Today's business world lacks trust. Why?
At a glance...
Micromanagement is a macro problem
Trust leads to better employee outcomes
Business Therapy Episode #13- Workplace Trust: The Death of the Micromanager
Let’s dive in.
THE PROBLEM
“Trust must be earned” is killing your business The idea of earning trust is deeply rooted in modern corporate culture. In the banking and consulting industries, new hires must typically go through months of endless grunt work in a toxic work culture to prove they can be trusted with more important work. Is this all really necessary? Micromanaging is more common than trusting Micromanaging is too often the default for business leaders. New hire or long-time employee, the micromanagement of any employee will cripple their growth, development, and success in the organization. As managers, the habit of micromanaging is rooted in the fact that you cannot trust others to do things. To scale a business, delegating work to others and trusting that they can complete it is essential. Micromanaging leads to underwhelming results Without trust and support, an employee's potential success is greatly limited. Ultimately, a manager who is distrustful and micromanages leads the employee to:
become afraid of interacting with the manager
not think for themselves because they are focused on satisfying the manager
avoid taking risks which limits their creativity and leaves them unchallenged
Truvle Challenge Actionable ways for you to put Truvle concepts into practice. How do you approach giving work to employees (old and new)? Are you monitoring their productivity but not their outcomes? Do you articulate how to do the work? Do you think you may be micromanaging? Check out this week’s episode of Business Therapy
THE SOLUTION
Default to trust Giving employees trust and transparency from day one can revolutionize the way you manage. Through giving trust, you give the employee the opportunity to perform to their best ability. With the support and trust of their manager, an employee is more likely to pursue creative solutions Employees need room to fail To grow, you need to be able to fail. As a manager, understanding that failure can be an integral part of an employee’s growth is essential to fostering the ultimate success within your organization. Trusting your employees, even when they encounter occasional failures, enables the employees to take more risks knowing that their manager will be there to keep them accountable and provide feedback. Define the what and why, not the how Managers have become too focused on defining how work should be done and how long it should take. This is apparent in the 9 to 5 structured workday and keyboard trackers that “track productivity.” Instead of focusing on how much time goes into completing the work, managers should focus on outcomes and why the work needs to be done. Define:
What – What are you expecting the employee to do? What are the objectives and goals of the project?
Why – Why is the employee doing this project? How does it impact the organization as a whole? How does the project align with your organization’s mission or goals?
Provide guidance on (but do not define):
How – Be a trusted source of feedback for the employee so they can discover their own method of doing work that plays to their strengths.
Truvle Challenge Actionable ways for you to put Truvle concepts into practice. Before delegating, define the what and the why of the project. Compare the outcomes of employees performance to the what and why of the project that they are working on. learn more about this on this week's episode of Business Therapy
THE EXIT TICKET the bottom line
Micromanaging is crippling your business.
If you want to grow and scale, you need to start from a point of trust.
You give what you get. If you give trust to an employee, you will get trust in return.
THE PODCAST
Business Therapy #13- Workplace Trust: The Death of the Micromanager “I loved when everything I did at the office was micromanaged. And now that we’re remote, I enjoy using this tracking software that takes screenshots of my computer. I love that it notifies everyone if my movement score drops below 50%.” - Nobody Ever Did that just give you anxiety? Trust in the workplace. It's important, but it’s rare. Micromanagement dominates American corporate culture. It kills productivity, creativity and hinders long term business growth. Micromanagement constantly has to be addressed in the consulting world. Join Sam & Jon as they discuss micromanagement vs. effective management, and answer important questions surrounding the topic:
How does micromanagement kill productivity?
What types of management encourages business growth?
When is micromanagement necessary?
Are you a micromanager?
For all these answers, and more, tune into this week’s episode. Let’s talk about it. Take us with you on your morning commute or stroll to your home office:
