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When I interview employees at work, and I’ve had hundreds of these conversations across industries and job types, one of the most common frustrations that I hear about is micromanagement. That manager who looks over your shoulder, who is always checking in, who’s always anxious, who is always changing expectations on you and expecting things to be done immediately. Micromanagement is pervasive.
But when I speak to managers, I hear a very different story. No one wakes up in the morning thinking to themselves, “How can I be the harshest micromanager in the world?” So what’s going on here? Well, the root cause of micromanagement is anxiety, and the root cause of anxiety is uncertainty, and the root cause of uncertainty is a lack of alignment on expectations. What happens often in the workplace is a manager will toss an assignment over the fence, half-baked, and expect someone else to deal with it.
Let me give you a personal example. A number of years ago, I had my manager send me an opaque email saying, “Hey, can you look into this?” At which point I thought, “What is this, and what is look into?” Turns out that my manager hadn’t thought about those two variables either, because what had happened was my manager’s manager’s manager’s manager had been unclear and tossed the work over the fence, to which the next person tossed it over the fence, to which the next person tossed it over the fence, to which it ended up on my desk. And if I hadn’t clarified the why, the what, the how, and the by when, I would’ve ended up doing the wrong work, doing it the wrong way, and not doing it on time.
The value of clarifying expectations upfront around what I need to do, how I need to do it, and by when we need to do it is that my manager walks away at ease. And then before you walk away, it’s important to repeat back what you think you heard, to say, “Sounds great. Just to clarify next steps, I will go ahead and do A, B, and C, and I will await your email on A, B, and C. Does that sound right?” And what you just did is repeat back expectations so that what you heard aligns with what your manager thought they said. In doing so, by the time the two of you walk away, your manager isn’t thinking, “Oh no, were they listening at all?” Or, “Did they get what I was talking about?” Instead, they’re thinking, “Whew, they got it. They repeated back, I know exactly what they’re going to do next, and I know what I need to do for them next.”
Do this and you’ll avoid getting micromanaged, you will have a better relationship with your manager, and you’ll stay sane because you won’t have your manager pinging you at some random moment asking you if something is done yet, because you’ve already had this conversation up front.