Never manage people who don’t need to be managed

I often see posts on Reddit that follow a similar path:

• An employee works hard at their company.
• They find new ways to do their job more efficiently.
• Management decides to tighten down on exactly how they should do their job.
• Things therefore become less efficient, they lose clients, and the employee quits.

While I certainly appreciate that processes exist for a reason and there are times to square things back up, when people are working hard to get things done it’s often best to stay out of their way. Ideally, employees should be lead, not managed.

In the case of GreenMellen, I don’t feel the need to “manage” anyone there (and if anyone from our team is reading this, I hope you agree and you’ll tell me if you don’t). Really, it comes back to a matter of trust. If I trust the people that work for us, it makes life better all the way around. We set parameters on what work needs to be done, values around how we work, and let the team decide how best to do it and when to work on it.

There’s certainly a need for people to be managed in many circumstances, but don’t try to manage those that don’t need to be managed in the first place.