A challenge faced within organizations is ‘how do we ensure we manage the organization, various functions, and outcomes, without being overly involved and micromanaging?’ However, if we trust the people we have surrounded ourselves with, it becomes relatively simple to manage towards common goals and objectives.
The selection of specific measures that mark the impact of our actions is all that is required. If the objectives and the measurable outcomes are clearly understood, shared, and managed, we know where we should be spending our resources, including time.
However, if these are not well-defined, we have little focus and become busy to make up for lack of clarity.
When we emphasize the outcomes, we guide and support them without being overly engaged in each process step. Success and failure are also simply understood since the measures will quickly emphasize the current status. If we appreciate people will make mistakes, we can be sure they will learn far quicker when they see their actions are not meeting expectations. By constantly managing their efforts, there is no learning and no focus on the outcomes, but instead a focus on avoiding the perspective or wrath of the supervisor.
Significantly when companies scale, the opportunity to micro-manage reduces. Failure will quickly creep in and overcome the entire system in an overly reliant environment on a control-of-actions management style.
Be clear on the objectives, methods, and frequently review measurable outcomes, and you will experience gains in individual responsibility and outputs, overall organizational performance, and morale.
