1372: [Part 2] How Leaders Can Get More Done Through Others: How Micromanagement Can Kill Productivity and Creativity by Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily, Episode 1372. How Leaders Can Get More Done Through Others. How Micromanagement Can Kill Productivity and Creativity. Part 2 by Laura Stack of TheProductivityPro.com And I am Dan, I'm your host here and I'm with you every single day of the week including weekends and holidays.

[00:00:19] And today is the continuation of a two-parter so if you happen to miss yesterday's I would recommend going back and listening to that first, that's Episode 1371. But if you're all caught up, let's go for it here Part 2 as we optimize your life.

[00:00:37] How Leaders Can Get More Done Through Others. How Micromanagement Can Kill Productivity and Creativity. Part 2 by Laura Stack of TheProductivityPro.com The higher you climb the more often you have to stop and take a look at the big picture.

[00:00:51] You need to thoughtfully determine what really drives the value and results you're looking to achieve and assign most of your attention to those items. What things have the biggest impacts on the company? What makes these things important? What can you do to make them better?

[00:01:05] That's what you should ask yourself. If necessary, find a business mentor who can help you widen your focus based on their own experiences or educate yourself on how others have done so in the past. There are plenty of books on the subject.

[00:01:18] It's been said that the devil is in the details and perhaps that's so but if you hire people that you can trust to do their jobs then by and large the details will take care of themselves.

[00:01:28] You need to pull back from the individual pixels and look at how it all comes together to make a profit for your organization. Worry about your corporate or organizational strategy first. Put good people in place.

[00:01:39] Get all those other big picture ducks in a row and the little things will fall into line with a minimum of fuss. Encourage Employee Engagement What would you rather have? A bright-eyed, engaged employee who owns her job knowing that she has a say in

[00:01:54] how things are done and is therefore invested in the company's success. Or a disengaged drone who keeps his head down, does the minimum necessary to scrape by and cares only for his paycheck. That's an easy enough choice, right?

[00:02:07] Sadly though, the second type of employee is at least as common as the first and they're separated by a wide mediocre middle consisting of the partially engaged and unengaged. The relationship between employee engagement and productivity isn't precisely one

[00:02:21] to one but as a rule, workers with a high level of engagement are willing to try harder so they tend to be more productive than people who work only to put food on the table. Engaged workers enjoy and appreciate what they're doing.

[00:02:33] This makes them willing to go the extra mile which in turn makes them invaluable. The equation is simple. More productive workers means higher profits and engaged employees are more likely to be productive than their unengaged or actively disengaged coworkers.

[00:02:49] They also tend to be safer, more customer focused and less likely to jump ship. To put it another way, employee engagement has a high return on investment whereas disengaged employees represent a financial drain. Gallup estimates that employee disengagement costs American businesses

[00:03:05] as much as $300 billion a year in lost productivity. To engage employees, you must empower them. Let them take initiative in their work and let them know that they're allowed to. This requires something of a hands off attitude. Though again, abdication is never a good idea.

[00:03:21] Communication must be your watchword here. It may very well be the most important factor in encouraging employee engagement and it must be bi-directional. Make your vision and intentions clear to your employees and allow them to provide feedback on most matters.

[00:03:35] You may not agree with them and nothing may come of their suggestions but it's the opportunity to contribute that matters. And you might just find that they have a great deal of wisdom to communicate if you'll listen. As part of your communication effort, you'll need to help each

[00:03:47] employee understand their place in the company and how they're contributing when they do their jobs well. Explain both the what and the why and ask them if they understand their roles and have any ideas about how they can improve the associated systems and processes.

[00:04:01] This is another place where your understanding of the big picture is crucial and as they say, when you teach someone something, you're also teaching yourself. Provide critical training. Speaking of teaching, you need to be willing to provide the education and training that your employees require in order

[00:04:17] to do their jobs effectively. Proper training takes some of the strain off you and makes micromanaging unnecessary. On the employee side of the equation, good training can do the following. Develop critical knowledge and skills. Increase awareness of company policies and operations.

[00:04:33] Demonstrate the company's mission and vision and the employee's place in the corporate structure. Encourage engagement. Improve motivation and confidence. Re-emphasize the need for quality and excellence. Promote efficiency. Decrease the likelihood of accidents and injuries. And reduce turnover. All this taken together can't help but increase productivity.

[00:04:56] A good training program can also buff the company's public image, help the company stay competitive, and attract more and better job candidates. The final analysis. As is so often the case, the factors I've discussed in this article interrelate in ways that are hard to separate

[00:05:12] and can be difficult to quantify. But what it all comes down to is that you must be willing to tear yourself away from the minutiae of your team's daily operations, take a deep breath, and step back. Be flexible. Trust your people. Encourage their participation in the company's success.

[00:05:29] In short, give them an opportunity to grow and flourish without being stifled by your constant hovering. Allow them to be creative and productive on their own terms. Stepping back also gives you a better view of the overall big picture. This allows you to more easily guide your organization

[00:05:45] in the direction that you and the company wanted to go. It's rather like being the captain of a ship, where you really need to be is up on the bridge, overseeing everything, steering your vessel through the straits, and avoiding all the reefs

[00:05:57] and other perils that you can more easily see from your elevated position. If you spend too much time down on the deck, nitpicking a sailor's performance, or worse, hauling the lines and clearing the deck yourself, then you're eventually going to hit something and wreck the ship.

[00:06:12] And if that happens, you'll have no one to blame but yourself. You just listened to part two of the post titled How Leaders Can Get More Done Through Others, How Micromanagement Can Kill Productivity and Creativity by Laura Stack of theProductivityPro.com. And if you didn't know already,

[00:06:32] we actually have not just this show, but a whole bunch of shows covering a wide range of topics. There's Optimal Living Daily, which covers productivity and also minimalism, personal development and happiness. And that's where you can actually find a lot more content from the ProductivityPro.

[00:06:47] We've also got Optimal Finance Daily, where we read articles from personal finance authors talking about saving more, earning more, and investing. There's also Optimal Health Daily and more. So to find all of our shows, just search for Optimal Living Daily wherever you're hearing me right now

[00:07:02] and then be sure to follow or subscribe. But that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this two-parter from Laura and that you're having a great day out there. And I will be back again with you, of course, tomorrow for the Thursday show.

[00:07:13] So I'll see you there where your optimal life awaits.