In this episode, Katie talks with ORSC coach and Agile expert Terrance Turpin about micromanagers as a voice of the system. Many managers who are dealing with cross-functional teams can all too easily fall into the habit of micro-managing. They are now removed from the products that previously led to promotion and are now suddenly expected to focus on the people. They find themselves stuck- still looking to be tactical as opposed to working relationally and systemically with their teams. As coaches, as opposed to trying to ‘fix’ the individual manager, can we look at the systemic structures that lead to micro-managing and consider what’s driving that behavior. Across the episode, Katie and Terrance discuss the biggest challenge for change for functional managers, how coaches can help them to fill the role differently and how to help managers shift from focusing on products to people.
Terrance Turpin has over 20 years of experience in Technology and Software Development and is also a CRR USA staff member. Terrance blends Team coaching – supporting teams in clarifying, aligning & co-creating as a diverse but single entity -and Agility coaching – establishing healthy states of flow across an organization by coaching for alignment in structure, processes, environments, and relationships. Terrance believes that the coaching process is one that generates understanding and alignment for the client, their environments, and those they interact with.
For over 18 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time
We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.
In this episode, Katie talks with ORSC coach and Agile expert Terrance Turpin about micromanagers as a voice of the system. Many managers who are dealing with cross-functional teams can all too easily fall into the habit of micro-managing. They are now removed from the products that previously led to promotion and are now suddenly expected to focus on the people. They find themselves stuck- still looking to be tactical as opposed to working relationally and systemically with their teams. As coaches, as opposed to trying to ‘fix’ the individual manager, can we look at the systemic structures that lead to micro-managing and consider what’s driving that behavior. Across the episode, Katie and Terrance discuss the biggest challenge for change for functional managers, how coaches can help them to fill the role differently and how to help managers shift from focusing on products to people.
Terrance Turpin has over 20 years of experience in Technology and Software Development and is also a CRR USA staff member. Terrance blends Team coaching – supporting teams in clarifying, aligning & co-creating as a diverse but single entity -and Agility coaching – establishing healthy states of flow across an organization by coaching for alignment in structure, processes, environments, and relationships. Terrance believes that the coaching process is one that generates understanding and alignment for the client, their environments, and those they interact with.
For over 18 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time
We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.
Relationship Matters Season 3 Episode 19
Key
KC – Katie Churchman
TT - Terrance Turpin
[Intro 00:00 – 00:06]
KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast, we believe relationship matters from humanity to nature to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and in this episode I’m talking with ORSC Coach and Agile expert Terrance Turpin about Micromanagers as a voice of the system. Many managers who are dealing with cross-functional teams can all too easily fall into the habit of micro-managing. They are now removed from the products that previously led to promotion and are now suddenly expected to focus on the people. They find themselves stuck- still looking to be tactical as opposed to working relationally and systemically with their teams. As coaches, as opposed to trying to ‘fix’ the individual manager, we need to look at the systemic structures that lead to micro-managingand consider what’s driving that behavior. Across the episode we discuss the biggest challenges for change for functional managers, how we as coaches can help them fulfill the role differently and how to help managers to shift from products to people. Terrance Turpin has over 20 years of experience in Technology and Software Development and is also a CRR USA staff member. Terrance blends Team coaching – supporting teams in clarifying, aligning and co-creating as a diverse but single entity -and Agility coaching – establishing healthy states of flow across an organization by coaching for alignment in structure, processes, environments, and relationships. Terrance believes that the coaching process is one that generates understanding and alignment for the client, their environments, and those they interact with. So without further ado I bring you Terrance Turpin.
KC – Welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast Terrance, I’m delighted to have you back on the show.
TT – Thank you, it’s great to be back.
KC – Yeah, and I’m very excited about this title for the topic we’re talking about today – micromanager as a voice of the system.
TT – I love it just cause… every company that I’ve worked at, every time we’ve done an Agile transformation, somebody always brings up the manager and how many times has somebody come to me and said can you help fix my manager? She won’t leave her team alone, she’s always coming in, asking where everything’s at, this is supposed to be a self lead team. And it comes up inevitably almost every transformation.
