Rule of Thumb to Assure You Are Not Micromanaging
Financial Controllers use a rule of thumb for setting up companies’ financial controls. They determine whether in a given specific financial activity an individual can either intentionally or unintentionally materially hurt the company.
If a person could materially hurt the company in that activity the controller puts in a system of prevention such as requiring multiple supervisors to sign off as well as assuring a documented audit trail.
If a person could not materially hurt the company with a given financial transaction they then put in a system of detecting problems. A good example here would be on small purchasing activities or small petty cash transactions where the controller will look at a report or two to determine if something is not being handled properly. If it takes the controller two or three cycles before they spot a problem, the company hasn’t been materially harmed and the controller or other managers haven’t spent countless hours approving many, many small transactions when they should have been dealing with larger issues.
The same rule of thumb should apply when managing your people.
We all hate having someone look over our shoulder on very mundane details that we can do properly in our sleep. We get frustrated and wonder why the boss doesn’t trust us or doesn’t think we are smart enough to do our job. That frustration and perceived lack of trust builds over time to the point where open communication and collaboration between supervisor and employee is killed. Then it further spirals into a cat and mouse game because the boss is now convinced the employee is hiding something. This goes on until the employee quits in total despair. Meanwhile, the boss has taken his eye off of what he or she is supposed to be doing while they are trying to approve and check on just about everything.
A good example of this was quoted in the Wall Street Journal the other week. A gentleman by the name of Tim Munson worked for a start-up where he had to have all requests funneled through the company’s founder for approval. This included pen and paper requisitions. Mr. Munson who quit for good reason says, “There were projects that were started my first year, and 51/2 years later I was still waiting.”
Can you imagine how much further along this company could have been if the founder didn’t have to micro-manage these details?
So when it comes to managing your employees think about what you want them to formally check with you on and that you should formally review progress (prevention) and what you want them to just keep you generally apprised of (detection) or where you just touch base from time to time… or somewhere in between.
By making using the prevention/detection rule of thumb you can make sure things are progressing properly, insert yourself where appropriate and keep your people focused on looking ahead rather than looking over their shoulder.
