How to Be a Better Micromanager

A six-step framework for strategic micromanagement

Jan 28, 2024

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This year, I’m committed to spending less time on busywork. That’s going to require getting better delegation– a skill that never came easy to me. Partly it's my need for control. But I've also come to realize that my management style wasn't well-suited for effective delegation.

Founders are often advised by investors to hire smart people and stay out of their way. While it’s not usually wise to take management advice from people who’ve explicitly opted out of management, this guidance also assumes you’re handing the reigns over to experienced employees. While this may be the case at some VC-backed startups, most managers need to delegate work to less seasoned team members. That sometimes requires a practice with a bad reputation– micromanagement.

Micromanagement gets a bad rap for good reasons. Applied indiscriminately, micromanagement can be demoralizing. But it doesn’t have to.

Like a pair of training wheels - strategic micromanagement can stabilize new hires until they find their balance. When applied judiciously, micromanagement provides the structure for employees to master unfamiliar tasks, allowing managers to scale their impact.

Here's my six-step approach to strategic micromanagement:

Gauge Task Maturity
When handing off work, assess the employee's skill level. Are they new to this task or a seasoned pro? Newbies naturally need more support. You can take off the training wheels as skills develop.
Set a Clear Baseline
Just because an employee can execute a process doesn’t mean they are the right person to design it. Start by defining the standards and creating the process yourself. Document it thoroughly via screen recordings or real-world videos to prevent guesswork.
Verify Comprehension
Have your employee explain the process back to you. Better yet, have them use your recording to write their own SOPs. Confirm they fully understand the process before setting them loose.
Monitor Results Closely
At first, check in frequently. Offer rapid, specific feedback. Praise wins. Focus improvements on systems, not personal shortcomings.
Increase Autonomy
As competence grows, you can grant more autonomy to perform the work and improve the original process. But maintain some oversight on critical tasks. The goal is self-sufficiency, not zero supervision.

When practiced the right way, strategic micromanagement can increase autonomy and morale. The key is to use it surgically, not indiscriminately. Like any skill, strategic micromanagement takes practice. But mastering it will ultimately allow you to scale yourself and get precious time back.

Personal Updates

I spent the first week of 2024 coming up with some goals for the year ahead. For those interested, I’ll share a few here.

Goal 1. Double Revenue at Exec

Last year turned out to be a great year for Exec. This year, I think we have the opportunity to double our revenue. Here’s what I’m doing to make that happen:

Mastering the Sales Process – Most of my success in sales so far has been thanks to good people skills and intuition. While that won us plenty of business in 2023, I think we could have done even better if I knew the tactics that world-class sellers use to close big deals. This year I’ve already started working with a sales coach and consuming more materials to level up my skills.
Expanding our Product Offering – Last year, we intentionally built a lot of talent development programs manually to learn the variety of requests from our clients. That work paid off and gave us a roadmap for some powerful new software tools to automate program design and management. I’m pumped to launch these in the year ahead.
Take Some Big Bets on Our GTM Approach – By making progress on selling and product, we should be able to make some big bets on our go-to-market approach. Still unknown what will pay off, but I’m excited to start experimenting.

Goal 2. Get My Time Back

As you can probably tell from this post, I’m pretty committed to mastering the delegation process. A big reason is that I want to get some time back to devote to the kind of high-value work that I’m uniquely capable of. Here’s what I’m doing to make that happen:

Getting Comfortable with Giving up Control – One of the things that’s held me back from delegating work is a perfectionist mindset. After working with my coach, I’ve realized my need for control is holding back our business from scaling.
Documentation & Delegation – I’ve been using the process from this post to hand off more items to team members. While it’s hard breaking the habit of doing these things myself, I’m building a new obsession with effective delegation to replace it.
Filling Time with Meaningful Activities – That’s writing. It’s exercise. It’s spending time with family and friends. No use getting time back just to fill it with stuff that isn’t meaningful.

Goal 3. Living Life as If Time is Fleeting

Having little kids helps you realize how short life is. I look at pictures of our youngest daughter from 3 months ago and can barely recognize her as the same baby I’m holding today. This might be the hardest goal to achieve since it’s vague and tough to measure. But just because something's hard to measure doesn’t make it less important.

Thanks for reading today’s issue of the Jungle Gym. If you enjoyed what you read, I’d really appreciate it if you could forward it to a friend, family member, or colleague who you think might like it too.

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Until next time,
Nick

The Jungle Gym