KC – Yeah, and so considering them as a voice of the system feels very systemic but not easy? It’s obviously a systems viewpoint to hold - everyone is a voice of the system – but it must be quite hard to hold the micromanager as a voice of the system.
TT – Yeah. What I’ve found I’ve had to do is be able to stay a step back from the system, from what’s going on, and just kinda ask the question why are they micromanaging? What’s leading to this behavior? Nobody likes a micromanager. Nobody wants to micromanage and so when I hear that the first question that I’ve started to come to is ok, why are they behaving this way? What’s driving the reactions? I was talking to a manager, a friend of mine, just last week and I go so how is your guys’ transformation going? I got the long pause. I got the ‘how much time do you reallyhave’? And I asked her about, as a manger, how is it working out. She goes it’s ridiculous. She goes they want me to leave the team alone. Want me to just be a personnel manager however my bonus, my evaluation at the end of the year is all still determined on how the team preforms, how the applications work in production, but I can’t have any say in how that works? And so immediately there’s that frustration as a manager that the systems asking me to do two different things, and so the system is sending a mixed message and typically when I have any type of conversation with managers who are being accused of being micromanagers, there’s normally something else going on that’s leading them to react that way.
KC – Mmm. When you said about sort of taking that step back, it made me think that I’m sure many micromanagers are being micromanaged by their boss so it’s sort of systemic in that way, it’s the culture that quite often creates that, that micromanaging. And in regards to your friend I can totally see why she would be that way because her whole evaluation is based around being a manager and it doesn’t feel like sort of taking the step back and being the systems leader gets seen and celebrated in that evaluation protocol.
TT – Exactly, and when their applications stop or has issues in production, one of the first people that gets called up to ask where’s it at is that manager. Particularly as the organizations are transitioning and the leadership’s not knowing how to reach out to the team. Who on the team they need to talk to. And so that manager is stuck right there, ok, how do I respond? The opposite of the micromanager, what I also notice frequently, is the manager that goes completely hands off. So they’re going through the transformation, someone says you need to stay away from the team, it’s a self-organizing team, you need to let them determine how to work, those managers completely disappear and don’t provide any of the insight that they have from their experience. To be able to guide the team whilst still balancing the support that the team needs.
KC – It’s made me, for the first time, really empathize with the micromanager, to use that name to cover all of it because obviously there’s a scale here. But you can see why certain people and certain cultures create those kind of managers because it’s a behavior that’s rewarded often.
TT – It’s rewarded and also if you start digging deeper into the manager you see all sorts of patterns coming up. There’s the why did they initially go into management? I know when I initially went into management my motivation is I wanted to have more influence over the direction that things were taking and I got tired of, again, the decisions being made before they reached the team, and so I wanted to be able to influence those pieces. It wasn’t because I wanted to be a personnel manager and most of your managers, that’s similar reasons why they go into management. They’re looking at it from a career progression, they’re not looking at it from a people perspective. And now when they go through an Agile transformation they’re being asked to be a personnel manager and stay away from the application, and those applications, the technology, is where all their expertise was at, and now they’re being asked to not use what their strengths are, to step away from that. Then you’ll see things, what were their experiences in other situations? For example, do they have teenagers? What happened as they started to give their kids more freedom? Did they go completely off the rails and run wild? Well now that’s what they’re imagining is going to happen with these teams. If you allow them to determine what’s going to happen you’ll just have chaos. If their kids took a hole of that responsibility then that’s what they’re going to believe their teams are going to do, or more likely, how did they behave when they were a teenager? Or when they got their first taste of freedom? That’s what they think their teams are going to do. And that’s always kind of fun to surface.
KC – Yeah, and I guess we do quite often respond to what’s going on through our biases and our experiences so it’s interesting that you bring it back to a family example because we know what we know and if that’s been our experience of leading in the past and now we’ve been thrown into this management/leadership role, maybe we don’t want to give them the power!
TT – That’s the muscle memory that we build up! And back to our memory that’s how we start responding whenever we see that situation, just he reaction, same as if we were being attacked, we just have a muscle memory that will respond and that’s what the mangers are doing based on the environment around them.
