Video Transcript: Micromanage

Being an effective manager. Task 12, manage, don't micromanage. Matthew  25:18, then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth  has been given to me, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing  them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit teaching them to  obey everything I have commanded, and surely I am with you to the very end of  the age. Can you imagine? This is the greatest enterprise the world has ever  known. Jesus spent three years with you know, just ordinary people, showed  them things, taught them some things, and then basically said, Okay, I'm going  to leave this task, the task of changing the whole world, change The task of  planting churches to every every culture, every nation on the earth, doing all  these things that I've commanded you, but I'm going to let you do it. I've been  doing it here. I've been showing you how, but I'm going to leave this whole thing  to you. I'll be with you, with my spirit. You'll have the word, but I'm delegating this whole thing to you. I'm gonna let you do it. It's just incredible. Well, why would a  manager micromanage? You're supposed to manage. You know, get the best  out of people. Why would you micromanage? Number one, a manager might  micromanage. By the way, micromanaging is when you, you, you, you manage  every single detail of what you're trying to get someone to do. Not only do you  give them the task and the goal, but every tiny step along the way you're there. I mean, you might as well just do it yourself. So why would a manager do that?  Because there's only so much time, and if you micromanage everything, really,  your time is not going to get multiplied. You can micromanage one person, and  then you might as well just do it yourself and not have that person at all. So why  would a manager do that? Number one, a manager might be insecure, and as a  result, surrounds him or herself with mediocre people. A lot of people do that.  Lot of leaders will do that. They're not thinking that way. They're thinking, I'm  going to hire the best people. I want my team to win. I want my organization to  really succeed, and we need some really good people. But inherently, the other  part of their mind goes and finds people that are not threatening people. If you  hire really good people, they will challenge you. In fact, they'll be better at  certain things than you are, and so they'll be telling you what ought to be done  instead of you telling them. And if you're insecure, you don't want someone  telling you you want to be in charge of everything. You want to be in control of of everything. Number two, a manager hasn't taken the time to train his people. If  you haven't, if you haven't trained people, they don't know how to do it. And so  you're forever having to explain, we're spraying our ceiling in our church. And I  did that with someone who knew what they were doing. I was on the lift,  operating the lift, and he was doing all the spraying. And while he was spraying,  he was telling me, you know, this is how you do it, and you do this, you do that.  And I listened patiently, and two hours later, he was still doing it. I said, So when  are you going to let me do it? And he kept explaining what it was, but he never  gave me the sprayer. So the next day, I went with my son, and we both just did 

it. You have to take the time to teach someone and then let them do it. Number  three, why would a manager micromanage? He has a strong need to control  everything. Doesn't trust anyone else needs, needs that control, and if you just  go do it, I don't know what you will be doing. Number four has a poor view of the team members capabilities. No one's going to going to be able to do it right. I  don't think you'll succeed, and so I can't just let you go and do it. Number five  has a view that no one can do anything as well as he or she can. So this is  especially true about really gifted and talented managers, people that are truly  gifted and can do a lot of things well, often that person is a detriment to  themselves, because they can do so many things well, they tend to see  everyone else as people that can't do it quite as well, and we want it done as  well as we can, so I don't trust you. And so I'm gonna be at your elbow and  bothering you every step of the way. The result of micromanaging good people  quit. And I'm not, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna hang around so, you know, I'm  spraying with that guy. You know, we're spraying for three hours the ceiling, and  the only thing I'm doing is moving. You know, every five minutes I move the lift a  little bit, and I never get to spray anything. Well, I'm not going to do that again. I  know I just got a call, it went to voicemail, but I got a call from him about an hour ago, and my guess he's going to say, when are we going to spray again? And  I'm like, I don't, you know you could spray on your own, but I'm not going to help  you, because I don't want to just stand there and do nothing good. People will  quit. They want to be challenged. Number two, mediocre people will become  more mediocre. So if I'm not that talented, and then you micromanage  everything that I do, I'm going to even do less. Why should I do it? If you're just  going to correct me, it's like, you know someone asking you to do the dishes,  you know, and you're washing the dishes, and you wash all the dishes, and they come by and redo them because they're not good enough. Well, the next time  they ask me to do the dishes, I'm not that motivated. Why should I do them? I  know you're just going to redo them. Number three, the manager gets worn out  again, because the manager is managers manage the many, and if they  micromanage everything, they can't manage the many. And yet they're stuck  with all these things that have to be done. And so they wear themselves out  doing it because, you know what, they don't really need the staff. They should  just do it themselves, but there's too much to do. And so they get worn out. What most people do not like about managers that I thought we should talk about this. Lot of managers are not liked and and this is one of the reasons why always  critical of you. They're always when they come around, they're always looking  for something wrong. They think that's their job. A lot of us, a lot of people, a lot  of us, probably think we're being very intelligent when we criticize. You know,  when I see something and I walk into a room and I can find the problem, I think  that makes me look intelligent in a relationship, I'm going to bring up the  problem, you know, because there's a problem, someone should bring it up, and

