Micro Managing is Bad Business

There is a pariah in American business that inhibits companies from progressing as far ahead as they might wish to.  This person probably has no idea he or she is this way, or has even thought about why they are this way, because they're too busy trying to do all the jobs of the company, including those jobs they have hired other people to do.

I'm talking about the micro manager, of course.  Most companies have at least one of these if they're large enough, and that person is sapping the strength from the company.  The reason for this is simple, and I'm going to use an analogy.  The center fielder is one of 9 positions on a baseball team.  It's an important position because it not only covers its own areas, but is responsible for backing up the other two outfield positions.  Suddenly the center fielder decides that he can do a better job of getting the ball back into the infield if he intercedes into every play; in essence, he starts going for the ball instead of allowing the person in that position to cover.  He might be good at it, or he may be bad at it, but he does it anyway.  After awhile he decides that on singles he's going to run in and try to cover second base also, because he doesn't always trust the judgment of the second baseman on what to do next.  After awhile he decides that he wants to be the cutoff man on all balls that are hit to either outfield position on a long fly ball, because he doesn't think anyone else on the team has any real understanding of what to do with the ball once the outfielder has done his part.

What happens early on, of course, is that the other outfielders first start questioning their own abilities.  Next is their anger at having their positions usurped in such a fashion.  Next is their trying to figure out just what their jobs and responsibilities are supposed to be.  Next is confusion, followed by apathy, and of course the team is suddenly in total disarray.  Not only that, but whose to say that the center fielder was right in the first place?  He may not have ever played any of these other positions before, but his fear of things going wrong prompts him to give it a try.  Finally, the center fielder himself is either running himself down to a point where he won't be able to effectively do the job he was hired to do, or really didn't care in the first place as long as he gets acknowledged somehow that he was taking control of a situation, regardless of whether it needed taken control of or not.  Sometimes it works out early, but oftentimes the seeds of destruction have been planted instead, and the only question is who will cave in first.

The psychology of a micro manager isn't all that hard to figure out; the reasons, however, may be something else.  The micro manager wants control, period.  Type A personalities are most vulnerable to be micro managers because they are driven to success more than other personality types. 

The reasons are varied, though.  One reason may be that the micro manager is scared to trust the performance of others.  It takes a certain amount of trust in the abilities of others when you're a manager.  Another reason may be fear in their being discovered as not knowing as much as others think they do.  If a micro manager tells someone to do something without really knowing what they're asking for, they can always cover it up by blaming the ignorance of someone else. 

Most of the time micro managers are bullies and mean, but not always.  There's something in them that makes them think they have to lead by the principle of fear, rather than cooperation.  I knew of a micro manager that, when things weren't going her way, would fire the entire department and start from scratch.  At some point the CEO realized where the problems actually lay, but the damage to the credibility of the company had been done. 

If a micro manager isn't the mean spirited type, then there's still a chance of working with that person to bring them into the realm of "everyday people".  A conversation should take place between the person who's being micro managed and the micro manager to see if the micro manager is someone who may not know they are pushing too hard or trying to take over everything.  They may not fully understand the depth of what their actions are in impeding the job you're trying to do.  And if you find that, instead of a positive outcome you're met with resistance, at least you'll know, and then you can decide whether to find a way to survive this manager, take it up the ladder, or move on. 

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