Page 29 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com
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10 DON’T MICROMANAGE
Franklin is often misunderstood on this point since he is adamant that
you should do your own work and not rely on others to do it for you.
There is one key proviso he adds to that, namely that ‘the eye of a
master will do more work than both his hands’…
DEFINING IDEA…
Micromanaging is ridiculous. There’s always a certain amount of
dynamic tension, which is good because it stimulates creative
thinking. But what we want to look for is a balance where each body
or group of people is fulfilling their role.
~ KARIN UHLICH, POLITICIAN
Now, this is a particular problem for those who have started their own
businesses or who have come up through the ranks of a business, getting
their hands suitably dirty on the way. It’s an old truism of many industries
that the way they reward good workers is to promote them away from what
they did well in the first place, thereby leaving that work to be done by
less able colleagues instead. What’s often forgotten is that there is a flip
side to that truism, which is that the more able workers are often reluctant
to let go of their hands-on skill and are resistant to the new role that they
have to play. Translating hands-on experience into the ability to train,
manage or assess the work of others is not necessarily the smooth transition
we all have the tendency to assume it will be.
Micromanaging doesn’t just mean that you try and do everything yourself; it
can also mean that you don’t allow others the free rein to come up with
their own solutions or style. Which doesn’t mean that you know best—just
that you’re not listening. If you’re tempted to describe your workers as
blockheads it could be that you have blockheads working for you (you
wouldn’t be the first, of course) or it could be that your style of
management has so taken the initiative away from your workers that they
see no real incentive for trying to sort out problems for themselves. Like a
bad workman blaming his tools, the hard-core micromanager curses the