I'll be the one, and I'll be intelligent in doing that. The truth is, everyone does  that. It's not that intelligent. Everyone can find what's wrong. Everyone can be  critical, but it's not very motivating. And if a manager comes around and all he's  doing is looking for the thing that's wrong and saying it. Then who wants the  manager coming around? Number two, you think you can do more stuff than you can because they don't understand how hard some things are. So the manager  who thinks everything is easy, they can't understand why you are not finished  with that, but they really don't know how hard things are. And because they don't know how hard things are, they also don't know when you've been working  really hard and it took you three days to accomplish it, they don't know really  what you accomplished. They don't appreciate the hard work that you put in.  They just think it's easy. Number three, they ask for things from you, but they get the impression, but you get the impression they don't really know how much  they're asking for. So when you do them, do what they're asking, you don't really get the credit, as was just mentioning, you don't get credit for all the hard work  that you do, because they don't really realize what it is that you do. Number four  managers that don't really know the business, or at least your part of it. So it's  not true that every manager knows or can do every part of the business as well  as the people that they manage, but some but, it's nice that a manager at least  knows something about what we're trying to do here. The manager has never  done what it is that you do. It's hard to respect them. So my wife is the manager  of the music ministry in our church. She's also has a degree in music. She also  knows music really, really well, and because she knows music really, really well,  the talented and gifted people that are on the music team respect her and she  can manage and she can say, this is what we need to do, because they know  that She knows so knowing your business is important. Number five managers  that think they can do your job, but really can't. A lot of managers think they can  do it, but when push comes to shove, they can't do what it is that you do, and  that's annoying. It's annoying to have a manager who thinks they can do what  you can do, but you know they can't. Number six people don't like managers  that never laugh or have fun. They're just all business. It's all work. They're  critical. It's like, how come we're not done with this. They're always pushing  shoving, and they never have fun. In fact, something that would be fun just  becomes work. Number seven managers that don't know that they  micromanage or are over controlling. There's a lot of managers that don't know  that the guy I was spray painting with, he doesn't know that he's, he's, he's  micromanaging, and that he's just doing everything. He had his brother there.  His brother was holding the hose. We had a paint sprayer, and the hose went  down into a bucket, and he spent three hours just holding the hose. And his  brother, I was told, he's up visiting here. His brother actually, for a living, painted  for a while. So for three hours, his brother is holding a hose, and I'm just  standing on the left, you know, moving it every five minutes, you know, three feet

