Successful Blog

How to Spot a Micromanager

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We’ve all been guilty at one time or another of being a micromanager whether it was in the workplace or other facets of our lives.

You can usually spot a micromanager a mile away – the individual who wants to be a good leader but goes about in the wrong manner. While trying to better their workers, athletes, students, loved ones etc. they end up creating an issue that was not there in the first place.

The micromanager in many instances becomes just that because they want to make sure everything goes according to plan, their plan.

Whether it is the boss who doesn’t have enough faith in their workers, the teacher who strays from the lesson or the coach who doesn’t trust his team, they end up micromanaging and with it bring added stress to a situation. Another way to describe it is the micromanager wants full control and will accept nothing less.

Most micromanagers come about their title unbeknownst to them. They oftentimes don’t go out of their way to fill this role, but once it consumes them they know nothing else. Like it or not, they have programmed themselves for this part and they are unlikely to change unless called on it.

 

Dangers of Micromanaging

For those individuals who have willingly or surprisingly become a micromanager, there are options. They can continue to let this role define them as managers, coaches, teachers, etc. or they can do something about it.

One of the first things the micromanager needs to assess is how their actions are impacting not only those under them, but themselves. For many micromanagers, their leadership skills or lack thereof eventually lead to them burn out, taking some of those under them along the way.

While some micromanagers need to assume that role for a while if those under them lack certain skills and/or experience, others run the potential of alienating the very individuals they spend time working with, teaching and coaching.

No one wants to feel like they are somehow inferior to those above them, made to think like they cannot make a decision or carry out a project. The person in many cases will eventually tune out the micromanager, leading to an awkward relationship at best among the two.

Having discussed the dangers, how do you know if you in fact are a micromanager?

Among the telltale signs of this problem are:

  • You decide that instead of working to educate others and provide constructive criticism , you in fact treat them as inferior, being fast to highlight their mistakes;
  • You find the need to order individuals around;
  • You have a short fuse and become frustrated, defensive and/or lash out at those who contest something you did or said;
  • You are upset when someone goes above your head to deal with your micromanaging issues.

Given the fact we all have been guilty at some point in our lives of micromanaging others, it is important to not immediately play the victim game. Whether it is in the office, the classroom or other walks of life, micromanaging doesn’t serve either the person in charge or those under them any good.

Many of us are taught from an early age that we are either followers or leaders. For many micromanagers, they take the leadership role a little too far, eventually isolating themselves as someone who others do not want to deal with.

In the event you’ve been labeled a micromanager or feel some of the above items may actually describe your leadership skills, don’t think that you cannot change things. The benefits to removing the micromanager title from your resume are numerous.

Remember, an even bigger and better leader is one who can admit their deficiencies and learn from them.

Photo credit: smh.com.au

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like online marketing and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

10 Reasons to Go on a Vacation

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cooltext466496263_leadership

by Patty Azzarello

I want to share 10 of the many sound business reasons to go on vacation — in additon to the fact that you deserve it and are supposed to enjoy your life and have some fun in return for how hard you work…

1. Going on a vacation shows you are competent at your job because you can manage and plan enough to free up some time in your schedule, and not leave a festering mess in your absence.  

Not being able to take a vacation mostly shows that your work and your team are so out of control that you can’t even be gone for a week.

2. No one is impressed that you have not had a vacation in years.  If you think your company, or your team appreciates your super-duper, extra-work ethic, they don’t.   

3. Your team is motivated from seeing that you support and allow people to have a life — as long as you don’t send them email every day!  Set the expectation you will be generally out of touch.  Arrange 1-2 check-in points if you can’t stand to let go entirely, but don’t just go somewhere else and keep working.

4. Your team gets more productive when you go away.  You give them a break from worrying about all the things you throw in their way when they are trying to get their work done.  After about 2 weeks they will miss you and need you again, but in the mean time their productivity will go up.

5. Being unavailable is an effective technique for developing people.  It forces them to step up.  Just be careful not to un-do everything they did in your absence just because it was different than the way you would have done it.

