Reading Notes for April 5, 2012 “Micromanagement”

In the previous post, some characteristics of good management were discussed. This post discuses characteristics of bad management, specifically “Micromanagement” as one of the most widely condemned managerial sins, and one of the most common employee complaints. The below cited books, articles and websites outline what is meant by micromanagement and how it is considered by many scholars as one of the worst management dysfunctions.

Bielaszka-DuVernay, Christina (2008). Micromanage at Your Peril. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. Retrieved on 21 March 2012 from http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2008/02/micromanage-at-your-peril.html

Chambers, Harry. (2004). My Way or the Highway. Berrett Koehler Publishers, San Francisco.

Dictionary.com. (2012). Definition of micromanage. Retrieved on 21 March 2012 from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/micromanage

Encarta Dictionary. (2008). Definition of micromanage. Retrieved on 21 March 2012.

Fisher, E. (2009). Motivation and Leadership in Social Work Management: A Review of Theories and Related Studies. Administration in Social Work, 33, 4, 347-367.

McConnell, Charles. (2006). Micromanagement is Mismanagement. National Federation of Independent Business.

Rayner, C., Hoel, H., & Cooper, C. L. (2002). Workplace bullying: What we know, who is to blame, and what can we do? London: Taylor & Francis.

Rennie, P. P. (2003). Dignity at work: Eliminate bullying and create a positive working environment. Hove: Brunner-Routledge.

Small Business Resource Centre. (2012). Micromanagement. Retrieved April 4, 2012, from http://www.smbresource.com/?f

Transformation Associates. (n.d.). The Takeaway - How to Deal with Micromanagement. Transformation Associates, Inc.,  Management consulting and technology. Retrieved April 4, 2012, from http://www.transassoc.com/micromanagement-survival/  

Webster.com. (2012). Micromanage. Retrieved on 25 March 2012 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/micromanage

Workplace Bullying Institute (n.d.). Workplacebullying. Retrieved April 4, 2012, from http://www.workplacebullying.org/res/N-N-2003C.pdf.

Chambers (2004) outlines that micromanagement results in significant direct, indirect, and hidden costs to organizations, contributing to low morale, high turnover, inefficiency, instability, and lack of continuity. And being perceived as a micromanager can have a significant negative impact on the manager career. This post will outline what precisely is micromanagement? More importantly, what can be done about it?

Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines micromanagement as "management especially with excessive control or attention on details".

Dictionary.com defines micromanagement as "management or control with excessive attention to minor details".

The online dictionary Encarta defines micromanagement as "attention to small details in management: control [of] a person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details".

Symptoms of Micromanagement

Chambers (2004) and McConnell (2006) specify the following main symptoms of micromanagement:

·         Attention to minor details and avoiding delegation of authority

Rather than giving general instructions on smaller tasks and then devoting his time to supervising larger concerns, the micromanager monitors and assesses every step of a business process and avoids delegation of decisions. Micromanagers are usually irritated when a subordinate makes decisions without consulting them, even if the decisions are totally within the subordinate's level of authority.

·         Reportomania and focusing on procedural trivia rather than on overall performance, quality and results

Micromanagement also frequently involves requests for unnecessary and overly detailed reports “reportomania”. A micromanager tends to require constant and detailed performance feedback and tends to be excessively focused on procedural trivia (often in detail greater than he can actually process) rather than on overall performance, quality and results. This focus on "low-level" trivia often delays decisions, clouds overall goals and objectives, restricts the flow of information between employees, and guides the various aspects of a project in different and often opposed directions. Many micromanagers accept such inefficiencies because those micromanagers consider the outcome of a project less important than their retention of control or of the appearance of control.

    ·         Not sharing credit for success and shift the blame for failure

It is common for micromanagers, especially those who exhibit narcissistic tendencies and/or micromanage deliberately and for strategic reasons, to delegate work to subordinates and then micromanage those subordinates' performance, enabling the micromanagers in question to both take credit for positive results and shift the blame for negative results to their subordinates. These micromanagers thereby delegate accountability for failure but not the authority to take alternative actions that would have led to success or at least to the mitigation of that failure. Although micromanagement is often easily recognized by employees, micromanagers rarely view themselves as such.

·         Failure to motivate their employees either literary or materialistically

Micromanagers often fail to motivate their employees even literary. Fisher (2009) suggested that the distinction between two different motivation factors (literary and materialistic) is important for managers to understand because they often have limited resources (no budget for salary raises or a physically improved working environment); nevertheless, managers may still use motivating factors like encouraging and recognizing achievement among their employees in order to increase the level of satisfaction in their workplace. Fisher further outlined that according to Herzberg’s managerial theory, simply increasing an employee’s pay or otherwise materially improving his or her situation won’t increase job satisfaction, so in order to be successful managers must pay careful attention to literary motivating factors by cultivating an environment in which employees have a sense of personal accomplishment and pride in their work in order to improve overall workplace satisfaction. 

