Mission Accomplished
Micro-Manage Your Success
Six long (very long) years have gone by since President Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced, (and I quote verbatim), “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”
3,924 members of the U.S. military have died since that staement. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since that declaration and millions have been displaced from their homes. And there are currently more U.S. troops in Iraq than there were when the U.S. invaded with a contingent of other coalition forces.
This Blog post is not about politics or the war in Iraq; that’s just a great example of a self serving, pre-mature declaration of success. This message is about getting a job done, and done right. We would all like to declare victory early. Managers often times think they have achieved a mission as soon as they have delegated it to someone to do. When delegating a task, the arm of responsibility remains connected to the delegator. YOUR JOB is not done until THE JOB is done.
When you ask someone to do something, you need to check and see if it was done, on time and right! You cannot “ass/u/me” you did the job when you delegated it.
Some may call this “micro-management”; I consider that an over used term for “management”. Another well used expression is “You must inspect what you expect”. Not doing so can lead to failure and embarrasment.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 am
Excellent points! Follow-up also validates to the work force that you meant what was said, that an eye is being kept on the situation or tasks, and that results are expected; further help is there; feedback runs both ways.