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No medical practice manager wants to be a micromanager. It usually is difficult, however, to recognize when we are micromanaging employees. This article explains why well-intentioned managers sometimes slip into micromanagement, offering five of the most common reasons. It describes the differences between management and micromanagement, and suggests 10 strategies you can use to rid yourself of the micromanagement habit. It addresses what to do if you suspect that an employee needs micromanagement, and offers 10 signs that you are indeed micromanaging your team. This article also describes 10 of the most challenging problems that are likely to result when an employee feels that he or she is being micromanaged. It provides an seven-step strategy for anyone working in the medical practice who feels that he or she is being micromanaged. Finally, this article provides a quiz to help medical practice managers identify and assess their micromanaging tendencies.
KEY WORDS: Micromanagement; micromanager; supervision; delegate; authority; control; mistakes; turnover.
Micromanagement, like bad breath or poor manners, is easy to recognize when we encounter it in others. However, few of us know when we ourselves have the offending problem, or if we do, the extent of it. As Ashkenas1 says, "Over the past few decades I've worked with hundreds of managers, and many complain that they work for micromanagers. But strangely I don't recall anyone who ever admitted to being one."
Perhaps it's difficult to recognize when we are micromanaging others because no one wants to be a micromanager. If we've ever felt that we ourselves have been micromanaged (and many of us have), we know firsthand that it is no fun. Yet it's all too easy to justify micromanaging because of our employees' shortcomings or because they've made mistakes or let us down before. We can be lulled into thinking that micromanagement is essential for good management. But, of course, it isn't.
Knowing how much supervision to give your team can be difficult. If you give too little, your team can become unproductive, and a host of other problems can develop. But giving too much supervision can end up with what The Omnia Group2 calls "freaked-out, demoralized or invisible employees." So are you micromanaging your medical practice team, at least to some extent, or with...