6. If something comes up in your work that you can’t avoid and you need to cancel your vacation, reschedule another one while you are canceling.  This will minimize resentment and disappointment, give you something to look forward to… and ensure you don’t go too long without a vacation.

7. You will be more productive at work, if you step away from it and give your back-of-mind processes a chance to chew on things while you are otherwise in a good (or at least different!) mood. 

8. You will realize that some of the things that you thought were important before your vacation don’t actually need to get done after all.  When you step away, the most strategic things re-assert themselves and all the clutter drops several notches in volume.

9. Your company prefers people who enjoy their life because they have more positive energy for their work.

10. You need a break whether you know it or not!
 

How do you feel about work and vacations?

Let us know in the comment box below!

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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advisor. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…

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Good Office Managers Are Not Made Overnight

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Most offices have a manager whose responsibility it is to make sure the ship is being steered in the right direction.

So, what happens if your office ship is adrift or has not even left the port yet? Can you find someone qualified enough to take the wheel?

Before anyone thinks that such a position is a piece of cake, take a moment or two to reflect on all the responsibilities that befall such an individual.

Among the qualities one wants in a good office manager are:

  • Someone who treats the entire staff fairly. While all offices have their little cliques, it is important that the manager give everyone a fair shake;
  • Someone who is a worker and not just a supervisor. While the office manager is permitted to pass certain tasks on to assistants, etc. they should not expect to dish out all the work and not roll their own sleeves up to get the job done;
  • Someone who is organized and get make tough decisions. While folks will oftentimes say that the hardest working individual at a company is the one who has the messiest desk, an office manager needs to make organization a top priority;
  • Someone who displays good strong communication skills. Given this individual is at the epicenter of office communications, they need to be able to convey messages to staff in a quick and effective manner. One area that is oftentimes overlooked is providing positive feedback when employees do a good job. While it is expected of employees to do just that, patting them on the back now and then for a job well done certainly doesn’t hurt.

 

When it comes time for your business to hire an office manager, the above-mentioned qualities are important to say the least, so take your time in getting the right man or woman for the job.

Some smaller businesses do not have the luxury of adding an office manager due to financial constraints, so they may turn such duties over to a present co-worker, perhaps even the boss them self. While the boss could be a good manager, they also likely have enough on their plate as it is, so it is better to delegate such duties to someone full time.

Businesses when advertising for the post will want someone with experience, someone who has been in the trenches if you will of office politics.

Their job description could entail a laundry list of assignments to oversee, including company expenses and payroll, making sure any office maintenance issues are dealt with, matters involving hiring and firing, and organizing staff meetings.

While being a good office manager is not exactly rocket science, it does take someone who can lead, so make sure your selection for the position is a leader and not a follower.

Photo credit: autocareerstoday.net

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like home security systems and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

Are you rejecting smart ideas?

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by Patty Azzarello

cooltext466496263_leadership

by Patty Azzarello

Thrown Overboard

Very early in my career (I emphasize “very early” as this is not an incident I am proud of and didn’t want you to think this was last week!).

I was in a sales training session and we had to do a lifeboat exercise.

The Lifeboat…

You are probably familiar with this.

You imagine you are lost at sea in a lifeboat with others, and you have set of items in your emergency kit.
But you can’t keep them all, and you need to decide which few items to keep (while you pursue or await rescue) and which to throw overboard.  It’s stuff like a flare, a rope, a mirror, a flashlight, food, a compass, drinking water, matches, etc.

What’s supposed to happen…

The way the exercise goes is that you first create your list of must-keep items individually, and then you discuss it as a team and build a team-generated list.

This is an exercise where there are, in fact, correct answers, so you get a score on how well you did as an individual, and as a team.
The point of the exercise is to show how no individual scores come out higher than the team score, and to demonstrate the value of teamwork.

OK, So our team was pathetic.

