Why We Believe Micromanagement is Worth A Deeper Conversation

How well have the managers you’ve observed over the years influenced performance, motivation and general well-being? What did they do well? What could they have done differently? Leading Lean relies on self-reflection and continuous improvement. We explore how poorly-focused micromanagement destroys trust and how well-placed micromanagement supports leading Lean and delivering exceptional results. We encourage you to look inward to your style of management and use this as a baseline for change.

Lucy Liu: Think Big and Act Small

There is a common perception that macromanagement is empowering, while micromanagement demoralizes people. I think this view is formulated due to the intent of and the way that micromanagement is employed. 

After more than 28 years with Toyota Australia, I have learned that both macromanagement and micromanagement are required to achieve the speed of change and process stability. Many of my incredible Toyota Japanese Senseis were strategic in both Hoshin (direction management) and in the micro details of Daily Management (5S, Standardised Work, KPIs). Leaders need to “think big and act small”. 

In my view, Hoshin is macromanagement. It focuses on breakthrough/innovative initiatives aligned to mid to long term business goals through the implementation of the PDCA cycle. Daily Management can be interpreted as micromanagement through the SDCA cycle. Its aim is to ensure that standards are created, visualized, implemented, checked and sustained or adjusted for improvement. The thorough implementation of Standardized Work requires detailed process control on standards. Everyone is given the authority to pull the Andon and stop the line if abnormality is detected. Also, everyone is encouraged to do Kaizen to level up the standard. There is a common approach in Hoshin and Daily Management: everyone in the organisation is empowered to challenge the status quo and encouraged to implement creative ideas. 

Macromanagement and micromanagement complement each other and are equally important. The ancient Chinese Yin Yang philosophy could be the best way to put the macro and micro into a combined and balanced perspective. Micromanagement is not about controlling people’s thinking and creativity; it is a methodology of sustaining standard and inspiring the Kaizen spirit. 

Rose Heathcote: Shift from Controlling People to Controlling Processes

I enjoyed catching up with a friend working in the automotive sector recently. She is a self-motivated woman relishing the technical challenges of new product launches. She takes joy in her work. Something has changed, though. It’s the first time I’ve heard her frustrated and discontented. The reason for the shift is clear—the new manager. 

Her previous manager had granted her the space and latitude to think. He’d ask probing questions, set a challenge and remove barriers. He genuinely wanted her to succeed. She’d grab the challenge with both hands and furiously work at it. As the only woman on the team, she felt fulfilled and valued. She loved going to work. She felt empowered, and he had her back. She achieved high customer ratings. They were happy. She was happy. He was a macro-manager.

With the new manager, she finds herself craving strategic direction, support and the independence she once enjoyed. She reveals how the frequency of meetings lacking purpose is on the rise, cultivating waste. KPIs measure elements outside the team’s control, failing to expose the real issues, intensifying her aggravation. Her exasperation piques as she fends off unwelcome and stifling micro-management. Although the new manager has excellent technical experience, this cannot substitute for the softer needs of the team. She is mature, and her needs are simple: 

“Be my compass. Give support.”

Micromanaging people is risky—when a performing team no longer feels trusted, they risk regressing to a storming phase. But, when leaders frame challenges and lead the campaign against problems effectively and teams are enabled and equipped to act, performance soars. Hard on problems, supportive to people. Lean managers shift micromanagement practices away from controlling people to controlling processes.

Karyn Ross: If We Don’t Micromanage the Process, We Aren’t Being Respectful to People

Micromanagement has become a dreaded word. I’m not sure why, though, because a lot of lean is about micromanaging. Micromanaging the process, that is! When leadership sets clear targets about what should be happening for customers, the organization and the people who do the work and then regularly goes to see gaps to target, that is ‘micromanaging’ the process. When we create visual management so that everyone can see, in real time, whether they are on time, ahead, or behind on work their customers need, that is micromanaging the process. When we create standard work and teach team members how to follow it so that they can be successful in creating defect free products and services, that is micromanaging the process. 

In the work I’ve done with organizations and people all over the world, I’ve rarely seen examples of ‘micromanagement’. What I commonly see are team members who have no idea what their team or individual targets are, have no work standards to follow, no visual way to see where their work is in accordance with customer needs, and who might only see or hear from their manager once every week or two. That’s not micromanagement. In fact, it’s not even management! 

In this COVID-19 crisis, let’s rethink our thoughts about micromanagement and its relationship to lean. Because I believe that if we don’t micromanage the process, then we aren’t being respectful to people. 

Katie Andersen: Provide the Leadership Support Your Team Needs to Achieve their Goals  

Over the past several months, I’ve talked with many people across different industries who are finding themselves frustrated and disempowered. With the switch to virtual working environments since the pandemic hit, their managers have reverted to micromanagement (or have amplified these tendencies): asking for updates on minutiae, wanting to be a part of every meeting, and to be copied on all emails. Or, on the other extreme, their managers have been so focused on external factors that they have become hands-off, forgetting to check on their people, providing guidance, and ensuring that their team members have what they need to navigate these unprecedented times.

Your team may be virtual in nature today, but don’t let that turn you into a micromanager of their work or turn so laissez-faire that you lose sight that a key part of your role is to both provide direction and support your team members.