·         Workplace bulling and narcissistic behavior represent the most extreme cases of micromanagement

The most extreme cases of micromanagement constitute a management pathology closely related to, e.g., workplace bullying and narcissistic behavior. Micromanagement resembles addiction in that although most micromanagers are behaviorally dependent on control over others, both as a lifestyle and as a means of maintaining that lifestyle, many of them fail to recognize and acknowledge their dependence even when everyone around them observes it. Some severe cases of micromanagement arise from other underlying mental-health conditions such as obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, although not all allegations of such conditions by subordinates and other "armchair psychologists" are accurate. The notion of micromanagement can be extended to any social context where one person takes a “bully” approach, in the level of control and influence over the members of a group. Often, this excessive obsession with the minutest of details causes a direct management failure in the ability to focus on the major details.

Typology of bullying behaviors

With some variations, Rayner … et.al (2002) and Rennie (2003) suggested the following typology of workplace bullying behaviors that was adopted by a number of academic researchers. The typology uses five different categories.

1. Threat to professional status - including belittling opinions, public professional humiliation, accusations regarding lack of effort, intimidating use of discipline or competence procedures
2. Threat to personal standing - including undermining personal integrity, destructive innuendo and sarcasm, making inappropriate jokes about target, persistent teasing, name calling, insults, intimidation
3. Isolation - including preventing access to opportunities, physical or social isolation, withholding necessary information, keeping the target out of the loop, ignoring or excluding
4. Overwork - including undue pressure, impossible deadlines, and unnecessary disruptions.
5. Destabilization - including failure to acknowledge good work, allocation of meaningless tasks, removal of responsibility, repeated reminders of blunders, setting target up to fail, shifting goal posts without telling the target.

Tactics

Research by the Workplace Bullying Institute, suggests that the following are the most common 25 tactics used by workplace bullies:

1.      False accusations: Falsely accused someone of "errors" not actually made (71 percent).

2.      Nonverbal intimidation: Stared, glared, was nonverbally intimidating and was clearly showing hostility (68 percent).

3. Disrespect: Discounted the person's thoughts or feelings ("oh, that's silly") in meetings (64 percent).
4. Silent treatment: Used the "silent treatment" to "ice out" and separate from others (64 percent).
5. Hostile: Exhibited presumably uncontrollable mood swings in front of the group (61 percent).
6. Double standards: Made up own rules on the fly that even she/he did not follow (61 percent).
7. Discrediting: Disregarded satisfactory or exemplary quality of completed work despite evidence (58 percent).
8. Rigidity: Harshly and constantly criticized having a different standard for the target (57 percent).
9. Slander: Started, or failed to stop, destructive rumors or gossip about the person (56 percent).
10. Encouraged mistreatment: Encouraged people to turn against the person being tormented (55 percent).
11. Isolation: Singled out and isolated one person from other coworkers, either socially or physically (54 percent).
12. Stiffness: Publicly displayed gross, undignified, but not illegal, behavior (53 percent).
13. Humiliation: Yelled, screamed, and threw tantrums in front of others to humiliate a person (53 percent).
14. Plagiarism: Stole credit for work done by others (47 percent).
15. Falsification: Abused the evaluation process by lying about the person's performance (46 percent).
16. Discharging: Declared target "insubordinate" for failing to follow arbitrary commands (46 percent).
17. Violating privacy: Used confidential information about a person to humiliate privately or publicly (45 percent).
18. Retaliation: Retaliated against the person after a complaint was filed (45 percent).
19. Discrimination: Made verbal put-downs/insults based on gender, race, accent, age or language, disability (44 percent).
20. Overwork: Assigned undesirable work as punishment (44 percent).
21. Unrealistic demands: Created unrealistic demands (workload, deadlines, and duties) for person singled out (44 percent).
22. Defamation: Launched a baseless campaign to oust the person; effort not stopped by the employer (43 percent).
23. Threat: Encouraged the person to quit or transfer rather than to face more mistreatment (43 percent).
24. Sabotage: Sabotaged the person's contribution to a team goal and reward (41 percent).
25. Procedural trivia: Ensured failure of person's project by not performing required tasks, such as sign-offs, taking calls, working with collaborators (40 percent)

Causes of micromanagement

Chambers (2004) and McConnell (2006) specify the following causes of micromanagement:

·         Manager's perception or fear that he/she lacks the competence and creative capabilities necessary for their position in the larger corporate structure

