“In General, looking forward is management and looking backward is micro-management”
Organizations of all types require competent management to run smoothly and optimize the potential for profit and growth. Off course, management skills decide the success/failure of projects. That is the reason all best practices related to management have been suggested by PMI. Let’s talk about micro-management, and how this impacts the projects and organization. When this could be adopted or when this should be discouraged.
It’s a management style wherein a manager attempts to supervise or monitor every little detail in a team or the workplace. Micromanagement is the ultimate controlling management style. It looks good in theory that the manager should keep eye on all the tasks, but in reality, this is terrible for projects. Micro-management is a sheer waste of time for managers. In some cases, this is absolute nonsense. I can remember when I started my career I have seen such an environment where so-called managers, assign tasks and ask for updates every 10-20 minutes, keep chasing you at lunchtime, or tea. This is nothing but insulting workers and losing respect for managers.
“The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants to be done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”
A micromanager shows little confidence in their team members to allow them to work things their way. Of course, in some instances, it proves to be imperative and drives greater efficiency, but the faith between manager and resource always be compromised. It’s demoralizing, as the desire for control to make sure everything goes to plan only creates more problems in the long term. It also shows the ego of the manager that he keeps directing their subordinates and pushing for my way or highway. Its impacts individual morale and individual creativity. As a human no one wants that any boss always stands on the head and gives directions for minute tasks. This can count as overmanagement and scrutinization. Especially, in the competitive market where skills and creativity are highly essential. One might even hazard to say that tolerating micromanagement can run the risk of the company eventually failing due to high staff turnovers, lack of talent retention, poor productivity, poor creativity, and the like. Few other issues could be
- People could be more worried about results and add more unnecessary buttering to their boss.
- People distrust their management and have negative thoughts toward the organization
- Discourages creativity and critical thinking.
- Discourages innovation and transformations within the organization.
- People can make enemies of each other. A blame game could be started within the team.
- Micromanagement usually focuses on only measuring a specific aspect of one’s work and ignores other equally important aspects.
- It Impacts individual productivity.
We are living in an era where technologies are rapidly changing. Most of the MNCs are running short of the techno-functional resource. These resources keep upgrading themselves as per technology changes. Most IT-related companies or businesses need a creative mind who can think out of box ideas. It is important to give free hands to their keys resource to execute the task. Rather than adopting micro-management, one should give regular constructive feedback. Plan for training for resource’s weak areas. This will help resource to understand their improvement areas and constantly work for improvement. Motivation and inspiration play a vital role in everyone’s growth and criticism will have the worst effects on the team. Share genuine feedback with the right intentions. This will improve the team environment and improve productivity drastically.
Does micro-management is really bad and should not be adopted in practice?
Absolutely not. Mind you, in some cases, every manager has to adopt it. We should embrace it for short time and only for new resources who just joined or fresher who do not have any idea of industry and customer management. Managers should not leave resources rather someone should be assigned to keep track of the fresher performance and guide them every single step. But this should be the refrain for a longer period. This could be adopted to enable the resources and once managers feel confident then they give proper space and liberty to them to think independently and perform at their convenience.
