It’s been said that people join companies and leave managers. Almost everyone can’t stand a boss who is a micromanager. But what if you might be a micromanager?

You know you are a micromanager if the weight of responsibility along with the thinking and planning related to it, ultimately sits with you. You will know this is true if the problems, thinking and decisions come to you.

To avoid micromanagement and instead achieve leadership one must transfer the responsibility and coach the person. This leads to the clarity and tension that drives accountability and results. 

This week we discuss what to do if you’re concerned that you might be a micromanager.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Please note that this episode was transcribed using an AI application and may not be 100% grammatically correct – but it will still allow you to scan the episode for key content.

 

00:13
Kevin Lawrence
Hey, welcome to the Growth Whisperers Podcast, where everything we talk about is building, enduring great companies. I’m Kevin Lawrence here in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, here with my amazing, cool pilot or lead pilot or whatever you want to look at them as. Brad Giles down in Perth, Australia. Brad, how was the world treating you today?

00:35
Brad Giles
Beautiful. It’s a very hot day today here, and I’m kind of saying that to tease you because thank you. I know it’s going to be cold, whatever’s happening in your part of the world, but no, apart from the weather, look, life is good. Things are good. I keep hearing that we’re coming out of this pandemic from all different sources. So delighted about that.

00:56
Kevin Lawrence
How are you doing? I’m great. Yeah. I had a couple of days in the US. In Washington State and La this week in California, and it got some real warmth down in California and then came back here to Canada. It’s a little cold, but it was sunny, so that makes for a great day. So let’s jump right into today’s show. We got lots to cover. What is your word of the day?

01:20
Brad Giles
I guess purpose, core purpose. Been doing some work with a client. We know core purpose. Start with why all of this stuff around purpose. Why are you doing this? Why does your company exist? Is so important. It’s also, I guess, a part of a jigsaw and been working on that today with one of the team members here for a client and just trying to connect the core purpose to how their financials work through the profit, PEREX and a whole range of things. And they’ve got to click. They’ve got to come together. So, yeah, without going on, I could speak about that for the next 30 minutes.

02:02
Kevin Lawrence
We both could. Purpose. Mine is similar. Mine is third generation. A client I have that I work with india has made many great connections for me. They referred me to another company india, that’s third generation.

02:22
Brad Giles
Wow.

02:24
Kevin Lawrence
Their grandfather started it, went to the father, and now the two sons of the father are driving the business. Their dad’s still around and lightly involved. It was so cool talking to a third generation business. We got a couple in our firm that are third. We’ve got one that’s fifth generation, but those are less common, and that’s part of our purpose. Speaking of purpose and during great companies often means multigenerational, and it’s an honor to work with and even learn about how they got to the third generation. How purpose can transcend into the second and third generation is the way to sew that one together today. That was an easy one. That was like a slam dunk. All right, so today we’re talking about, hey, someone shared. I’m worried that I’m micromanaging my team. What should I do? I just love it when people are honest about it because micromanaging is a fairly natural tendency for lots of people.

03:32
Kevin Lawrence
I’ve seen it go the other way. Many CEOs you work with are very strategic and they run almost so loose that it creates chaos. The micromanagers run it so tight that it creates a lot of unnecessary or invaluable friction. The thing I want to say is if you think you’re a micromanager, you likely are. It’s like with any growth opportunity we have becoming aware of it and then kind of admitting it as the first step and then you kind of get to work. All of us have tendencies in that direction. I know I can for sure.

04:10
Brad Giles
What’s funny about it is we debated the title of this episode and we said, should it be I’m a Micromanaging Jerk? We’re like, no, because the listener isn’t going to identify themselves as being a jerk. Only the people around them will.