This was an international meeting, and on our team we had 7 English-as-a-first-language people, and one French guy.  Although he spoke English, (loads better than any one of us spoke French!), the language issue was difficult and distracting to the team.

Every time he advocated for his choices we basically ignored him because it was just too slow and difficult to get what he was saying, and it didn’t sound that smart to us anyway.

You can guess the outcome here

1) Our team not only lost, but failed spectacularly, in an unprecedented way…?2) Our team score was lower than ALL of our individual scores…?3) AND the French guy not only had the highest individual score on our team, but of all the individuals, and all the teams!

OK, so what are the lessons?

He was the smartest guy in the room.  He tried to share his good ideas with us – over and over again.  We basically threw him overboard.

So for me, although miles from the lesson intended about teamwork, this provided a good slap in the face, and some real lessons about communicating.

I think about this tragically “American” moment in my career very often when I am working internationally.  And it serves as a reminder to be a better human!

1. Modify your expectations of communicating

When there is a language issue, treat is as YOUR issue.

They are speaking your language as a favor to you.  You don’t speak THEIR language.  So remember you are putting the other person in a difficult position.

If you have never tried – just try to learn another language.  Appreciate the great chasm that you would need to cross to speak as well in your colleague’s language as they do in yours.

Don’t just accept a weak meeting outcome, and blame it on the other person.

Take responsibility to get the necessary business outcome and give the person a chance to communicate on their terms.  It’s up to you to make sure you get their best thinking.

2. Don’t equate capability with ability to speak your language

I recall from one of Jack Welch’s books that even he made this mistake when he first started hiring people in Japan.  He hired the Japanese people that spoke English best because they seemed more capable to him.

He later let native Japanese leaders choose talent in Japan and got much better hires.

If something is critical, let people work in their native language and make it your problem to process and understand it.

3. Revert to writing

Writing can be much easier to understand because both parties get to communicate at their own pace.  Nothing gets lost as the conversation goes by.

I have had meetings where we literally wrote out, in sentences, our conversation, decisions and agreements on the white board.
The discussion moves slower, but the communication moves much faster.  Writing can often be much more easily understood than talking, and it is very easily translated.

Use writing in parallel with social media
I also heard a brilliant idea from a colleague who manages an international team. 

On all of their multi-country conference calls they use an additional IM window where people in each country type out the key points being made, translate any jargon, highlight questions and decisions, and clarify areas in the discussion that were moving fast, or unclear.

They also use blog updates which capture the key ideas and decisions from the conference call in writing, to re-inforce the key outcomes and have a record for later review and understanding.

This improved both productivity and relationships dramatically.  Brilliant!

How do you communicate with global teams?

Please leave your ideas in the comment box below!

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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advisor. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…

Successful-Blog is proud affiliate of

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Slow Down the Revolving Door with Your Employees

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As a business owner, have you ever stopped to smell the roses?

You have a good mix of employees on hand, yet some of them come and go like there is a revolving door at the entrance of your company.

While things have changed since our parents spent 30 or 40 years at one company, that doesn’t mean you need people coming and going like at a yard sale. For those employers tired of the revolving door, stop and review your company’s practices when it comes to hiring and firing.

Among the items to look at are:

