Can’t be dealing with micromanagement

Is it possible to try and monitor every part of someone’s day.. in order to do so you have to have managers of managers followed by senior managers constantly on patrol, walking the beat up and down the offices… waiting to find someone doing it ‘wrong’.

I would argue that empowering and trusting your colleagues to take ownership over their role knowing that they are surrounded by support when needed without judgment, all working towards a common goal seems like a far better situation!  

To add insult, generally the feedback you hear is that the KPI’s don’t relate to the desired output anyway, they are put together by people who may have have never done the job who then review data and information which with a lack of knowledge are unable to apply intelligence. So, you end up with a model of management trying to force people to do something which they know is a waste of time…. Because?? Well the board said so!! Which then rightly creates a great deal of frustration, animosity and a ‘them and us’ culture.

So, I say get rid of the rule book and let’s get back to basics. Let’s monitor the outputs, both commercially and client feedback. Get rid of 121’s, get rid of all the managers, the endless reports and ‘catch up’ meetings. Let’s get on with the job, listen to what your colleagues say on the front line, communicate and react to requests quickly. It creates a far happier, far more productive workplace.

Ben Davidson