How we avoid micromanagement: I keep you supplied with context and cover. You keep me supplied with intent and evidence. If both halves hold, neither of us ever needs a status meeting.
My half
What you can expect from me
- Context You'll always know where the business is going, what matters this quarter, and the why behind any work I hand you. If you don't have the context to make a call, that's my failure before it's yours. Ask.
- A written definition of good For every piece of work, we agree up front what done looks like, in writing. You should be able to check your own performance without me in the room.
- Guard rails You'll know which decisions are yours to make, which need an "I intend to…" first, and which are mine. You'll also know what can never be broken: customer data, irreversible spend, regulatory lines.
- An unblocked path Access, tooling, environments, and answers. Blockers you escalate to me get a response the same day.
- Cover A defensible call, made in good faith, inside your guard rails, that turns out badly is my problem to absorb, not yours to wear. We distinguish an honest miss from negligence, and negligence from concealing a mistake; only the last two get you in trouble.
- Feedback that lands I'll tell you when you've done something right, specifically and soon. When I challenge the work, it's coaching on something you showed me, not surveillance of something I extracted.
Your half
What I ask from you
Two notes a week, pushed to me before I ask. That's the whole job of "managing up" here.
Intent noteMonday, start of week
- "This week I intend to…"
- One to three outcomes, not a task list. Outcomes ship; tasks accumulate.
- "I'll know it worked because…"
- The validation, named before the work starts: the tests it must pass, the metric it must move, the customer signal it must produce. This is the bet being set up for success. If we can't say how we'd know it worked, we're not ready to build it.
- "I need from you…"
- Anything blocking the intent. Say it Monday, not Thursday.
ShowcaseFriday, every week
- What shipped
- Show the thing running in production, not on a branch. A link beats a slide.
- The bet we made
- One line: what we believed this work would do when we chose it.
- The evidence it paid off
- The validation you named on Monday, now with results: passing tests, the metric moved, the behaviour observed. "I have completed it, and I know it works because it passes these tests."
- What you'd change
- One honest sentence. A bet that missed, reported with evidence, counts as a good showcase.
Between the two notes: push surprises up early. A change of intent, a blocker, a risk you've spotted. I'd rather hear it Tuesday morning than discover it in the showcase.
The mechanism
Why this works
Every question a micromanager would ask — what are you working on, how's it going, is it done, does it work — is answered by these two notes before it occurs to anyone to ask it. Each loop you close in public is evidence you can carry more authority, and the rational level of oversight falls on its own.
Fifty closed loops in a row, and checking up on you starts to feel absurd, because it is.
And it cuts both ways. If you're writing intent notes and showing evidence every week and I'm still hovering, the contract is broken on my side, and I expect you to say so.
The thinking behind this note: Micromanagement Takes Two · Marquet, Turn the Ship Around! · Grove, High Output Management