Submitted by aylim14 on
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How do you think i should have approached this situation? and how / what should i say when the topic comes up again in the future?
Here's the background:
Just had lunch with my boss, the Managing Director of the company. I can say our relationship is great. Reason for that is we have spontaneous talks about anything and not just about work (i.e. iPhones, laptop, technology, productivity systems, her dog, and even my brother's wedding).
Company is about to do a "major move" where a different segment / division of the company is moving away physically from the main office. So we were discussing some potential problems / issues / concerns.
Then the topic about "how to get the team more focused on results" came up. So, being a Manager Tools manager, i quickly blurted out measuring the activities. For starters, the deadlines itself. I wasn't able to do the "deadlines drive behaviour and behaviour is what we're paid for" speech that Mark usually say. But that's the first thing that came to mind.
See, the company is actually owned by her dad (who acts like the chief board advisor). Since the company is family-owned, metrics are still being made (another story). Cutting the long story short, we ended up with me saying a bunch of stuff about measuring deadlines on a daily and weekly basis, giving feedback for reports submitted on time on for being late, etc. Then I said something about tasks due dates as the longest time of a week and that the main reason is people's natural behaviour is to put things in the back burner if it's longer than that (which i totally believe in). Then somewhere in that mix is "when i give out a task, i make sure to stress the point that that task is not completed until it's not reported back to me."
Then her reply was, "see, that's the difference between you and me & my dad...i'm not a micro-manager." Then a little bit something about "i don't want to go around (bugging) people about their work" (forgot if bugging was the word used).
More details: I'm a high C, high D. She's a high I, high S.
I replied that that's not micromanaging but simply holding other people accountable for what they said they would do. Afterwards, while we were walking back to the office, she got quite and not that in the mood to talk anymore, even about other small stuff. So that got me thinking of asking help from other managers here if ever you guys had that conversation before.
How do you think i should have approached it or should have replied in that situation? Or moving forward, if the topic comes out again, how or what should i be saying or at least trying to impart.