Most micromanagers are blind to being seen as one
The diary of a micromanager... Yes, me.
"Anton, we need to talk. I don’t know how to say it nicely, but please stop micromanaging us, it drives me crazy!"
Me?? A micromanager?? I just want to help!
Judge yourself:
On a random Tuesday, everyone works from home, and all communication is in Slack.
12:00
Anton: "How is it going with the task? Anything I can help with?”
Bob: "No, thanks, I have some good progress."
15:30
Anton: "What's up Bob? Any progress? I'm available if you need me."
Bob: "I'm doing fine... I'll finish by the daily tomorrow, as I told you."
2 days later
13:00
A Pagerduty alert is triggered.
Bob in a thread: "I'm on it."
13:15
Anton: "Great, thanks. I've checked it too, seems like the problem is in repo Y, file X, line 235, let me know if you need any help fixing it."
Bob: “Anton, we need to talk...”
[The opening sentence of the newsletter is not real, the other examples are real ones…']
Even if it's from a good place - it's still micromanagement
The 2 examples you saw above are the most common manifestations of micromanagement:
Demanding frequent updates
doing the work for the people
Micromanaging is not only a fault of bad managers - a good manager might also be one.
I still feel that my offer to help is genuine - I wanted it to be easier for others to do their work. The critical part to understand is that your intention doesn’t really matter. The road to hell is paved with good intentions...
It took a while for that lesson to sink in.
I was used to working with juniors fresh from college, which requires much more attention. Everything is a first for them (Docker, microservices, Jenkins, merge conflicts, and so on), so being involved and helpful can really make a difference.
It is still tough for me to make the switch to managing seniors (and in the last month, team leaders), who are only annoyed by the interruptions.
So how to deal with it?
Step 0 - set expectations
Especially when working remotely, you should clarify how you like the communication to happen.
With good senior developers, you shouldn't bother them at all - they'll talk to you when they need you.
If there is some urgent task where you need to keep other teams/people constantly updated - explain why it is so, and ask your team member for those updates. Don't assume they'll just understand why you are bothering them so much.
If you are like me, and find those controlling instincts very hard to fight - share your struggles with the team. Tell them you know it’s annoying, and you are trying to work on it. Ask them for patience, and to let you know when they feel you are over the line.
A simple way to ease your mind is to request short (1-2 sentences) written updates at the end of the day. This is very easy for people to do, and can help you get a piece of mind.
Step 1 - adjust to your employees
This is the most commonly suggested remedy for micromanaging.
Talk to your people, and ask how they like to communicate, and what support they need from you. Imagine that Bob in the example above was a shy intern, who was afraid to ask for help.
In that case, a question such as "Doing alright? Anything I can help with?" might be received gratefully, and won't be annoying.
Step 2 - adjust to the TASK - task-relevant maturity
Most managers stop at step 1, and arrive at something like:
If it’s a junior - it’s ok to micromanage them
If it’s a senior - I should leave them alone
This is better than micromanaging everyone, but still an AWFUL approach. If that junior is creating their 5th microservice, do they still need you? If that senior is working on a completely new area for them, in a very time-critical and sensitive project, can you just leave them alone?
In High Output Management, Andy Grove coined the ‘Task-Relevant Maturity’ concept.
In his words: task-relevant maturity is the combination of the degree of their achievement and readiness to take responsibility, as well as their education, training, and experience in that area.
Here is a great table that summarizes the concept:
A critical aspect of this concept, is that if the TRM is low - we can’t just let go and let people make mistakes:
…An associate of mine who had always done an outstanding job hired a junior person to handle some old tasks, while he took on some new ones.
The subordinate did poor work. My associate’s reaction: “He has to make his own mistakes. That’s how he learns!”
The problem with this is that the subordinate’s tuition is paid by his customers. And that is absolutely wrong. The responsibility for teaching the subordinate must be assumed by his supervisor, and not paid for by the customers of his organization, internal or external.
Final Words
Don’t throw the baby with the bathwater. Micromanagement is NOT a curse. If you draw the line too far, and are not engaged in the day-to-day - you’ll hurt the team, the company, and your customers.
wrote a great article about it, with some personal examples.See you next week!
What I enjoyed reading this week
Humor for Growth: The Strategy You’re Missing in Product Growth, a collaboration with
.The startups that will save humanity in Not Boring by Packy McCormick. This is my favorite newsletter for news - the video about Terraform (not the HashiCorp one) was one of the most inspiring I’ve seen.
Handling cross-team conflicts by
. Great tips for handling conflicts with other teams!
You probably didn’t notice, but I skipped a week. The last few weeks (and the upcoming ones) have been very busy for me, both in work and personal life. I was very close to postponing this one too, but then I read ’s story on how he stopped overthinking, after being in the exact same situation.
So I applied his tips, and set aside 90 minutes for this article on Saturday, plus 30 minutes today for final touches. To combat the constant allure of the internet, I wrote it in one go in Notepad++, and later added some links and memes.
The result is a bit shorter than usual, but I’m very happy with it!
I suffered from a micro-managing team leader, and it was horrible.
It literally made me want to wish ill upon him.
And the worst thing? When I told him, it never crossed his mind that something with his behavior might not be accurate for his people.
I will keep this article handy, in case I will need it someday in the future :)
Today I found out I micromanaged without knowing. 😃
One "trick" that helped me was picking up more work (not that difficult if you're running your own company btw), and I simply had to trust people to deliver client work on time. It worked!