hi my name is Nina Fountain i'm the workplace strategist at Transformed Teams
and today I'm talking about how to walk that fine line between micromanaging and
keeping in touch with the work, and while we want to know are our team
members getting the work done we're also conscious especially at a
time when there's increased stress that we don't want to add to that stress
or increase the anxiety amongst the members of
our team and at the same time it's potentially
even more important to be aware of the
the productivity and the performance going on in our teams
So how do we walk that that line? And i guess part of the solution
is about the quality of the conversations that we have to do with
the work and the work that's been assigned to where it's up to
and what we're expecting. A poor quality conversation is one
where expectations are unclear and unspecific where it's not
obvious what's important about the work and
a good conversation is one where the boundaries are very clearly laid out
and people have a really as close to crystal idea as possible
of what it looks like to meet expectations.
and so at Transformed Teams we use a concept called "The Lens" and it outlines
the goals of the work, any standards that apply
to that work it outlines any action
steps, steps that must be included things that
we know need to get done we look at the the outcomes and the
specific measures and we look at roadblocks and we finally
look at the dollar or the time
allocation depending on whether it's working with contractors
or you could use time if you're working with employees
so those things together create this really clear boundary really
clear set of of guides to what the work should
look like and that might sound like a lot and it
may sound like that process is is difficult to work through but having it
written down like that really does take you through the thinking that
informs how you communicate the work and I had an example recently of
working with one of my team members on something that was completely novel to
her and needed to be done quite quickly and
within about three days so I wasn't actually it was
over the weekend I wasn't going to have a chance to talk with her in person to
to clarify and to do that back and forth so I stepped
very carefully through that Lens and my instructions were in writing and I'm
pleased to say that three days later exactly what I had in mind was
what she delivered, so it was a job well done for her and I think also evidence
of the importance and the the value of
stepping through that communication really clearly
and I think why this is so amazing and important
right now is that it facilitates that autonomy by giving people
something that they can control and making it easy for them to control
the way they do the work just by saying what's important about it but not
necessarily getting down into the detail of exactly
step by step how you want them to do it that gives them the freedom to then go
and do do that work in the way that involves their creativity their
their drive for exploration and learning
and gives them essentially their control is that
key factor that can reduce stress in an anxious time
so keep that in mind this week or in the next little while as you think about walking that line and you find yourself
in a situation where you you could be seen to being
micromanaging Are you coming back to a quality
conversation that's really specific about what's important?
Talk soon and find us over at transformedteams.co
for more practical tips like this for for leaders of flexible and remote teams
See you there!