You often see that micromanagement and giving autonomy to the authors are put in opposition to each other. Many people think micromanagement is bad, empowerment is good and that's it. But it is not as simple as that. Recently, even Patrick Lencioni said that it often pays to be a micromanager.
Patrick Lencioni has sold millions of books and is considered one of the most important management gurus of our time. His books are clear and insightful and I can especially recommend Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I have applied Lencioni's teachings in a number of organisations and have directly used, for example, the pyramid model in the above-mentioned book.
Lencioni is also well known in Finland. In his presentation at the Nordic Business Forum on 27 May 2020, he talked about micromanagement, among other things. According to Lencioni, it pays to be a micromanager if it means that you know what your subordinate is doing with reasonable accuracy, you are interested in what they are doing, you follow their work, and you challenge and help them when necessary.
Leading is about doing unpleasant things
In his new book Motivation Lencioni goes through the motives for leadership in much the same way as in his NBF talk, dividing them into reward-based and servant-based motives. Reward-motivated leaders avoid doing the inherently uncomfortable things associated with leadership. One of these is managing direct subordinates. It's not fun to interfere in what someone else is doing. It is much nicer to say, here is the target state, do what you want. At the root of the solution may be an experience of unpleasantness, and this is easily justified by the idea of autonomy.
Senior management is not exempt from managing (managing)
This is particularly true at senior management level: for example, when I'm CEO, vice president or division president, I think I've moved beyond managing people and can focus on the big picture. But this is not the case, according to Lencioni: a CEO needs to be interested in the work of his direct reports: what they are doing, in what ways, where they need help, etc. Whatever your managerial position, you must lead your subordinates, "manage direct reports". There is no substitute for general leadership.
Lencioni also pointed out in his speech that the approach trickles down in the organisation: if top management does not care about managing their subordinates, they do not care about managing their own subordinates and soon there are problems in middle management.
In his speech, Lencioni said that he had challenged CEOs of several large companies who blessed the actions of their middle management and the problems of the organisation. Lencioni mentioned that he asked them, "Who are the leaders of middle management? They themselves are (after a few rungs at the latest), so the leadership or lack of it by the CEO is the root problem. Both leadership and lack of it trickles down.
How to create a constructive intervention in the organisation in other people's areas of responsibility?
Lencioni deals with the relationship between a manager and his subordinates in a very apt way. None of us does a perfect job alone and we can benefit from having someone interested in what we are doing and sometimes challenging it. For this to happen, someone also needs to be aware of it and ask the right questions, even when we ourselves get stuck or don't know how to ask for help.
Micromanagement is when a manager tells his subordinate how to do his job. It's not a nice way of doing things, so the conclusion is easily drawn that I'll stop doing it, that is, I won't tell the subordinate how to do his job. Instead of quitting, it would often be better to change the style, so the situation can be that we communicate and plan together how to do the job. I practice the kind of leadership that Lencioni calls for, but together and in a good way. So I don't stop managing, but I do it differently.
If you're interested, I wrote a slightly longer blog post about it earlier in terms of culture and sharing.
What about Teal, autonomy and self-management?
I am passionate about shared decision-making power and autonomous organisations. A classic on the subject is Frederik Laloux's Reinventing organisations, in which he presents the Teal way of organising. I too want to give people power and responsibility - but I still want to create a culture where everyone can challenge each other and develop common goals.
For this to be possible, we must also intervene in other people's territories. Of course, Lencioni's "managing direct reports" does not work directly with the Teal organisation, which turns decision-making on its head compared to the traditional one. The Teal practice is to consult with those affected by the decision before making it. And while Teal is a wonderful ideal, very few organisations do it. Lencion's guidance and the reflections in this blog apply to other, "normal" organisations.
The models cannot be copied
Ultimately, by understanding both models, you can work with your work community to build a culture and practices that work for your particular place. Solutions cannot be copied from anywhere, they have to be created for each organisation - lessons and principles from elsewhere should be used as support.
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