The Trust Fallacy

Out of the many management principles that are much talked about and which we try to emulate is the popular discussion on micro-management and all the evil that it bestows on an honest attempt by a leader to build trust in a team.

For those who have missed the 'taken-for-granted' concept, here it goes.

'Micro managers are those managers who like to take every decision, big or small, themselves and like to breath down a team members neck by dictating and controlling all the tasks performed'. Popular belief says that Micromanagement should be avoided at all costs as it ruins trust which is indispensable for healthy team play. Being a natural skeptic of all obvious principles, I think I rather dig deeper into this claim than take it at face value.

Consider this, You are a 'team leader' (I frankly don't agree with the term 'leader' but more on that later) and you have just been 'assigned' a team for your next project which just happens to be very critical. I emphasize the word 'assigned' because for the most of us who are trying to break the barrier of mediocrity and still climbing the lower rungs of the corporate ladder, this is the way life looks like. We are given resources with a pat on the back. We CAN'T choose them. Now how do you build trust amongst your team members and instill some of it for yourself when you haven't a clue as to what the resources and capabilities of each of the members are?? (I can hear the proponents and worshipers of 'historical performance' grunting right now) Isn't it obvious? Historical performance is a good indicator. Just look at their previous work, what they have done, where they have been, extrapolate and ASSUME performance on this project as well. The answer is no! If history has taught us anything, historical Performance is not an indicator of future behavior. Try arguing against this with Warren Buffet!! Now that I have added some credibility to the statement by mentioning Mr.Buffet, we can move on.

Maybe in part, but every project is different and the capabilities of all the resources on the team need to be assessed to locate a strategic fit between the project requirements and the individual qualities/behaviors (behavior is important!! We aren't talking assembly lines here). Misfits stick out like a sore thumb and one can be rest assured that this wont change with time. So how can it be done? and here lies the dilemma!

Most managers NEED to micromanage initially to realize the behavioral pattern of team members but this undermines trust. How is the task accepted by individual members? What steps do they take to reach a logical conclusion? Are they fact based or backed by mere experience and intuition? What are the causal explanations given? Is the level of detail satisfactory for this task or maybe too much? etc. These are important indicators needed by a managers to make a decision on the level of trust that he or she can assign to each team member (Another fact of life..people are different, even if they have the same profile!). Subordinates jumping to conclusions is not unnatural here. Managers and team leaders are quickly labeled as intrusive and distrustful and thus starts the crumbling of team cohesiveness. As trust starts to disappear and friction builds up, managers have to micromanage more to keep the project going, taking team dynamics in a downward spiral till it starts to compromise quality with increasing efficiency.

With a new team, initial micro-management is not a sign of lack of trust but should be more of a measurement and calibration exercise. Leaders have to learn to let go once they understand the roles and subordinates have to give their leaders a chance till they can. Patience might go a long way here. However, it is also not difficult to recognize managers who have micro-management as their blood type . In this case, I suggest a small cost-benefit analysis w.r.t. disagreeing with the manager. Look at the bigger picture and see the effectiveness of managers comments on the appraisal.

Micro-management is not all that bad if its a part of a bigger plan. The key is to make this plan vocal and transparent. Let your team members know that greater responsibility (although customized!) will follow the painstaking exercise of identifying strategic fits between tasks and capabilities. If possible, assign less weight to this phase of the project in order to skip expectations and reduce the impact of assumptions of future manager intrusion that drives most projects into a vicious circle of lower trust and mediocre deliveries.