  • Training process – Have you ever taken the time to review your training methods for new employees? Given most companies have probationary periods of anywhere from 30 to 90 days, review your process to see if it is productive or not. Since your company spends time and effort on training new employees, you don’t want the door opening and closing every after you’ve successfully trained an employee. Not only have you wasted their time, but also the time of those on your staff who trained the individuals.
  • Employee satisfaction – It is inevitable that some employees will get the “seven-year itch” and want to leave, oftentimes before seven years. That being said, what are you doing to keep employees motivated, happy and successful? When an employee is at your company for several years, they develop relationships with both your staff and your customers. Should they leave, you then have to find the right piece to the puzzle to make sure the next employee co-exists well with others. Encourage them not to leave by providing opportunities for growth and happiness within your company.
  • Managerial skills – For every 100 good managers, there are always handfuls that stop just short of terrorizing your employees. Whether it on purpose or by accident, they are not doing a very good job relating to those under them. That being the case, some of your employees are working on their resumes during the day when they’re supposed to be working for you. While regular employees get reviews, it is important for business owners to review the efforts of their department managers. Meet with those working under the managers to see if they’re happy with the direction the managers are taking. Are they letting those under them be creative and do their jobs, or are they micro-managing them to the point the employees are tuning out? A bad relationship with one’s immediate boss is oftentimes the top reason solid employees leave a company.
  • Meeting employee needs – While there have to be rules in place in every office, business owners who can’t have a little flexibility will oftentimes see good employees say bye-bye. Whether it involves medical issues, children, commuting etc. company heads should offer some leeway when it comes to an employee’s personal matters than only can be met during the 9 to 5 day. Companies that do not allow employees to meet such needs either through excused absences or making up the time run the risk of losing these individuals over time.
  • Room for growth – Does your company have an environment where employees can grow and achieve their career goals or are they left just spinning their wheels? Whether it is through financial incentives, opportunities for more of a say and how things work, time off from work, be sure to have some markers in place where your employees have added motivation to do a good job. Nothing turns an employee off more than knowing that they’re essentially in a dead-end job.

While business owners must decide what is best for their companies and not follow everyone else, it is important to have a culture in the workplace where employees come to work each and every day motivated.

For those companies whose employees just show up because they need a paycheck, expect that front door to get a lot of use over time.

Photo credit: hollywoodrepublican.net

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like credit card processing and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

Fake it Before You Make it: Leading Others When You Are Still Figuring it Out

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We’ve all heard the phrase “fake it before you make it,” and some of us have probably had to fake it in high pressure instances. But what happens when you are put in a leadership role, when you are still figuring out the intricacies of your business? This is a tough situation for many.

When hired as a new manager, the most common approach is to enter a new business, assess the landscape for 2-3 months, and then spring up from the ground ready to lead a team to victory. However, whether you lack prior leadership experience or you are struggling with the balance of leading a team and getting acclimated to a new job; you need to fake it before you can make it.

Everyone who follows has something that is keeping them from being a great leader. Some people are simply too shy and others simply haven’t applied themselves within a niche industry. However, when it’s time to stand tall and self doubt creeps in; remember to never show your internal weaknesses. The way you are perceived is one of the key things you must master before filling in your role as a new leader.

Any new manager or executive must work to gain respect within an organization; and the way people perceive you are is a key component of that respect. Here are 3 tips for helping to improve your image:

  1. Dress Neat- Just because you are the manager doesn’t mean you need to make a fashion statement. Keep a consistent look that is in line with the type of management style you are trying to exhibit.
  2. Look People in the Eye- This is one of the biggest challenges a lot of young leaders face; not looking people in the eye when they are talking to you is disrespectful and shows lack of maturity. If you have a hard time making eye contact, try looking between the eyes, or on a person’s forward.
  3. Be Aware That Someone is Always Watching You- Sometimes non-verbal cues say more about you than anything that comes out of your mouth. Be aware that in most cases, as a manager, someone is always watching you for guidance. Keep great posture and always try and keep a level head (literally and figuratively).

It isn’t difficult to command respect, if you’ve never held a management role, but you must be confident. Confidence is an ingredient that far too many people lack, so faking it sometimes is necessary. A great way to start is by simply meeting with people within your organization and gathering personalities. For the first few months, focus your energy on the things that matter, which is creating a trusting relationship with your employees.

The more respect you command, the better people will listen to you when that time comes to “get something done now!” Keep your internal pressures within and put on your poker face, it’s your time to lead a team. Don’t doubt what you already know, if some of the greatest leaders doubted their knowledge they would have gone down in history. Make a change, step up to the plate and be comfortable in your skin!

Matt Krautstrunk is a writer and social entrepreneur, touching on topics ranging from social media marketing to telephone systems for Resource Nation; and online resource providing purchasing advice for small business owners and entrepreneur