KC – So, I’m wondering, what’s the biggest challenge for change for these kinds of managers?
TT – There’s a couple of things. One is the mixed messages that they’re being sent and how to decipher or how to communicate to the organization that they’re receiving different messages. So, going back to that example – you set all of my performance goals based on how well the system performs, the applications, however you’re telling me I need to stay away from them. Being able to raise that, no matter what your level, being able to tell your boss that OK, they’re telling you two different things, which do you want? Also to the teams. Communicating downwards – how much support do you need from me? And how do you want me to be hands on/hand off? And being able to have that conversation with them, particularly if they’ve never empowered their teams before.
KC – Yeah.
TT – The other challenge I see is as the larger organization, when they start the transformations they’re doing the dreaming of how do we want to work in the future, they jump to how do we want to implement this, how should the teams be working? But almost nowhere have I seen them addressed from the beginning. What’s that role for the manager going forward? Giving them some direction of what does this transformation mean for them. How do we get those managers to be aligned with the transformation? So that they’re supporters of it and the needs that they have are being met, so all those concerns that those manager has with we’re going to have self-organized teams, I don’t have my same promotion passed because now I’m just a personnel manager? I don’t manage the technology? They have a lot of fears going into this, a lot of things that they’re dreaming up is going to happen and there’s not that space made for them to come to terms with what’s happening there. How do they want to be with that transformation? And because that space isn’t made for them they start acting it out as they go forward, and so some of that comes back to the transformation and the organization – let’s set up the environment, let’s create a space to help all of our managers go through the edges as we’re doing this. But they tend to just get forgotten, they’re like well you’re a manager, you’re supposed to be more responsible. I saw that recently with the group that was being set up and you had a director level who would derail the meetings. And the big piece of it was, in my opinion, he still had a lot of the edges that he had to work over for himself before he could even have a conversation with the rest of the group. And until that space was being made he was disruptive. He was kind of antagonizing the environment and so he had to create that space just to come to terms with how do I want to be with this change? How do I want to support it? Or do I just need to support something else because I can’t get behind this?
KC – You’ve really helped me to understand the land of the micromanager because I guess until this point I’ve not really stepped into their shoes. And they’re in a system that’s been rewarding, historically, their transactions and now they’re being told to be relational and yet the system might not necessarily support that, it might be more of a surface level thing, you’re now in this new management role but we’re still going to reward people for getting things done and you can see why they’re apprehensive to really honor and earn that role.
TT – We want it to be the way, that idealistic version, however we still want you to deliver everything that you’ve already done.
KC – Yeah, I can see why they feel pulled because I’m sure in many ways it does feel quite empowering to be a leader, a manager of people. But if you’re not fully given the space to do that, or a system that supports that, then how can you really step into those shoes?
TT – Right. And a lot of times it takes a different personality to be that personnel manager and really support the growth of the teams versus that technical manager who knew the applications, knew the systems, was that expert, in whatever domain they’re in. Software or not.
KC – I’m wondering, with regards to these micromanagers it feels like a bit of a harsh term and I’m glad that we’re creating empathy for this space. But if someone shows up in this way to, say, a coaching session, how can we help them to fill this role differently? This role of manager.
TT – So, depending on who I have in the room and who the conversations are with, I’ll have the teams have the discussion and it’s tough for them to have but what do they need from their manager? What does the manager need from the teams for them to feel comfortable? I think on the last podcast I mentioned something, I’ve done this exercise with 13 year olds, with their Scout leaders. It’s almost the exact same conversation of as a team member, what support do you need from your managers, what do you need to see from the team? And so some of this is just creating a designed manager alignment between the team, between their managers, of how do they balance that. If I’m working with just the manager I’ll do some work around the edge theory. So really naming what are those concerns that they have, moving forward, so that they can recognize what’s there as well as some ghost work for them to understand that I’m driving this way. Even if my goals have changed because I got scolded in previous reviews becauseI was too hands off, and so now I’m making sure that’s not the case, so I’m reacting based on this previous ghost. Or, going back to the teenager example, because my kid or I, myself, was a wild kid when I got the freedom, and then if teens want to go chaotic, just so they can name it and then they can determine how do they really want to react with that and be more conscious.