04:25
Kevin Lawrence
That’s exactly right. Most people want to admit it, but your people will tell you if you’re willing to listen. So the idea really what is micromanagement? Really it’s about transference or where responsibility sits. You know you’re a micromanager for sure. If the weight and the gravity of the responsibility of something in your company or a department of division and a project, the thinking related to it, the planning, the sleepless nights is almost the ultimate measure as it relates to something. If the sleepless nights and all those problems generally keep flowing back up to you and all the questions and all the problems generally, you’re probably a micromanager or you haven’t done full transference. If you fully transfer responsibility to one of your team members, all of that sits with them. The planning, the thinking, the headaches, the sleepless nights as a concept. The idea is, have you truly handed it off so they feel full responsibility and accountability.

05:41
Kevin Lawrence
If you haven’t been able to do that, there’s a chance that you’re still in their micromanaging. Because you can say it all you want, but if you’re interfering too much and they don’t feel full responsibility, either you haven’t transferred or you’re micromanaging.

05:55
Brad Giles
Yeah, it’s deeply connected to responsibility and accountability. The most successful Harvard Business Review article of all time is called Who’s Got the Monkey? Or it’s a derivative, but it’s roughly Who’s Got the Monkey? It’s about the concept of having monkeys on your back, a monkey being a metaphor for a problem. Briefly, the story goes that the manager sits in his office all day and staff members come in and give him these monkeys, these problems. He spends all of his week taking on these monkeys and then he’s got this pack of monkeys on his back. He’s like a monkey collector. It comes to Saturday at the end of the week and as he’s driving into the office, he drives past the golf course and he sees all of his subordinates, all of his team members, out on the golf course playing golf while he’s going in there to solve that problem.

06:58
Brad Giles
Now, that might not be micromanaging, but it’s a connected subject around responsibility.

07:07
Kevin Lawrence
The key is that people who are truly effective leaders, people will come in and try and hand the monkey off to you, or we have another story of the hot potato, but the best ones hand it right back as. I shared an experience I had when I worked in the Middle East going back some time ago, and in the role that I was in, it translated a lot because my client became very busy. One of the things that I learned is I had to get effective at basically not being able to do any of the work or even facilitation. I needed to only ask questions and create accountability. And that was all the risks. I couldn’t help. I couldn’t do it. I got used to sitting there really thinking, it’s almost like I can’t use my hands. I can’t help at all. I can only ask questions to clarify and to create clarity and tension.

08:07
Kevin Lawrence
And that was it. I was unable, based on the time available and the number of companies I was working with, to do anything else. That’s what a good leader does that I was forced into it because of time scarcity. I had no choice. Good leaders do that even when they have choice, is they want to be helpful. Really they’re more of a coach or a guide or a sounding board to help other people with their problems. Basically, they help other people with their monkeys. The monkeys never climb onto the shoulder of the executive. It’s almost they’re Teflon coated so the monkeys couldn’t it is it’s true you watch effective leaders do it, and it’s because their ego and their pride does not come from solving other people’s problems. Their ego and their pride comes from seeing other people effective and to sweat and to grow and become better.

09:04
Kevin Lawrence
There’s a dramatically different mindset in that.

09:09
Brad Giles
There is. There is. Think about when a person starts in a job. If you’re the manager, a new hire starts and you want them to succeed and you’re saying to them, well, if you’ve got any questions, this is your job, your table, everything. If you got any questions, don’t hesitate. Just come and ask. And that’s a friendly welcome. When do you turn that tap off? And some people never do. By not turning off that, what happens is people will think to themselves, oh, I’ll go and see what Kevin wants me to do. And that’s the beginning. They never stop thinking that unless you, let’s say, make them train them otherwise. Unless you train them otherwise.

09:53
Kevin Lawrence
You almost like saying, hey, if your monkey needs a snack, come on in. It’s like you’re inviting them to bring their monkeys to you. It’s a beautiful gesture, and we all say it goes against being an effective leader at some point, and that’s.

10:12
Brad Giles
How you end up micromanaging. It’s a slippery slope.

