5 Ways It Pays To Be A Micromanager

By and large, micromanagement isn’t just bad for employee morale. Constant scrutiny can also slow things down, hamper progress and hurt your company’s bottom line.

That’s why so many startup owners are taught never to micromanage. From the moment the company formation process is complete, managers are convinced they should simply leave their staff members to it. But you know what? To be honest, there’s nothing wrong with a conservative dollop of micromanagement every so often – in fact, sometimes employees actually welcome it.

You’ve simply got to get a feel for when you as an entrepreneur need to step in and take control in order to help your team get the job done effectively. When you truly need to micromanage your team will vary drastically from others – but to help get you started, here are five ways that it always pays to be a micromanager:

#1 Micromanaging Quality Control

As the leader of your new company, a vast majority of the products, services or processes your staff members are going to be expected to roll out on a daily basis are built around ideas that you personally developed.

You already know the caliber of work you’d like your startup to be delivering. You should know the specifications and the steps involved in delivering perfection – but not every member of your team will. That’s why you need to step in and teach your employees what quality means to their business.

School your staff members, show them what you’re after, and casually reassess outputs for yourself on a regular basis. Don’t forget: after your team has mastered what they’re working on, it’s time to step back and let them get on with it. But there’s nothing wrong with micromanaging the education and regular quality control processes.

#2 Micromanaging Customer Feedback

Plenty of startups take care of their public relations and communications internally. Others may outsource. But no matter who it is you have handling your company’s public persona – either internally or externally – it is you as a company owner that should be reading and addressing customer reviews.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of bad reviews to destroy even the most promising startup and do you need to respond to substantial pieces of feedback swiftly and decisively. If you can find the time, your customers deserve to hear from you in particular. You don’t have to spend hours a day sifting through reviewing platforms, but it’s something all company owners should strive to micromanage.

As a company leader, it falls on you to let your customers know that you’re listening to their feedback and if there’s something wrong with the product or service they’ve received, that you’re going to do everything you can to make it right. Why?

A direct response from the top of the totem pole makes your customers feel valued. They’ll know that you’re taking their feedback seriously – which means that they’re far more likely to give your company another chance to impress them.

According to research from Customer Thermometer, one of the top reasons consumers list when asked why they connect with a brand is because they feel that brand cares about them. Simply put: one-to-one customer service will help you to establish brand loyalty that money simply cannot buy.

#3 Micromanaging The Hiring Process

As your new business grows, you should do your absolute best to guide every step of the hiring process. Again, this comes down to the company culture in which you’re trying to create.

As a company owner, nobody has a better idea of what your company should be achieving than you do – and so nobody should have a better idea of the sort of people who can help you to realize that vision. Each team member needs to fit into a bigger picture, which is why you should be micromanaging the hiring process.

You should take it upon yourself to manage the development of role criteria, and you should always try to be present for in-person interviews to assess the abilities of potential candidates. This can admittedly be pretty time-consuming – but by getting involved and sacrificing a little bit of your time now, you’ll be saving yourself a lot of time and energy later.

#4 Micromanaging The Communication Process

Some of your employees may like to moan about micromanagement tactics and over obsessed bosses, but the truth is a huge majority of employees actually say they wish they had more face time with their managers. More important still, team members that do regularly engage with their bosses are happier and more efficient in their work.

According to researchers at Gallup, employees who hold regular meetings with their managers are almost three times as likely to be engaged in their role. But as manager, it falls on you to organize those meetings and uphold them in the diary. You need to let each of your employees know they’ve got a direct line to you whenever you’re needed, and you should regularly catch up with them and show an interest in their work.

It might technically be classed as micromanagement – but in reality, it’s just good leadership.

#5 Micromanaging Your Company Culture

All businesses hit a rut at some point – and yours won’t be any different. You may start to experience sour team relations, experience frustration from encroaching competition or need to address a lack of morale. When that happens, you need to hit your company with a shift in culture, and to do that, you need to be a micromanager.

Nobody buys into your company and its mission more than you do. That means if you want to change the way your employees do something or the way they feel about something, you need to champion that change. Show them first-hand why a change is needed, and how it can be implemented.

Roll up your sleeves and prove to them you’re taking your team down the correct path.

As a startup owner, you want to be a good boss. You want to be fun and well-liked, and so you may be tempted to just leave your employees to it and hope for the best. Don’t. You owe it to your entire team, your customers and everyone in between to do what it takes to ensure your company’s success – and if that means stepping in with a bit of micromanagement every so often, so be it.

Just remember not to overdo it. There’s a fine line between harassing your employees and simply showing them how to work together in order to realize a shared vision. It might take you a bit of time to figure out where you should and shouldn’t be micromanaging. But once you’ve figured out the right balance, everyone will win.

 

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This guest post was contributed by Quality Company Formations.