A manager’s role is to do their best to bring out the best from those who work for them—Anonymous
A good part of my coaching practice is to work with my clients and help them deal with their immediate boss and sometimes their skip boss if they are nosy enough to interfere. Although a large part of my client pool is from technology companies not all are in that space. For example, a client may be in finance at a biotech company or a services company. Although about 70% or so of my client pool is from technical backgrounds—engineers, physicians, scientists, lawyers, mathematicians—many are hard-core technologists. The reason I am going through this detail of my client-pool’s composition is because this problem they face when seeking my help cuts across all these lines and makes where they come from almost irrelevant.
That problem is dealing with a bad manager they are stuck with. In most cases it is the micromanagement that gets to my clients. If I list some of the more common managerial dysfunction in rank order it is: Micromanagement, technical incompetence, lack of leadership, favoritism, managing by proxy (relying on some team member to feed them information on which they base their actions), and constantly changing directions based on their boss’ whims. These are the top dysfunctions that they bring to my sessions. As I have written in many of my previous blogs based on first-hand research grounded in over 50 years’ longitudinal studies, about 80% of the managers fall in the dysfunctional category of which micromanaging seems the most troubling to those who come seeking my guidance.
Most clients find micromanagement as the most suffocating and offensive of their manager’s traits that sucks the oxygen and any joy from their work. So, in this blog I am writing my view of how to view this malady and prepare yourself to deal with the dysfunction of micromanagement. I have developed several management frameworks to show what effective management looks like, but all these years I was looking for a compelling metaphor from everyday life of job roles that resonated. When I recently saw the Steven Spielberg movie, The Post, it suddenly dawned on me that good editor of a newspaper is the best metaphor for how a manager must manage.
Publication’s structure: Those not familiar with the newspaper or magazine publication hierarchy need a primer in how they structure their work and their business. The publisher, like the company chairman/CEO, is responsible for all the legal and business aspects of what a publication does. They have their Board as a corporation does. Then there is the editor-in-chief who decides the editorial policy for day-to-day work. They can be analogized to the COO of a company. They set the guidelines on how the publication will follow certain philosophy to cover their view of the developments. Then there is the executive editor, who on a day-to-day basis, decides what goes where in the paper and makes assignments to different editors, writers, and journalists.
The editor of each section (national, international, local, business, sports, etc.) has their own journalists, reporters, and free-lancers who gather the material for a story and compile it for publication after their respective editor goes through the vetting process. It is this role that is very analogous to what a manager must do in how they manage their team or those reporting to them.
Editor’s role: An editor decides what stories are worth chasing and assigns specific resources to gather the stories or send specific resources to where the news is happening. When the journalist or writer or a reporter files their assigned stories the editor whets the story for integrity and if the reporter has followed the rules of journalism (verify stories from independent sources, do research, talk to people, etc.). If the story needs some final touches that editor also provides that touch.
An editor typically does not go the trouble spot to gather that news or looks over the field reporter or journalist to see how they are doing their story or micromanage their actions by telling them, Don’t stand there, stand here, instead, etc. Their real work begins when a story is filed and if a reporter has some questions about the process, ethics, and legal issues around what is being reported. This way the reporters feel empowered to exercise their judgment and do their best in creating an impactful story that is finally reviewed or edited by their manager (their editor).
So, a manager’s role should be like that of an editor, who makes the assignments and guides the reporters and journalist to make their stories shine. This is why stories with by-lines are so important to these professionals, where their name is carried below the headline of their story. The editors name appears only in the masthead.
Just imagine how much better a manager’s effectiveness would be if they stop micromanaging (going to the story with the reporter to gather it!) and lead the teams that report to them so that they can do their best work and guide their work so that they can sign their name to their accomplishments and the manager remains in the background (masthead). This way the editor does the work that only they can do to bring out the best from those who work for them! An editor’s experience, savvy, and perspective are what add value to a story, not their (micro)management of that story!
Of all the models that I have struggled with for what a manager must do to be effective in their role, this one stands out as a paragon or an architype from our everyday experience. I hope that at least a few micromanagers read this blog and take to heart on how they must change their duties to be more valuable, both to their teams and to their companies. I also expect that those teams that are cursed with such micromanagers have the courage to pass on this blog to their bosses to see if it makes any difference in how they manage, as a result.
Good luck!