “win in business” totally get this…
James Murray
August 3, 2014Earl, great post…
I think there are two ideas that are going on here. Leadership and Strategic thinking.
Inspiring an employee is about leadership. A good employee does not change overnight into a bad employee. Something has changed for that employee. It could be that the organization has grown, changed and now the role needs to be changed as well. Micro-management won’t help.
Your comments about re-evaluating the business are strategic thinking that helps the organization better serve customers and employee needs and goals. Leadership allows the employee to align themselves with the organization without requiring constant, time consuming and expensive hours spent micromanaging.
Liked Jeff’s comment about the hobbling effect of micro management.
Earl Bell
August 4, 2014Thanks James, for taking the time to add your thoughts. It’s time to eradicate micro-managing from the workplace and it starts with company culture and leadership!