Ten signs: approval needed for every step, updates demanded more than once a day, work rewritten instead of reviewed, the how dictated as well as the what, copied on everything, no decisions delegated, presence checked instead of output, meetings about meetings, instructions that change mid-task, and a team that has stopped suggesting anything. The last one is the cost of the first nine.
The ten signs and what each costs
- Approval for every step. Work waits. A two-day task takes a week.
- Updates more than once a day. An hour of each person's day goes to reporting.
- Rewriting instead of reviewing. Nobody learns, so the same fixes repeat.
- Dictating the how. People stop thinking, because thinking gets overruled.
- Copied on everything. The manager's inbox becomes the bottleneck.
- No decisions delegated. Every small choice queues behind the manager's calendar.
- Presence over output. People perform activity instead of finishing things.
- Meetings about meetings. Time spent arranging time.
- Changing instructions mid-task. Work is done twice.
- A silent team. Nobody suggests anything, because suggestions get managed.
How to tell a pattern from a phase
New hires, high-risk launches and recent mistakes bring out two or three of these in any manager, briefly. Seven or more, for months, across the whole team, is a pattern.
The one fix
Nearly every sign is a way of seeing the work before it is finished. Replace that with a clear agreement at the start about what done looks like, and a review of the finished work against it. The manager sees the result. The team gets the middle back.
Where M-Tracker fits
M-Tracker is that agreement and that review. Each task has a brief the whole team can see. When the work is sent, M-Tracker checks it against the brief and writes a plain review the person sees first. The manager gets finished, checked work and hours by task. Signs one, two, three, six and seven lose their reason to exist, and the team starts talking again.
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Questions people ask
Can the team fix this without the manager agreeing?
Partly. Agree done checks among yourselves and send finished work with the checks met. Managers relax when surprises stop.
Is a micromanager a bad person?
Usually a worried one. Worry responds to information.
What is the first sign to fix?
Number one. Agree the result up front, and the approvals fall away.
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