Discussion on:

Five reasons you need to trust your staff

I became the head of a team for the first time at the age of 60. I told my team that I only wanted two things from them - to carry out the mission and to watch my back. When I gave them mission taskings, they refused to carry out the work and complained to my supervisor (onbe lady did not want to witness product test in the product lab because she was too busy planning her wedding at her desk!). This was a disaster for me.

Sorry that this happened to you, Kathryn. Off-hand, I would say that it doesn't sound as if you had the support of your supervisor. It is hard to lead if you don't have a manager whom you can depend upon to back you up.

Refused to carry out the work you tasked them with doesn't necessarily = untrustworthy...

don't sound like management.
Sounds like something Napoleon would ask for... but leaders always have goons to make sure the grunts follow.
Something not to be overlooked.

Sorry to hear about your experience Kathryn. It sounds like a disaster that could not have been avoided by trusting and empowering staff.

Scott's article however does put forward some valid and theoretically sound reasons for placing trust and responsibility in the hands of the team.

Perhaps the answer is not as straight forward in practice as the article may suggest.

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As a manager, I treated my staff as though they could really do more than they were doing.

Most rose to the challenge and did stellar work.

One was highly resistant and sank my career.

Not replacing, not retasking, not being able to do either and or not being able to cope with said person sank your career....

Thus the importance of the "baseball" approach.

1st strike : You meet the person, tell him the problem at hand, the possible consequences of his behavior for him and the company and your expectations for the futur (regarding said behavior). You may have to offer some coaching or help if the company has some sort of program.

2nd strike : You meet the person again, tell him that the problem is still present despite the help that is being offered. Bottom line : Shape up or ship out!

3rd strike : You tried and tried, but nothing happened on his part. You have to let him go.

You may already have tried something similar (or better) and :
* have gotten little or no help from upper management
* have gotten labor union problems for it
* misc. road blocks... you get the point.

I like to think that if I had been in your spot, I would have tried to help that person (as you probably did), but not at the expense of my reputation.

Best of luck!!

..sank your career? That's terrible!

Bear in mind that trusting your staff is just like trusting anyone else in your life. There are those who deserve it and those who dont. For those who dont, they need to be managed. regular chats, action plans and followup through HR will do a few things for you: 1) This will leave the impression with your team that if someone isnt up to snuff, you are willing to work with them to try and correct it, but if they chose not to participate, then perhaps this is not the place for them. 2) provide you with a solid papertrail to be able to act on less than favourable circumstances given continued resistance and 3) help establish you as a point of leadership and ownership in the team environment.
I think the spirit of this message is as follows:
- Trust on its own isnt enough, it's just one of the many components to leading a successful team
- There is one key difference between managing and leading: Inspiration! (Lead from the front)
- Honesty: Part of that trust is informational to. Cut to the chase with them. let them know the good bad and ugly and make decisions you can together
- Integrity: If you make a mistake, be ready to stand up and admit to it. Solicit honest feedback and take the actions you commit to.
- Challenge ideas - dont squash them. its a fine line between feeling like you have been usurped by your staff and feeling as though you have a well oiled machine. be a part of the conversations - trust doesn't involve walking away entirely.

When I read "As a manager, I treated my staff as though they could really do more than they were doing" I immediately thought not only of myself, but also of my numerous co-workers that are here for a minimum of 9 - 10 hours a day, and then work many many hours from home in the evenings and weekends. I could see myself resisting If my Manager treated me like I could really be doing MORE. As a whole, those in the trenches of the technology field work long, odd hours - and we work hard. Go ahead and treat me like that's not enough - like you want my blood, sweat and tears also - and see if I don't "resist."

The author can clarify, but when I read that, it seemed clear that the intent was that "more" was with respect to the quality / complexity of the work, and not simply quantity. (I'm reminded of Dilbert's PHB telling him how to move the mouse.)

Frankly, though, if a manager was to trust people to handle more complex work, and not pester them about every little thing, the lack of interferrence would likely increase their productivity as well.

A quick temporary fix, or permanent prevention, or on a good day both...
So are you adding to quality, if you do it fast or right or cheap or ...
Quality is a perception after all, never more so than in a software product or service.

Not as you did, that the folks weren't putting in enough time, but as being more capable or handling more responsibility or technical depth. I've worked for bosses who operated on this latter idea and it amazed me how well it worked. Not just in myself, but in the other people on the team. Maybe we were just lucky, but that boss grew the best team in the directorate.

Already two people are telling "true stories" about how trusting employees ended or damaged their careers... and yet, the main thrust of the argument is against micromanagement. (I put true stories in scary quotes, because a story may be true and yet - when told in a certain context - be propaganda)
Are these people saying micromanagement would have saved their skins?
In both cases it sounds like actual management would have sufficed.

I mean if it wasn't Staff member X's fault that they failed, it would have to be theirs...

A most unfortunate and career damaging conclusion...

If you are a manager and for whatever reason one of your people fails to the point where it looks like you've failed to manage, well you have...

Even if said person was the world number one in the list of useless c***ts, how did you manage to let it to get the point where you were vying for that position?

give them what they need to be honestly with you and clear as you could your opinion as Hoky Monster.

..........................

While it was tangentially touched on as part of "getting more done," one of the problems I have had with micromanagement in the past is where a manager is so focussed in on nit-picking a minor situation, that they blind themselves to larger issues and loose sight of the project's goals.

Sure, you might get an overly-optimized solution to one small aspect of the project, but likely at the cost of integrating poorly (time or feature-wise) with the rest of the project. Not to mention all sorts of other details the manager has let slip / fester / compound in the mean time.