As I described in the article “Are you a Micromanager or Macromanager?”,we need leaders who focus on providing clarity on the big “macro” big picture challenges for their group, and then supporting their people to achieve these goals. These “macromanagers” keep a view on the “micro” through a process perspective rather than being directive on what to do. Be a leader who sets the direction, who provides clarity on goals and targets, and then who offers support, nurture,and systems that allow your people to learn, achieve, and continuously improve. 

Your team’s role is to utilize their skills to solve problems, achieve goals, and help the organization fulfill its purpose (while fulfilling their own). Your role as a leader is to provide the support they need to build the confidence and capabilities to achieve the goals, and of course, to continually develop yourself at the same time.

Catherine Chabiron: Frame the Challenge and Micro-manage the Conditions in Which Initiatives and Kaizen Will Flourish

In tough times, with poor medium-term perspectives, leaders should reflect on their management approach: continue to define the strategy in their office and micro-manage the execution through reporting? Or frame the challenge and micro-manage the conditions in which initiatives and kaizen will flourish?

The former approach is well honed, and might work reasonably well in a growing world, when the company is surfing on the wave. Skills at developing projects, managing investments, opening new sites or signing-up partnerships will be most valued. The leader’s job in this situation is to spot opportunities and build a network of doers who will diligently execute everything that is needed to close the target.

But the kaizen approach will be more suited to the uncertainty of our pandemic times, with customers reducing their purchases or employees’ trust sinking to low levels. A few hours on the gemba will help confirm the medium-term challenge, most probably the continuity of customer satisfaction, the need to offer the same level of quality and delivery (or better), while swiftly adjusting to new customer needs or changed retailing channels. The leader’s first job will be to communicate this challenge everywhere on the gemba. This is the framing step.

The leader will also need to create the conditions within which local initiatives to address this challenge will emerge and grow: observe and question in detail, on the gemba, help out when needed, support trials and errors, challenge further when the solution may not be viable, and praise every single improvement. And never, never offer solutions but question and challenge and support until local solutions emerge. This is no longer the time of loosely managing doers with monthly reporting. What is needed is a micro-management of the learning by doing on the gemba, within the framed challenge.

Cécile Roche: Micromanagement–More Precision or Less Confidence?

Ambiguity is the source of non-quality. If the major challenges are not understood, if the real expectations of customers are not known, if the work environment allows for errors, then quality will be degraded, customers dissatisfied, and employees demotivated. The challenge for a good manager is to know how to remove ambiguities: to clarify the issues at stake, to give the means to improve the way of working, to set up systems (Kanban) that clarify customer expectations. The most important thing is to give people space for reflection, so that they can learn to solve the countless problems that make the difference between theory and reality (and we see this very clearly at the moment!).

Defining a standard means going into the precision of the gesture, (of manufacturing, creation, coding etc…). A standard makes explicit an implicit knowledge, (the team agrees on the best way known at the moment to proceed), so that the precision of the gesture leads to the best quality, and so that they are able to improve the standard.

Lack of confidence is when you replace standards and improvement with rules and control. A rule is a way of doing things imposed by others, which must be applied without thinking, such as respecting traffic lights, for example. A rule must be applied without thinking, whereas a standard must always lead to reflection in order to improve it and deal with the unexpected.

If micromanaging is helping the team to improve their precision to ensure that they deliver exactly what the clients expect when they expect it, despite all the hazards that inevitably occur, well, Okay!  If it is to impose solutions, forbid reflection and reduce people to an executive role, I think it is very dangerous.

Sandrine Olivencia: Is There A Middle Ground Between Being an Overbearing Manager and Ensuring that Projects Stay on Track?

I’m not fond of micro-managers, and yet I’ve been one. I don’t appreciate being told what to do and how, unless I’m the one asking for help. But then, if I need help getting something done, I know how I’d like it done, and get frustrated when people go in their own direction. I believe this is the manager’s dilemma.

But is there a middle ground between being an overbearing manager and ensuring projects stay on track? Too hands-off, the team goes all over the place and loses motivation. Too hands-on, people feel you don’t trust them and stop thinking. 

Lean thinking offers a middle ground. A lean manager does not tell you what to do but what to learn. It’s very different from what I’ve studied in management school, or we find in management books. In traditional management, a good boss knows their stuff, has solutions, and expects people to implement action plans. A lean manager tells you what they expect, lets you get on with it, and looks at results with you, so you learn together. Everyone can learn the “try and see” approach, even if some take to it more naturally than others. 

The trick is: how to get people to want to learn with you? Lean is useful because it provides a scaffold for learning. Take Kanban for instance: visualizing and controlling lead time forces people to stop and look at problems as they appear, and find ways to improve quality. Or writing one problem a day on visual boards teaches teams to review causes, reflect on work methods, and not just come up with patch-ups. But let’s be real: it’s no smooth ride. It takes many cycles of “trying and seeing”, and not everyone will want to join the learning movement. And sometimes, a manager will step in when people struggle, or they have information others don’t. That’s a good thing. 

Becoming a lean manager is a learning journey for everyone and well worth the effort. People, manager included, get smarter about handling new problems, and build confidence in each other.