Episode 72 - How to Avoid Micromanagement

<h2 data-pm-slice="0 0 []"><strong>Summary</strong></h2> <p class="">In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we explore some practical ways to avoid micromanagement. </p> <p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true"> </p> <h2><strong>Transcript</strong></h2> <p class="">Well hello there and welcome to episode 72 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the curse of micromanagement, and some practical ways to avoid it.</p> <p class="">One of the most ridiculous things I’ve done in my career was fly from my home country of Australia to Zurich Switzerland for a one hour sales pitch to a client - and we didn’t even win the work. Zurich is a lovely city to visit though - I highly recommend it. But one experience on that trip in particular struck me as unusual. The city centre isn’t far from the airport, so I chose to catch the train from the airport to Zurich Main Station. As I wasn’t very proficient in any of the four official languages, I accidentally purchased a child’s ticket. I figured this out part way through the train journey, so was becoming increasingly nervous about what might happen when I tried to exit the train station at the other end. How would I explain why I bought the wrong ticket? The train pulled into the beautiful Zurich Main Station (again, highly recommended - you really should see it). I exited the train onto the platform, made my way to the main concourse, walked a little further, and then found myself outside the station on the street. There were no barriers, no exit gates, no one checking tickets. As a foreigner I found this truly bizarre. What kind of country just trusts people to do the right thing? It seems like the Swiss treat people as adults, even when they buy children’s tickets.</p> <p class="">That’s a long way of introducing the topic of micromanagement. A lack of trust is at the centre of micromanagement. The micromanager would have told me to catch the train, checked I had bought the right ticket,