I've seen a number of posts recently saying that micromanagement isn't as bad as we might think it is. Instead, micromanagement might actually help the person who's the subject of that micromanagement.
Sorry, no. Well, not sorry at all. Still No. Heck, NO. NO to all micromanagement.
If any manager has micromanaged you, you know exactly how you felt. I bet you felt undervalued and disgusted with your manager.
However, the manager was doing the best job they knew how. And often, that manager realized you needed more information. Maybe you asked your manager for coaching, specific information, or support. But adults rarely need micromanagement. (I'm trying to think of a time when they do, and I'm pulling a blank.)
Instead of thinking that people need micromanagement, let's reconsider the roles managers can play. In my experience, effective managers act a lot more like effective consultants when they choose which role to use at the time. Which role fits this situation?
Choose a Role That Fits Your Situation
You might have heard of situational leadership. That's useful, but not enough for me. Instead, managers are supposed to coach people. However, too many coaches do not choose which of these possible roles to use at any given time. And given the plethora of “agile” coaches, too many managers have relinquished their coaching roles to these (supposed) agilists. That serves no one in the organization. (I feel another blog post coming on.)
Instead, consider the image with this post that I offer in Successful Independent Consulting. The red line in the middle of the grid shows one big idea: everything above the red line tends to be much more facilitative. The facilitative nature of the relationship tends to avoid micromanagement. (Not a guarantee, just a tendency.)
However, everything below the line tends toward micromanagement. Again, not a guarantee, but a tendency. Think about modeling the work for a person. Or, being a technical advisor where the other person watches the manager. Worse, when the manager does it and then tries to brain dump all the information.
Instead of micromanagement, managers can and should coach in many forms. There are at least six other potential coaching stances.
The more managers can assess what the team or team member needs, the more the manager can respond effectively. And avoid falling into the myth that managers must solve the team's problem for them.
What if it's most efficient to do the work for a person or a team? That's a false economy. All you need to do is look at the Cost of Delay every time you, as a manager, have to sacrifice your management time for your technical work time.
Costs of Management Delays
I wrote Why Minimize Management Decision Time because I'd seen the problems well-meaning managers created because they needed “all” the data to decide on the project portfolio. First, that's impossible. Second, the data changes every day. So if you're not starting the project tomorrow, the data you have today is useless when you decide.
However, these well-meaning managers wanted to make great decisions. I totally understand.
It's the same thing when managers continue to choose to work “in” the work as a technical contributor, rather than “on” the system, as a manager. I used to think this was mostly a first-line manager problem, but it's not. The more any manager works “in” the work as a technical contributor (at any level), the more they micromanage.
Worse, micromanagement tends to start at the top and percolate down through the organization. Yes, when the C-suite does the job of the VPs, the VPs then do the Director jobs. The micromanagement continues to flow with the Directors doing the managers' jobs, and the managers doing technical leads.
What happens? No one is doing the strategic thinking to guide the overall organization. What happens when a developer or tester (or, if you're lucky) a team has to choose between two products? The people with the least organizational knowledge make strategy decisions. They choose what to do because the senior leaders are micromanaging.
Think about that for a minute. Because of micromanagement and insufficient delegation, the people doing the work decide what's most important. That's why micromanagement is so inefficient and so ineffective. Reducing management delays and increasing management throughput allows everyone to be efficient and effective.
Throughput Creates Efficiency and Effectiveness
Higher throughput is much more efficient for the organization than higher individual efficiency. (See Throughput: Why Salary Costs Matter Less Than You Think They Do and Flow Metrics and Why They Matter for Teams and Managers for the details.) Individual efficiency is a red herring.
That's why it's worth thinking about your management role when it comes to leading a team. The team and the individuals might each need something different. That's why your role matters. But I don't see any situation where people need micromanagement. Never.
The more you support and lead people to increase their knowledge, the more effective and efficient you are.
Want to read more? Start with Practical Ways to Manage Yourself to reduce delegation. Then read the rest of the Modern Management Made Easy books to create a collaborative, team-based culture that starts with management cohorts who focus on achieving overarching goals.