By Starla
October 15, 2019
Minute Read
So much of what I do daily is help clients subtly influence and redirect the undesirable behavior of others. Here's a perfect example of what that often looks like…
Patty makes every issue a top-priority and treats it with the same sense of overwhelming urgency. Everything is important which means Patty's priorities for Kayla and her team change daily making it difficult for them to focus and deliver on what they've promised.
Even worse, when their previous priorities suddenly become a priority again in Patty's mind, she becomes frustrated and angered when she learns Kayla's team hasn't delivered due to the distractions created by the newer, more recent priorities Patty has presented. This elicits Patty's second undesirable behavior...
Once Patty becomes frustrated and angered, she becomes quite controlling. With intense scrutiny, she constantly questions the work of Kayla and her team, whether warranted or not.
Well, when faced with difficult situations like this, I encourage my clients to stay laser-focused on what's most important while using the following three steps to guide their thoughts and decision making.
As a result of doing this, Kayla and I developed template responses she can use to mitigate Patty's micromanaging and better navigate the daily onslaught of new priorities. Here's how we did it...
I'm not suggesting that you agree with or accept the behavior but rather, have compassion for the other person and what might be going on in his or her world that is eliciting this behavior.
As she reflected on and explored this situation, Kayla identified several important pieces of information that needed to be factored into her analysis of this situation. Three of the most important were:
This led Kayla to wonder if perhaps Patty was under intense scrutiny from the organization's Executive Leadership, and perhaps she was feeling a sense of overwhelming urgency to remedy the situation. Could this be the root cause of her untrusting and autocratic behavior?
This is important because what it tells us is that when Patty is faced with conflict and presented with her biggest fears - getting things wrong and failing - she is likely to become autocratic and demanding. This insight further reinforced our suspicion that Patty's behavior and interactions with her team were driven by her fear of not meeting her leadership's expectations.
Kayla would like for Patty to stop:
For Patty:
Kayla wants a trusting relationship with Patty where they engage in ongoing, open, and relaxed dialogue that results in:
A cohesive team of individuals working together to achieve the organization's short-term initiatives and long-term vision.
To more effectively navigate Patty's micromanaging, we strategically crafted a 3-PART TEMPLATE APPROACH FOR RESPONDING when Patty inquires about or second-guesses the team's work.
Yeah, I know...this seems rather simple and unimpressive. But trust me, there is subtly behind it that will help mitigate the micromanaging so keep reading!
She needs to know you are listening, paying attention to what she has to say, and caring about the same things she cares about.
If you ignore her, take too long to acknowledge the inquiry, or show visible frustration and irritation, it will only add to her anxiety and exacerbate her undesirable behavior.
To reduce her anxiety and provide her with a greater sense of control, demonstrate why she should have confidence in you and your team. Don't tell her, show her.
With a neutral-to-positive tone, succinctly and directly respond to her inquiry. Give her what she needs to know - the WHAT, WHY, WHEN & HOW - in three key sections...
This is a very subtle way of saying, "Relax. We got this. Now get off our backs."
(Of course, I'm assuming you do have it under control. If not, and her concerns are warranted, well then that's an entirely different conversation we need to have.)
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, this will demonstrate that you view her as a strategic thought-partner and value the relationship.
Assuming she has expertise and guidance to offer and making it easy for her to do so, will strengthen her trust in you.
We strategically crafted a template approach for better managing the daily onslaught of new priorities that seem never-ending.
This needed to be a bit more nuanced given the variety of situations that can be presented so we decided to use the Four Ds of Time Management to create some structure for it.
As Patty introduces new projects and tasks, Kayla will decide which of the Four Ds of Time Management (Do Now, Decide When, Delegate, or Dump) will guide her decision making as to how she responds.
(These template approaches can be used for all projects and tasks no matter their size.)
Acknowledge the new priority and engage in a quick discussion to better understand from her perspective why this may be important.
If you are convinced this would be ineffective use of your team's resources, push back and explain your hesitation. When you are thoughtful and intentional with when and how you do this, others will come to realize that when you push back they should pay attention because you don't do it often.
Give this a try and shoot me a message on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn to let me know how it goes.
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