10:16
Kevin Lawrence
Yes. And you don’t even realize it. And there’s a chapter in my book. Your oxygen mask first. It’s called stop being Chief Problem Solver. The root of the chapter is we think we’re being helpful. Our intention is to help, but we’re loading up more work on our own plates, and our people are becoming less effective. I was recently with a company that I work with, and their COO wonderful, committed, as smart as they get. The COO is so busy dealing and answering challenges and questions and even answering challenges and questions for people two levels down that they can’t do their work. And we had a meeting recently. I’m just like, okay, I care about you. You’re a really good person with beautiful intentions. You got to stop being so helpful, because everyone comes to you. They’re afraid of making mistakes, and they know if they come to you, including the director that reports to you, and they know that it derisks it if you answer it, but you’re getting buried, and then your people aren’t having to think.

11:27
Kevin Lawrence
Even though their intent isn’t to micromanage, they have trained people to bring the micro issues to them versus making people accountable and only dealing with the macro or bigger issues. It’s not a bad intention, and they don’t know any different. Right. A lot of times, people don’t know what great looks like. They don’t know that really answering a bunch of questions makes you an ineffective leader or manager, that you should really be training your people to do it on your own.

12:00
Brad Giles
That’s really interesting. I actually read something just on the weekend gone about the transition from you will be working, let’s say, with your brain or with your hands, and then as you escalate your business all day, all you’re doing is making decisions. And.

12:21
Kevin Lawrence
Yeah, but that’s a low level of leadership.

12:24
Brad Giles
That’s a low level that’s not what we’re talking about here.

12:28
Kevin Lawrence
That’s bad advice.

12:30
Brad Giles
I agree, and that’s why I’m raising it, because that’s not what leadership is. Leadership is growing the people around you. The only way that you can grow the people around you is by empowering them, holding them accountable, getting them to own a sandbox, which they genuinely own, and then coaching them, asking them a range of questions. I remember I had, I guess, a medium sized business, and I’d walk into the office after coming back from a meeting, and I’d look at all across all of the workstations, and about 15 to 20 people would put their eyes up over the workstation and be like, oh, he’s back. I can go and ask him. And it was a nightmare. And I set that problem up. This was many years ago, before I learnt things like monkeys, but it was such a valuable lesson. I switched it over and I said at all of my meetings, we would have structured meetings with people and all I would do would ask questions.

13:28
Brad Giles
If my dialogue didn’t answer sorry, didn’t end with a question, then I wasn’t doing my job. That’s how I switched from suffering this micro management nurse over to leader as a coach.

13:43
Kevin Lawrence
Yeah, it’s a great example. When we do a lot of leadership team assessments and company health checks, one of the things we use is an assessment we pulled out of some of Collins’work. One of the questions is, does the team leader spend a lot of time discussing and sharing ideas, or do they use more of a Socratic style, asking primarily questions? Contrary to Hollywood, the best CEOs and executives ask a handful of important questions and meetings. They’re not doing a lot of talking and telling. It reminds me gosh, probably when about ten years ago, I was at a conference and I’m sitting at the table at the back. I like, sitting at the back just to take it all in. There’s this guy at my table and we’re talking, we’re having great conversations about parenting and life. Turns out he was one of the keynote speakers and his name was David Marquette.

14:37
Kevin Lawrence
He wrote a book called Turn to Shipper. I didn’t know I don’t know if I told you this story, Brad, but no, I was sitting with him the whole two day conference, and I think he was the end of day one or two, and he gets, oh, I got to go speak now. And I go, really? Yeah. What are you talking about? Need to talk about leadership. He was the best speaker of that conference. Highest rated, just unbelievable. In the book Turn the Ship Around, it’s about leading a submarine captain, and in their practice drills because he didn’t understand the specific type of nuclear sub he was put on. He was trained on a different one. He gave bad orders and would have killed everyone. Thankfully, it was a simulator and they didn’t. He went on to develop a masterful leadership style which was different than the Navy had.

15:23
Kevin Lawrence
It was based on training people, your team, to come to you and say, I intend to so people not coming with problems or things that are already done until you build up enough trust and rapport, but telling what they intend to do. He said he had two options. You say excellent. Proceed if it made complete sense to him, or have you considered X, Y, or Z? Not all that isn’t going to work because now you’re going to drive your people crazy. It’s, have you considered this, have you considered that? Just to understand their thinking and seeing if their thinking had kind of really thought through the issues. It was a game changer, made all the difference in the world. Ten of his people went on to lead ten of the Navy nuclear subs that exist in the US. I think there was 20 something, I believe.