KC – I can see now why you say you step back initially because you really start to see the wider systems in play, not just in terms of the company culture but as you say, they’re the family the system and there’s those past experiences that are impacting this behavior.
TT – There’s particularly, as I’ve more intuitively gained an appreciation for the wider system, all the things that are coming at us that are shifting how we see things, when I have the conversations, particularly when I have others bringing up that conversation of get my manager off my back, you know. And they start normally giving some bad names for their manager, doing this or that because they don’t leave us alone, or someone else is saying if I’m hearing it from them I can step back easily. If I am being micromanaged it can be tough because you’re in that moment that you’re seeing it so you’re reacting and unless I have the consciousness to notice myself getting tense, noticing the irritation, having that awareness, being like ok – there’s something else going on here, the shift so that it’s not about me and them and what else is going on here? That’s tough to do in the moment.
KC – Yeah, and I’m wondering, building off that, how can we help, say we’re working one on one with manager, how can we help them shift from products to people and still feel like they’re adding value because particularly in these big corporate structures, as we were saying before, there might be a surface level sense of relational over transactional but really still those bonuses are driven by the doing side of the work.
TT – Right. Some of it’s open to think how can they multiple their value? So an example probably about a decade ago. I was managing a team but I was also responsible for leading a pilot of bringing agile into the organization and they were doing great, and at one point I’m sitting at my desk going if anybody notices what I’m doing or what I’m not doing they’re going to realize they don’t need me. This team’s being self-organized, they’re doing all the day to day stuff themselves, and I sat there for several weeks at my desk just kind of looking over my shoulder, going I hope nobody notices this and I was frozen. Wasn’t sure what I should be doing, how I should be helping the team, and I’m the guy that’s helping to lead the pilot and the team’s doing what they need to be doing but I was still very confused there. And once I started looking at what is the team not doing that’s three steps ahead? How can I start laying the ground work for them so that whatever we needed to be doing I could bring that information down to them and give them the options of which paths do we want to take. So they still had that operational control that was helping to pave the way because they were doing the day to day work. What did we need to be doing tomorrow? What did we need to be doing in a couple of weeks? Working with managers to help see how they can get ahead of the team and supporting them that way, it’s a shift that for many at the manager level is difficult because they’re used to working and managing the day to day operations and now you’re asking them to think a little more strategic, being two, three steps ahead and they haven’t been trained in that, they haven’t had to do that previously so that’s a big shift into a new primary for them.
KC – Yeah. I wanna highlight the photo you’ve got on the wall behind you. It’s on the moon, isn’t it, looking at the earth.
TT – Yeah, the Earth Rising photo from Apollo 8.
KC – Yeah, that really speaks to what you’re talking about because it’s a shift in perspective!
TT – It is, and it’s something I’m actually excited about with all the private space launches going up recently, to take tourists, even if it’s just wealthy tourists, to go to space. Frank White has a book on the overview effect and what they talk about is the psychological shift that astronauts have. So, when you look at the astronauts that went to the moon and they saw the earth no bigger than their thumb, what that did to them cognitively, you have your astronauts that go to the space station that’s 250 miles out, they stay there for two months, what’s the effects it has on them when they see earth? When they see the storm systems moving across? And how it changes them. There’s a quote by Michael Collins paraphrased from his book where he talks about, he goes “the sun rises in the east, sets in the west – right? Baloney, the sun doesn’t move.” And he mentions by him going have gone around the moon, he goes he was very actively aware that the sun doesn’t move, if he was driving and he saw the sun in his eyes he wouldn’t say I wish the sun would set a little bit faster, he’d go I wish the earth would rotate a little bit quicker. And by having that wider system view, you know, he thought differently about how did the earth work. How did the rest of the systems, and so what I always think about like with our managers, if we could zoom out further and look at that system in motion, how would that change how we see things operate? So now instead of seeing them be a micromanager we can see these other forces that are pushing them into the team, pushing their behavior to irritate the team which causes disruption on the team, causes turnover, because something outside was pushing on them.
KC – Yeah, and I guess we want to empower them to hopefully step back to the moon, as in your picture, and not be in the team always so that they can see that bigger picture, that wider view, three days, three steps ahead. So they’re not just in the doing of the team.