In many cases of micromanagement, managers select and implement processes and procedures not for business or service wise reasons but rather to enable themselves to feel useful and valuable and/or create the appearance of being so. A frequent cause of such micromanagement patterns is a manager's perception or fear that he/she lacks the competence and creative capabilities necessary for their position in the larger corporate structure. In reaction to this fear, the manager uses to tactics: first he/she creates a "fiefdom" within which he selects performance standards not on the basis of their relevance to the organization's interest but rather on the basis of his or her division's ability to satisfy them. Second he/she does every effort to freeze the career advancement of the most skilled subordinates as he/she observes them as possible competitors to his/her managerial positions. That’s why it is common for any micromanager to select for promotion and tenure the ones not necessarily with the strongest qualifications and skills. The motivations for micromanagement often intensify, at both the individual-manager and the organization-wide level, during times of economic hardship. In some cases, managers may have proper goals in mind but place disproportionate emphasis on the role of their division and/or on their own personal role in the furtherance of those goals. In others, managers throughout an organization may engage in behavior that, while protective of their division's interests or their personal interests, harms the organization as a whole.

·         A tactic chosen for the purpose of eliminating unwanted employees

Less frequently, micromanagement is a tactic consciously chosen for the purpose of eliminating unwanted employees: A micromanager may set unreachable standards that he then invokes as grounds for termination of those employees; these standards may be either specific to certain employees or generally applicable but selectively enforced only against particular employees. Alternatively, the micromanager may attempt by this or other means to create a stressful workplace in which the undesired employees no longer desire to participate; when such stress is severe or pervasive enough, its creation may be regarded as constructive discharge (also known in the United Kingdom as "constructive dismissal" and in the United States as "constructive termination")

Effects of Micromanagement

Bielaszka-DuVernay (2008) suggested that regardless of a micromanager's motive for his or her conduct, its potential effects include:

·         Creation of resentment in both "vertical" (manager-subordinate) and "horizontal" (subordinate-subordinate) relationships

·         Damage to trust in both vertical and horizontal relationships

·         Interference with existing teamwork and inhibition of future teamwork in both vertical relationships (e.g., via malicious compliance) and horizontal relationships (e.g., exploitation of moral hazard created by poorly proportioned effort-reward structures).

·         Affecting employees’ self-esteem because of the micromanagement failure to encourage and recognize the employees’ achievement, good work or sacrifices. 

Because a pattern of micromanagement suggests to employees that a manager does not trust their work or judgment, it is a major factor in triggering employee disengagement, often to the point of promoting a dysfunctional and hostile work environment in which one or more managers, or even management generally, are labeled "control freaks." Disengaged employees invest time, but not effort or creativity, in the work in which they are assigned. Severe forms of micromanagement can completely eliminate trust, stifle opportunities for learning and development of interpersonal skills, and even provoke anti-social behavior. Micromanagers of this severity often rely on inducing fear in the employees to achieve more control and can severely affect self-esteem of employees as well as their mental and physical health. Occasionally, and especially when their micromanagement involves the suppression of constructive criticism that could otherwise lead to internal reform, severe micromanagers affect subordinates' mental and/or physical health to such an extreme that the subordinates' only way to change their workplace environment is to change employers or even leave the workplace despite lacking alternative job prospects.

Finally, the detrimental effects of micromanagement can extend beyond the "four walls" of an organization, especially when the behavior becomes severe enough to force out skilled employees valuable to competitors. Current employees may complain about micromanagement in social settings or to friend-colleagues (e.g., classmates and/or former co-workers) affiliated with other organizations in a field. Outside observers such as consultants, clients, interviewees, or visitors may notice the behavior and recount it in conversation with friends and/or colleagues. Most harmfully to the organization, forced-out employees, especially those whose advanced skills have made them attractive to other organizations and gained them immediate respect, may have few reservations about speaking frankly when answering questions about why they changed employers; they may even make affirmative efforts to "badmouth" their former employer in an attempt at venting or revenge. The resulting damage to the organization’s reputation may create or increase insecurity among management, prompting further micromanagement among managers who use it to cope with insecurity; such a feedback effect creates and perpetuates a vicious cycle.

What can be done about micromanagement?

Transformation Associates, Inc., a management consulting and technology firm suggests the following mechanisms to be used by managers, micromanaged employees and organizations.

What Should Managers Do?