16:19
Kevin Lawrence
The point of it is, I remember that moment I met him and he showed lots of other amazing things. Most of the CEOs I worked with time had them read the book and many of them use it. If you’re micromanaging, you can be giving specific details and getting deeply involved. Instead, have them come with recommendations in the form of intent to and that eliminates a lot of it and helps you to build better habits and your team also to get smarter and stronger.

16:51
Brad Giles
Yeah, that’s a slow burn, that book. What I mean by that is it came out but I find that it’s still very successful. It’s one of those few books that have just made I don’t know the sales numbers, but it just keeps on popping up like good to great many years after this release. It just keep because it’s such timeless, profound wisdom that just resonates so well with the reader. Love that book. Turn the ship around. By David Marquette. I remember there was a CEO that I work with. She’s lovely, very purpose driven and very smart but didn’t, I guess, come through the ranks traditionally, if that makes sense. In other words, worker, supervisor, manager, executive, CEO, like a traditional career. She struggled so much with micromanagement because she was just confounded as to why people weren’t doing their job. And it was really quite messy.

18:04
Brad Giles
She would scratch on the surface, find a problem and then dig a bit deeper and it would be completely different. Why she expected. It was like every degree which she turned, she would be seeing this stuff and it just undermined her whole faith and why she should do things.

18:25
Kevin Lawrence
So.

18:27
Brad Giles
This was happening over and over again. We started with the concept of who is the owner, who is accountable, transferring responsibility. We worked on job scorecards or role scorecards for the team, predominantly. Built out so we understood what are you accountable for? What is the measure of success? The KPI, what’s the single thing? The person knew what they owned, knew what they had to do. We played that out through weekly meetings. Now, this doesn’t happen quickly, right. You’re not going to be able to sell that by the end of the week. It was also on her to have the trust and vulnerability to be able to step back. But you can turn this stuff around.

19:16
Kevin Lawrence
Yeah. You’re making a really good point there, Brad. The key here is for a lot of people, maybe a list of things that get in the way and cause people to micromanage even when they don’t want to. Some people can’t help themselves. They’re such perfectionists and they can’t handle any mistakes. And that’s a big piece here. You got to be okay with people making non critical mistakes. That’s the only way people learn. Yeah, but at the root for a lot of people is the expectations aren’t clear. That’s why you talk about the role scorecard in your book on Boarded. We use a lot of stuff out of the book top grading as job scorecards, very similar concepts. The key of it, the root is getting crystal clear on what the heck they’re supposed to do. I go back to it’s very easy. I’m working with a new executive team and it’s very easy to dial it in and to help get the team strong, tight and effective and get better results.

20:15
Kevin Lawrence
We have to have clear financial goals and know who’s accountable for what line items of the income statement. We have to have clear operational KPIs for each department. Each of those executives sitting around the table needs to have a list of operational KPIs. They’re accountable for the company. Each of those executives need to have a set of very clear goals that they are meant to deliver on every quarter. We need to do talent reviews to have very clear goals around our people and how we are strengthening and developing our team. High performers, keeping engaged lower performers, helping to be improved and misfit people that aren’t going to make it, help them find a job somewhere else. Most companies would be lucky to have one of those four. Lucky, especially when it gets down to a buy executive level. They might have the macro. When you’re head of sales and I know what I’m accountable for under PnL and we report on it, I got strong operational KPIs and we see those every week.

21:16
Kevin Lawrence
I got clear quarterly goals and those are being reviewed every couple of weeks, every month, and I deliver on those. I’ve got goals for the development of my team. I mean, once those goals are set and clarified and all that can be done at a quarterly meeting, the head of sales manager just needs touch base and troubleshoot. You’re touching base against those clear outcomes that must be delivered. When you have that, it’s like it makes being a CEO way easier or being a leader way easier because the expectations are so clear and then you see if the person produces. A lot of people are weak on that. As a result, because it’s not clear and because the people can’t really self manage and self report, there’s a lot of intervention which might actually be logical if it’s not clear what the person is supposed to do.

