By Steve Adubato, PhD
Q: I really need your advice. I am a manager for a major retailer. Every day we are constantly spending and wasting time faxing or e-mailing everything we do to our district manager. Now our regional vice president is giving us everything we have to do on a daily basis and to make sure we are doing it, notes are being faxed to our district office. I love my job, but lately this management and leadership style is driving me nuts and making me feel very inadequate.
My question is very simple. Does this fall under micromanaging? Because it feels like it to me.
A: Dear Under the Microscope,
We all feel your pain. What you describe sounds like a workplace that isn't particularly fun and borders on unhealthy. The question is, why is your district manager and regional vice president checking everyone's work at every stop along the way? There is a good chance they see what they are doing as just focusing on the details and demonstrating how much they care about customer service.
What we have here is a problem of perception. Both of your managers need to understand what impact their management style is having on those that report to them. They need to understand that all this unnecessary faxing and e-mailing as well as the checking and re-checking is having a negative impact not just on morale but on productivity.
My suggestion is that you take the leadership role and recommend to your colleagues in the workplace that you get together with both bosses and talk to them. Open up the dialogue. Yeah, I know. Some of your colleagues are going to say that it is too risky and they do not want to sound like they are complaining. But that is not what you are doing. You are trying to address a problem before it gets any worse--before it starts effecting the bottom line and before people start getting laid off.
However, in the meeting make sure your tone is positive and constructive as opposed to whiney and negative. In addition to describing how you see the problem, make sure you are prepared to offer concrete recommendations as to how to improve things. Finally, try to move the group toward some resolution and then put out an e-mail or fax that confirms those details.
Q: In a recent column you wrote about how to keep a conversation flowing. I know that I have been guilty in the past of asking too many closed-ended questions and now I try not to do that anymore. Yet, I'm still challenged. I'm a 37 year old single male and would like to know if you could recommend any books about communicating more effectively with the opposite sex.
A: First, you are not alone. Fact is, most men have a hard time communicating with women and vice versa. Some books that might help you and the rest of us who struggle in this area include Dr. Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand." Dr. Tannen has dedicated her entire professional life to understanding gender communication. The other book I really like is Dr. Richard Carlson's "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Men," which focuses in part on how men can more effectively communicate with women. In fact, Carlson's "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" series of books is first rate.
Finally, my advice when communicating with women is to work harder at listening as opposed to trying to fix, solve or impress. Many women complain that most men are terrible listeners who just want to talk about themselves and get to the "bottom line." Relax and be yourself.