kitchen table math, the sequel: micromanagement

Sunday, January 17, 2010

micromanagement

I've been dipping into literature on management & I love the Corner Office series in the Times. Here is Cristóbal Conde on micromanagement:

Q.
Besides the endless travel of that year [during which Conde ran his company as a top-down, command-and-control organization], was there something else that made you shift styles?

A. Yes, it was a huge disagreement with somebody who worked for me directly, and he ended up quitting shortly thereafter. And it wasn’t that the decision that we disagreed on was so big. It was more that, to him, it just wasn’t as much fun anymore. He felt he could do more, and I was in his way. I was chasing away somebody extremely valuable, and that is when I realized I never would have put up with that myself. If you start micromanaging people, then the very best ones leave.

If the very best people leave, then the people you’ve got left actually require more micromanagement. Eventually, they get chased away, and then you’ve got to invest in a whole apparatus of micromanagement. Pretty soon, you’re running a police state. So micromanagement doesn’t scale because it spirals down, and you end up with below-average employees in terms of motivation and ability.


Here he is on feedback:

Q. What is some of the best feedback you’ve received?

A. A boss once told me: “Cris, you’re a smart guy, but that doesn’t mean that people can absorb a list of 18 things to do. Focus on a handful of things.” Very constructive criticism, and the way I’ve translated that is, when I do reviews, everything is threes.

So, “Look, Charlie, these are the three things that are going well. These are the three things that are not going well.” Now, that’s very important because then people know that everybody’s going to get three positives and three things they should do differently. Then they don’t take it personally. I’ve found that to be an incredibly valuable tool.

Structure? The Flatter, the Better
Corner Office - New York Times
January 16, 2010

I love that.

One thing I've noticed, reading the columns: nearly all of the CEOs interviewed describe dramatically changing their approach to management at some point, often in response to criticism and/or setbacks. They talk about these moments frankly, without defensiveness.

I've come to prize the quality of not being defensive. At this point, I'd probably put it right up there with courage, generosity, clear thinking, and a good sense of humor.

12 comments:

ElizabethB said...

4 year old boys need to be micromanaged!

Luckily, you can ease off a bit each month.

LynnG said...

I'd love to see a CEO evaluate the typical teacher evaluation process at a public school. Like everything else in education, teacher evaluations have embraced rubrics meant to comply with legislation and unions. I don't suspect that teacher evaluations are particularly useful to the teachers being evaluated.

SteveH said...

Micromanagement reminds me of helicopter parents. It all depends. The assumption, however, is that it's bad. You could have the same level of control, but if it's done nicely, then it's not micromanagement?

Tracy W said...

Any advice on managing to not be defensive? It's one I struggle with.

le radical galoisien said...

me too

I think it has something to do with whether your criticiser is out to get you

LynnG said...

It's hard to not get defensive when you know you are trying hard to do a decent job. Any criticism can be seen as a rebuke of your effort. As a manager, you can try to soften the criticism by starting with positives and then pointing out that everyone has areas that can improve.

As the recipient, it helps to distance yourself personally from the criticism and remind yourself that it really isn't about whether or not your boss "likes" you. Still, I always struggled with accepting criticism without getting defensive.

Anonymous said...

Micromanagement might not mean the same thing in every context, but the general idea of micromanagement is that the manager takes away initiative from the worker. In the short run and during unusual emergencies it works, but in the long run it is exhausting and inhibiting.

I am thinking in particular about coaching youth sports. There tends to be way too much micromanaging combined with a lack of real skill development. So you have kids who can't play very well being positioned like puppets by their coaches. I have seen this especially in coach-pitch baseball. Coach-pitch is a good idea since asking first, second or third graders to pitch is essentially asking all batters to stand here for a while and then please walk to first base, thank you. But during the coach pitch years the league often also allows a coach in the outfield. On teams my kids have played on, that adult micromanages the entire defensive effort, so kids are harangued about where to throw the ball and so on. In the meantime during games and practices they are never allowed to make decisions about what to do defensively so they never get the feel for how to get an out. Thus you end up wiht 11 year olds who freeze up when they get the ball, or throw it randomly to first base, since there used to be an easy out there (before the ball went to the outfield and the runner is heading to second). Micromanagement in this sense is irrational. It only solve the very short term anxiety (my kids might make a mistake right now!).

So I guess that means micromanagement is like smoking.

Barry Garelick said...

My favorite feedback during a performance review was "Barry has a hard time dealing with jerks."

I've often used this to deflect criticisms during other performance reviews. If someone talks about an area in which I need to improve I tell myself "Oh, yeah. I didn't do well in that because I have a hard time dealing with jerks."

Keeps me from being defensive. People admire my professional attitude.

Catherine Johnson said...

Any advice on managing to not be defensive? It's one I struggle with.

That is HARD.

I actually do have advice.

At least, this is what (generally) works for me.

First of all, I have a formal rule that states: Don't be defensive.

It's amazing how well simply having the rule works. My immediate reaction to criticism or conflict or whatever is to be defensive, and then the rule instantly sounds inside my mind and I hit pause.

Basically, I count to 10.

Since most of my communication is written, once the rule has sounded, I can simply not write a defensive response or not hit 'send' if I do write a defensive response.

Also, my 'writing rule' is: the reader is always right. I assume that if someone hasn't understood what I've said, that's because I didn't say it clearly. This is always true.

The fact that 'the reader is always right' is so reliably true probably helps me with don't-be-defensive in general. Basically, having someone not 'get' what you're writing is a gift: that person has given you the feedback you need to revise.

(I extend this to content to some degree, too. If a reader thinks what I've written is wrong, I'll try to assume that what I've written actually is wrong, and I'll figure out whether I want to reconsider or decide that this is an agree-to-disagree situation.)

Another thing - and this probably isn't something you can adopt on purpose: I'm somewhat ADHD, which means that even if I **am** defensive in a particular situation, I'll forget about it pretty quickly because I'm on to the next thing or I've gotten interested in whatever the other person is saying, etc.

In other words, it's not uncommon for me to forget that I'm feeling defensive.

Catherine Johnson said...

"Barry has a hard time dealing with jerks."

I LOVE IT!!!

My mom once told me, "You don't suffer fools gladly," and I felt defensive!

My entire reaction was, "HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?? I DO, TOO SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY."

Catherine Johnson said...

Micromanagement might not mean the same thing in every context, but the general idea of micromanagement is that the manager takes away initiative from the worker.

That's a great way of putting it.

I liked the spiral this guy talked about: he was losing his top people via micromanaging & then, having done that, was needing to spend more time micromanaging, not less.

The micromanaging issue has come up quite often in the Corner Office columns. A lot of these folks have, at some point or another, figured out that they needed to trust other people's judgment and initiative, etc.

Barry Garelick said...

The fact that 'the reader is always right' is so reliably true probably helps me with don't-be-defensive in general. Basically, having someone not 'get' what you're writing is a gift: that person has given you the feedback you need to revise.

Good general rule. There are cases, though, where readers are wrong. If the majority of your readers get it, and a small minority doesn't, there may be something else going on. For example, a statement that jumping out of an airplane without a parachute leads to death is pretty clear. If someone disagrees, it's indicative of their defensiveness and not wanting to believe what you say. Extend analogy to statements about students not learning what they haven't been taught.