Why and How to Avoid Micro-management?

Micro management is quite a famous term in Business management. It can be defined as - a style of a manager where he closely observes or controls the work of his employees, personally.

This is actually considered as a negative approach to management, where managers spend a lot of their time and indulge themselves in addressing small issues with the employees rather than focusing on the important management activities where they are mainly required to concentrate. That is why it is mostly better to avoid micro-management.

If a manager gets involved in minor issues, which does not actually require his attention, issues that can be looked after by any other supervisor or concerned person, it is waste of his productive time and could cause negative effects on the workers too. This further hampers the overall performance and increases the chances to miss the set goals. It also increases the job dissatisfaction among the employees.

Micro-management always creates an adverse effect on the working environment. Most of the employees do not like this kind of work environment, specially the employees who do their work according to the set standards, are always punctual and know their job very well. They would not appreciate the interference of the manager in their daily work. Such employees may get de-motivated and go to an extend of leaving the job, as, if an authority such as a manager monitors their work daily, they may feel pressured and interrupted. They may feel that they are not getting a free work environment and have the fear of continuously being under observation.

There are few necessary measures which you can take in order to avoid micro-management. It will surely be a boon for you as well as your organization.

1) Analyze what you are doing: - Just analyze why is it that you are trying to look into all those little minor things that can be efficiently handled by your employees. Is that the lack of trust or something else? Always remember that your employee will never develop confidence in work unless you trust him.

2) Identify your own roles and responsibilities: - You yourself need to understand what you are being paid for. Once you are given an opportunity to manage things, you need to make sure that other people are more productive rather than yourself getting involved in production.


Once you will realize your exact roles and responsibilities you will avoid micro-management. You will surely concentrate on bigger issues, which really needs to be addressed and will ultimately help you to get the work done efficiently and in an organized manner. It is the primary need of every organization to avoid micro-management. However, in most of the cases there are some employees who can only be productive under strict supervision, which we can call as micro-management. Still you can avoid micro-management and it is very simple if you follow these simple steps:

1) You must trust your employees and allow them to do the work in their own way as long as they perform according to the standards.

2) Allow your employees to take minor decisions in their day to day work and get involved only in bigger decision making where they might need your assistance.

3) A person always learns from his mistakes, so do not be harsh or penalize your employee if he does make some mistake in his work, rather give him proper training so that he does not repeat the same mistake again.

4) Try to motivate your team. Micro-management has its own pros and cons but it is always beneficial to keep your employees happy and stress free, as it ultimately leads to productive and profitable business.

It is therefore better to avoid micro-management in most of the circumstances.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Ryan Fyfe is the CEO of http://www.shiftplanning.com/ - An intuitive and free online employee scheduling tool for businesses of all sizes in all industries.