THEODORE ROOSEVELT ON WHY YOU SHOULD NOT MICRO-MANAGE STAFF
Use this as a reminder to let your staff get on with their job.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was the 26th President of the United States of America. He was also a respected writer and is listed by many as one of the three smartest presidents to occupy the White house (the other two are Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy).
As the driving force behind the Progressive Movement in the Republican Party, he promoted intense social and political change in American society during his presidency. He knew that he could not bring about the changes required alone, and lived by the maxim:
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men [sic] to do what needs to be done and the self-restraint to keep from meddling while they do it.
Theodore Roosevelt
It’s important to recognise that this quotation isn’t about delegation; it’s about granting staff freedom from interference and the discretion they need to do their job well.
WHAT TO DO
- Invest time and energy in appointing the right people, especially to key posts. A key post can be the supervisor’s job on the assembly line or chief accountant. The point is that if you select the wrong person for either job, you’re going to have problems (see Quotation 25).
- Staff at all levels are motivated by interesting work, achievement, recognition and responsibility (see Quotation 45). If you are looking over a person’s shoulder all the time, they will assume that you don’t trust them to do a good job. This will undermine their self-confidence, which will leach into their work, and their performance levels will drop. So resist the temptation to interfere. Instead, establish a culture of trust and support with your staff. To do this:
- Discuss with each person their job. Clarify their responsibilities and clearly define their area of discretion.
- Maintain a genuine open door policy. If a person runs into a problem, encourage them to talk to you, but don’t hold the discussion with one eye on the clock as many managers do. Staff know when they are been given ‘the bum’s rush’ and will think twice about approaching you again.
- Insist on regular reports on targets and objectives. But avoid these becoming a rollicking session and remember public hangings ended in Britain in 1868. The discussion should be about solutions, not recriminations.
- Insist on being told bad news as soon as it arises and don’t shoot the messenger.
- Celebrate publicly people’s successes. This can range from a public acknowledgement of a job well done to a promotion.
- Never blame anyone for an honest mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s what they learn from them that matters. If the error is due to carelessness, negligence or plain old-fashioned stupidity, you should take action to ensure it doesn’t reoccur.
- Flowers grow when you feed and water them, not when you regularly pull them out of the ground and inspect the roots to see how things are going. The same is true of staff. The more freedom of action a person has, the better able they are to deal with challenges that arise.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
- How much do I trust my staff?
- How often does my monitoring of staff work become interference?