22:06
Kevin Lawrence
Not good, but logical.

22:08
Brad Giles
I remember you just made the comment there makes the job of a CEO much easier. I remember when I was writing my first book, made to Thrive the Five Roles of a CEO. We’d implemented that into one of the teams, and specifically a lot of this stuff we’re talking about today. He pulled me aside and he whispered and he said, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do now because I’ve got like this, I’ve got all of these cogs working really well. We spoke about the five rolls and all of the stuff around there. Yeah, once you get this stuff working, it’s the opposite of being a micromanager, where you’re coming in on a Saturday with a dozen monkeys on your back. You’re the one that has that level of freedom. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.

22:57
Kevin Lawrence
Yes. One of the guys actually joined our team. He was with a private equity firm and that were doing a bunch of work with. And he loves doing the consultant. He joined us as one of our consultants. He goes, what you guys have in your firm, you’ve got an amazing management system that makes it easier to be a CEO. Instead of micromanagement, we have a management system, which you and I brought you. We and I use the same tools with our clients and it makes it way easier. Let’s just look at a few things here. We got a couple of minutes left today. At the root of micromanagement causes is sometimes people just have bad habits. Reading that book like turnership around or looking in a mirror will help. Sometimes people have bad role models. They learn from someone and they think it’s the right way, or they watch too much TV and see bad examples in the past when that was exactly not recently.

23:54
Kevin Lawrence
Of course you touched on this, but is that they don’t trust their team. And there’s two versions of that. Don’t trust them and they’re capable, or don’t trust them and they’re not capable. It’s fascinating when we go into companies, I can’t tell by just talking to them, unless I do a full deep review of them or interview with them, but we assume that they are capable and we lay down clear financial goals, KPIs actual goals or goals to implement the strategy and goals around the team. We just see what they produce over a couple of quarters. We give them the opportunity to show and let them prove through results because it’s hard to know, and sometimes the CEOs and leaders don’t. We already talked about training the team to be the answer to Spencer, and then we also talked about not having clear expectations to have people self managed.

24:48
Kevin Lawrence
The root of it is, it’s not necessarily just because you’re an underskilled person. You might not have the right people, you might not have the right clear systems for accountability or management system. It just makes it a lot harder.

25:02
Brad Giles
Yeah, it does. It really starts with the first question that we pose today where is the responsibility? If you don’t have the system, if you don’t have the right people, once you begin the journey of transferring that responsibility fully and accepting the failure that may come of that, you’ve got to allow people the opportunity to fail. That’s when you’re able to really move the needle on this problem of micromanagement. So, a couple of resources here. We Spoke About Multipliers by Liz Wiseman we Spoke About Turn the Ship Around by David Marquis Harvard Business Review article Who’s Got the Monkey? For the Growth Whisperers podcast, episode 49, are you a genius with 1000 helpers? If so, how do you become a level five leader? That’s a very similar and related book. Also in Kevin’s book, your oxygen mask. First, are you the chief problem solver or how can you stop being that?

26:10
Brad Giles
Good chat today, Kev, good chat. You want to close us out today?

26:15
Kevin Lawrence
Yeah, just so thanks everyone for listening. This is the growth. Whispers. We are the growth whisperers. We love growth, enduring growth. I’m Kevin here in Vancouver and that’s Brad down in Perth, Australia. We both have excellent weekly newsletters. We both believe that about each others and obviously our own. They share just good resources with you and you can get our newsletter through our websites, which I’ll share in a minute. If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, please do and share with someone else you think that would enjoy it the video versions on YouTube. Just search The Growth Whisperers. Brad is available at evolutionpartners.com.au and I am available at lawrenceandco.com. Have a wonderful week and I hope you can really let yourself off the hook around the micromanagement and put the tools, systems and people in place, so you can be a leader and be freed up to do bigger, more impactful things.

27:08
Kevin Lawrence
Have a great week.