TT – Yeah. And you know, if it’s not going out to the moon it’s going out to the space station.
KC – Exactly, that’s more doable I think. Yeah, it’s such a powerful image and I think it’s really useful when you think about these managers, when they’re in it it’s very hard to see that wider perspective, that wider view that’s going to help the team as a whole. And when you mentioned your example it felt like a middle path between micromanaging and hands off and I’m wondering would you call that a systems inspired leadership, that space in between?
TT – Yeah, I mean, I definitely was not thinking that at the time. It was just how to support the team and how to balance that. Because really that’s what it was doing. It was looking at it from a greater system and helping it’s evolution instead of just helping it work the way it is today, helping with its evolution as it’s moving forward, as it’s improving how it operates.
KC – So what’s your hope, Terrance, for the future of management?
TT – I think it’s more for the systems around it, the people, their leadership, their teams, to be more cognitive of the behaviors that any of us have when we’re working with an organization. It’s not just how we’re behaving and how we’re showing up every day, but it’s how the rest of the organization is pushing us. It’s… I have a 7am meeting and I know how that meeting goes is going to settle on my attitude for the rest of the day. To the points where several times I’m like can we move this meeting till later in the day? Because there’s too many points in there that may trigger me, you know, so how do we set up our systems to support the manager? How do we set up the support we give them instead of just overlooking them? Particularly when they’re one of our most critical roles in organizations. Even if we have self-lead teams.
KC – Mmm. I think that really loops back to the title for today, the micromanager as a voice of the system, and it’s made me empathetic for that person, that role, and there’s a real sense of that 2% truth, sort of, what’s the use in what they’re doing and saying? And also as opposed to think of it as who’s doing what to whom, what’s trying to happen here in that bigger, wider system?
TT – Yes.
KC - Well thank you Terrance, this was hugely helpful and I’m really going away to think about those, I want to say those micromanagers loosely in my life, but I really have a sense of empathy about their experiences, what they come with but also the system there that perhaps isn’t supporting them to be a different way and stepping back to the moon.
TT – And once you’ve started thinking that way, every time you start hearing micromanager, at least for myself I’m starting to think huh, what else is going on here and allowing the curiosity to take over.
KC – Yeah, what’s going on here and what is that person coming with today because we all have our other systems going on, we don’t come to work in a vacuum, we come with all those other things and I think we have a sense that we sort of shut all that off when we join a work call or we go to the office but it’s just not the case!
TT – Right. Right.
KC – Well thank you so much for today Terrance, this was brilliant, very useful.
TT – Enjoyed being with you today.
KC – Take care.
TT – Great, thanks.
[Music outro begins 22:28]
KC – Thanks to Terrance for that thought provoking discussion around micromanagers as a voice for the system. My key takeaways are as follows. When we come across someone who is micromanaging it can be helpful to step back and look for the bigger picture – why are they behaving this way? What’s driving their reactions? No one likes a micromanager and no one actively choses to be a micromanager. There’s normally something else going on in the wider system that is leading them to react that way. Many managers are told to be personnel managers and yet their bonus and personal evaluation is still determined by how their team performs and how the applications work in production. This can be frustrating for managers as the system is asking them to do two different things, the system is sending them mixed messages. The opposite of a micromanager is a manager who is completely hands off. A manager who believes that the team is self-organizing and completely disappears. Quite often, these hands off managers fail their teams as they don’t provide any insight that they have from their experience to guide the team. A lot of managers go into management from a career progression perspective as opposed to a people perspective. When they go through an agile transformation they’re being asked to be a personnel manager and to step away from the application. The applications of the technology is where all their expertise was at, now they’re being asked not to use their strengths and create value for the company in a very different and new way. Great managers hold the bigger pictures for their teams. This can be difficult for many managers, particularly those newer to the role as they are used to dealing with the day to day operations yet now they’re being asked to think strategically and think a few steps ahead. To find out more about Terrance’s work do check out CRRGlobal.com. For over 18 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. We believe Relationship Matters from humanity to nature to the larger whole.
[Outro 25:00 - end]