Management style must be matched to meet the needs of the situation. Sometimes close supervision and direction is required and other times the direct report should be given more latitude to get the job done with minimal guidance. If an employee is new to a role, has less experience or is not performing tasks at an appropriate level, then the manager needs to adopt a more directive approach. Even seasoned employees must consistently demonstrate that they can perform tasks competently or they too warrant closer management oversight. Typically the most effective – not necessarily the most popular – managers are the ones who hold their employees strictly accountable for delivering positive results. The trick is to know when to apply the appropriate style. Other things for managers to keep in mind:

• Learn to tell the difference between adding value and being a perfectionist, nit-picker or simply one who likes to “kick up dust”. If the fully-loaded average employee per-hour cost is around $50, be absolutely sure that when you require an employee to spend an extra day word-smithing, that it was worth the $400 investment.
• Consciously allow others to have influence, make decisions and contribute to the value created by the team
• Identify where real performance issues exist and address them through the organization’s formal performance management process
• Get help – management is a skill that is honed over time through experience and training. Many great development opportunities are out there – some may be available within your current organization
• If the employee cannot get the job done satisfactorily, find someone who can! Making the decision to do so sooner rather than later will be better for all involved.

What Can Micromanaged Employees Do?

To the management levels above them, micromanagers might appear to do a pretty good job. As long as they are delivering results, no matter the cost, they are likely to be secure in their roles and will be around for years to come. Realistically, the employees are the ones who will have to adjust. Here are a couple of options that micromanaged employees can consider:

• Take a critical look at your own performance. Is there anything you are doing that is adding to the problem? Self-identified micromanagers often claim that they wouldn’t have to micromanage if their people would just do what they were supposed to do. It may not fix the problem, but delivering your best may give you a little more breathing room.
• Play by their rules. Admittedly, spending your day requesting permission for every action, justifying every decision or rewriting every sentence is not productive. However, fighting it will be even less so. Figure out the hot buttons, pet peeves and sticking points and try to abide. Sadly this may mean spending more time on the non-value-added appeasing tasks, but if you can streamline them, you may be able to create a workable relationship.
• Try not to take it to heart. Assuming your work is sound, try not to let the constant nit-picking affect your self-confidence. The problem is the manager’s, not yours.
• Talk to them about their behavior. You may want to attempt a frank, but respectful discussion with the manager about the issue. Come prepared with recent examples and ideas for how you can work better together. Be aware though, that they may be unable to recognize that their behavior is problematic and their inherent lack of trust may create a contentious discussion.
• Take it up with a “higher authority” (e.g., boss’s boss or HR). We tend to find this approach may end up doing more harm than good. At the very heart of micromanagement is a lack of trust, and going over the manager’s head, potentially making him/her look bad is a cardinal sin in the eyes of this type of manager. Although it may buy some momentary relief, chances are you will suffer in the long run.
• Leave the organization. This option may be the only choice in some situations. Assume your manager is not going to leave. If you find that your work, your family and most likely your health and well-being are suffering because of a work situation that has become intolerable, looking for a better job may be the best thing you could do for yourself and your long-term career. Ultimately, you are in control of your own future and can make the decision to leave for greener pastures.

Organizations Should Take Note as Well!

Whether viewed as a valid management style or a dysfunctional behavior, micromanagement should be considered by an organization as they identify and groom their future leaders. Because micromanagement is often eclipsed by the more obvious management issues, it doesn’t get a lot of attention in terms of correction. Assuming the micromanager should be retained, there are some things an organization can do to help both the manager and the team.

• Help them to develop as managers. Choose a manager training program that focuses on teaching the manager to adjust his or her personal management style to the needs of the employees is required. Self-awareness in the form of a 360 feedback assessment or personality profiling and perhaps some one-on-one coaching would help as well.
• Remove their power to control by empowering the employees. For example, if the manager is a bottleneck for approval of even the most insignificant of expense reports – allow employees to submit those without approval. Or if the manager is blocking all communications from his team to the next levels in the organization, introduce new channels such as skip level lunches so that employees have a voice.
• Monitor and evaluate the situation. In some cases micromanagement might be a sign of a more significant issue with the manager. If you hit a critical mass of employee complaints and other indicators of a problem, stay on top of it and take action (e.g., performance improvement plan, warnings, termination) if necessary.

The Takeaway

At the end of the day, we all have to decide what we can change and what we are willing to deal with. In the case of micromanagement, this goes for both the employee and the manager.

Managers: You don’t want to be a micromanager. No matter how convinced you are that this article is NOT about you, be aware of your own behavior.

1. Are you appropriately adapting your management style/behaviors/inputs to the needs of your employees?
2. Are you sure that the input/help/guidance/etc. you are giving is adding significant value to the outcome?

If you can’t give a definitive “yes” to both of these questions, do yourself and your employees a favor and get some help. The development, training and coaching resources available are endless.

Employees: No one likes to be micromanaged. If you are in a situation that you find intolerable, change it. Remember, you are in control. Either find a workable solution with your manager or look for another position. Either way, stop stewing. Life is too short.