and he's doing all this spraying. Okay? I'm sure he doesn't know. He thinks  we're all just rocking and rolling. What a team. We got a lot done today. Well,  two of us didn't feel that way. Okay, the manager, as the hub. All communication  goes through the manager. So a manager is like the hub of a wheel. He's in the  middle, and everything that happens in the organization happens around him.  So all communication this person needs to say something, it comes to the  manager, and the manager has to communicate it up. Everything goes through  the manager. Number two, all decisions go through the manager. No one on the  outside can make a decision. Every decision has to come to the manager. Of  course, there's a lot of things happening, and so this one needs a decision. This  one needs a decision. This one needs a decision. And the and the manager in  the middle doesn't have time to make all this, so he just puts everyone on hold.  So everyone is on hold, and the focus of the organization is whatever the  manager is now focusing on, and everything else takes a back seat. So nothing  else. Really. There's no progress anywhere else, because this person knows  that they can't go forward, because if they do, the manager will come back and  say, Well, why don't you consult me? How come you didn't talk to me about this  and you have to redo the whole thing. But because people are employed, and  they're sitting there at their desk, you know, what are they going to do? So they  just busy themselves wasting time waiting for the eye of the manager to finally  get focused on their area. So very little gets done. The only thing that gets done  is where the manager has his eyes and because it's well aid and it was done  wrong already. It takes a lot of time, and very little is getting done. Number three, all direction goes through the manager. So what are we going to do? Well, I  don't know. We're going to have to wait for the manager to tell us. I can't decide.  You can't decide. Everyone along the hub has these projects, has things to  move forward on, but they can't go forward until the manager comes again the  he has to have his focus on this one thing or it doesn't go forward, and no one  dares do anything without him, because he needs to be the focus of it all.  Number four, nothing happens without the attention, passion and energy of the  manager, and he has only two pair of eyes, and they can only focus in one place at a time, so very little gets done. Okay, how to manage without all that  micromanaging. What should the manager do instead? Number one, teach your  people well, instead of being the hub, teach each person what they're supposed  to do. Train them well. Teach, teach, teach, teach, make sure they can do it so  that they can do it on their own. You don't have to come and ask me about it.  You know how to do it. Give them clear goals with dates. I'm not going to do the  work for you, that's why we have you. But I want you to know exactly what we  need. So I tell you exactly I'm as clear as I can be. These are the goals. These  are the dates that I expect it, and now it's, you know, I'm done with it. I can move to something else. Give them responsibility to achieve the goals. People will just sit on their hands if they don't feel like you trust them, if you don't actually hand 

them the responsibility. Look, I am trusting you to make this happen. I've helped  you as much as I can, but you need to make it happen and give it to them. And  they're either going to succeed or they're not. They're going to make mistakes,  whatever you want, people taking ownership. Number four, leave. Them alone. If you want them to take responsibility, you need to leave them alone. If you're a  parent and you want your kids to take responsibility, they will not take  responsibility unless you give them the responsibility. And you you give it, you  got to give it. It goes out of your hand into theirs, and they're either going to  succeed or they're going to fail. But you know, even if they fail, let them  experience the consequences of their failure, and they'll learn from their failure.  If you let people fail enough, they will learn from their mistakes, and they will  become a better employee. They'll become a better helper, and eventually, you  won't have to clean up as many messes. Number five. Give feedback about  halfway, so you give it to them. You give clear instructions, let them run with it  about halfway. You swing in and you go, Okay, how are we doing? And you can  make mid course corrections. Give them a little encouragement, give them a  little feedback, and then send them out again, and then finally, evaluate at the  end, how did this go? What would you have done better? Ownership. You have  to give away ownership. You don't want to micromanage. You don't want to take  on the project. You have all these people to help you, to help you. Let them help  you. If you don't give it to them, they won't help you. Finally, do more teaching.  Can't emphasize that enough. You start by teaching your people, you end by  teaching your people, teach, teach, teach, give, give, give, equip, equip, equip.  And the more you equip, the more they can do, and the less micromanaging you do. Finally, number eight, give them more clear goals and dates. So it's a circle.  It's a revolving door. You teach, you give them goals, you evaluate, you teach  you give them goals you evaluate. And pretty soon they're running things and  you hardly have to talk to them at all.