Being an effective micro-manager is an ongoing challenge. Continually fine-tuning one’s skills is essential in order to keep up with the six million US managers who advance to micro-management every year.
Here are six tips to keeping skills sharp:
- The micro-managing standard of asking employees for a project update every 97 minutes is no longer sufficient. Never allow more than 88 minutes to pass between requests, and work toward 85. Likewise, if you are only explaining things six times you should immediately increase this to seven, with the ultimate goal of ten.
- Before employees go to lunch, spend five minutes with them to review potential menu options. While acknowledging that you understand they may have their own food preferences, make it clear that your preference is for them to consume healthy fare like grains and lettuce.
- Eliminate phrases like “What do you think?” and “Give me your feedback!” from your vocabulary. While well intended, they take up time you could be using to provide more detailed instructions.
- If staffers use the expression “to sum things up,” let them know you prefer, “at the end of the day.” Or vice versa.
- Once a month, take the time to discretely follow employees as they run personal errands – shopping, trips to dry cleaners, etc. Afterward, schedule a meeting to suggest procedures that might improve their efficiency.
- Make sure everyone is focused on minute details, and that they never look at the big picture. To ensure this, remove all big pictures from the workplace.
