PROJECT REPORT

ON

MICROMANAGEMENT

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my

teacher as well as our principal who gave me the golden

opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic

Micromanagement, which also helped me in doing a lot of

Research and I came to know about so many new things I am

really thankful to them.

Secondly I would also like to thank my parents and friends who

helped me a lot in finalizing this project within the limited time

frame.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Acknowledgement

Symptoms

Compared with mismanagement

Causes of Micromanagement

Effects of Micromanagement

Pro and Cons of Micromanagement

Tips to avoid Micromanagement

Conclusion

References

INTRODUCTION

In business management, micromanagement is a management style

whereby a manager closely observes or controls the work of subordinates

or employees. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation.

Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines micromanagement as

"manage[ment] especially with excessive control or attention on

details". Dictionary.com defines micromanagement as "manage[ment] or

control with excessive attention to minor details".The online

dictionary Encarta defined micromanagement as "atten[tion] to small details

in management: control [of] a person or a situation by paying extreme

attention to small details".

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 most minute of details causes a direct management failure in the

ability to focus on the major details.

Micromanaging is a method of management in which an individual closely

observes or controls the work of an employee. In comparison to simply

giving general direction, the micromanager monitors and evaluates every

stage in a process, from beginning to end. This behavior negatively affects

efficiency, creativity, trust, communication, problem-solving, and the

company’s ability to reach its goals.

The typical micromanager spends their time directing employees rather

than empowering them. They are often very insecure. They spend more

time with the details of business operations instead of planning the

company’s short-term and long-term growth strategies. The fact of the

matter is, time DOES equal money. When the designated leader of an

organization is wasting time (and therefore money) on overseeing projects

instead of focusing on specific growth opportunities, it’s time to reevaluate

a few things. 

SYMPTOMS

Rather than giving general instructions on smaller tasks and then devoting

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 within the

subordinate's level of authority.

Micromanagement also frequently involves requests for unnecessary and

overly detailed reports ("reportomania"). A micromanager tends to require

constant and detailed performance feedback and to focus excessively on

procedural trivia (often in detail greater than they 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 as less important than their

retention of control or of the appearance of control.

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.[7] These

micromanagers thereby delegate accountability for failure but not

the authority to take alternative actionsthat would have led to success or at

least to the mitigation of that failure.

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.[1] 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.

Although micromanagement is often easily recognized by employees,

micromanagers rarely view themselves as such. In a form of denial similar

to that found in addictive behavior, micromanagers will often rebut

allegations of micromanagement by offering a competing characterization

of their management style as, e.g., "structured", "organized", or

"perfectionistic".

COMPARED WITH MISMANAGEMENT

Micromanagement can be distinguished from the mere tendency of a

manager to perform duties assigned to a subordinate. When a manager

can perform a worker's job more efficiently than the worker can, the result

is merely suboptimal management: Although the company suffers lost

opportunities because the manager would serve the company even better

by doing her or his own job, the worker's job is still being done well. In

micromanagement, the manager not only tells a subordinate what to do but

dictates that the job be done a certain way regardless of whether that way

is the most effective or efficient one.

Most people who have been in the workforce any length of time have

occasionally been exposed to bosses who micromanage. The

micromanager is the manager who must personally make every decision,

take a lead role in the performance of every significant task and, in extreme

cases, dictate every small step the workers take. To many employees the

micromanager is, in modern parlance, a control freak. The micromanager

hovers over people who are trying to get their work done and rarely, if ever,

seriously considers their ideas and opinions. The only "original" thinking the

micromanager recognizes is his or her own.

SIGNS OF MICROMANAGEMENT

Perhaps the best way to way to minimize the effects of

micromanagement is to identify the signs. Here are a few signs that

I would use to determine if micromanagement is in question:

1. Hard time delegating work

2. Looking at the detail instead of the big picture

3. Monitoring what’s least important and not on the results

4. Inserting themselves in the work of others without first

consulting them

5. Immersing themselves in projects / activities assigned to

others

6. Discouraging others from making decisions about how to

complete a task / project

7. Dictating that work is performed in a very particular way versus

focusing on a successful outcome

8. Taking back delegated work before it’s finished or ready for

review

9. Constantly checking in on progress at unrealistic intervals and

hovering

10. Demanding unrealistic turnaround times without consulting

with the employee on when they think they could get the job

done

11. A demotivated team with low performance

HOW TO MANAGE MICROMANAGERS

Often when you’re being micromanaged, you might feel helpless

and held back from growing professionally. Micromanagement can

be a hard battle to fight. There are a few things that you can do to

help ease it.

1. Look at what you’re doing (or not doing):

Identify the areas that you need to improve and work on that.

And, if you feel comfortable, ask your manager what could you

be doing differently. Make sure you document your

improvements so that you can share this with your manager

whenever necessary.

2. Identify patterns:

After a while, you should be able to identify patterns in your

micro manager's behavior. Watch for what causes certain

outbursts related to the work you’re responsible for.

3. Understand your manager’s persona:

Try to see things from their perspective, understand their

motivations and get clear on the business objectives they are

responsible for achieving. Uncovering their motivations and

goals can help you better anticipate their needs and help you

better manage them.

4. Establish KPIs (Key Performance Indicators):

Once you’re “attuned” to you micromanager and understand

both their goals and motivations, work with them to establish

your KPIs. By clearly identifying what you’re responsible for

and how you’re going to meet your KPIs should help remove

any emotion from their decisions. More importantly this will

help align them with a results focused management style

versus focusing on unimportant details.  

5. Constant communication:

Now that you better understand their persona and have

uncovered their behavioral patterns, get ahead of them by

anticipating their needs. In the beginning, while you’re trying to

establish trust, send daily status updates about progress on

projects you’re working on, highlight where you’ve had

success and where you’re looking for their input. Couple this

with a weekly 1:1, try doing this away from a conference room

or the office so they take their mind away from their behavior

patterns! The hope is this will help you build a positive

relationship with your manager and reduce the

micromanagement tendencies.

CAUSES OF MICROMANAGEMENT

The most frequent motivations for micromanagement, such as detail-

orientedness, emotional insecurity, and doubts regarding employees'

competence, are internal and related to the personality of the manager.

Since manager-employee relationships include a difference in power and

often in age, workplace psychologists have used models based

on transference theory to draw analogies between micromanagement

relationships and dysfunctional parent-child relationships, e.g., that both

often feature the frequent imposition of double binds and/or a tendency by

the authority figure to exhibit hypercriticality.[1] However, external factors

such as organizational culture, severe or increased time or performance

pressure, and instability of managerial position (either specific to a

micromanager's position or throughout an organization) may also play a

role.

In many cases of micromanagement, managers select and implement

processes and procedures not for business 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 they lack the competence and creative

capability necessary for their position in the larger corporate structure. In

reaction to this fear, the manager creates a "fiefdom" within which the

manager selects performance standards not on the basis of their relevance

to the corporation's interest but rather on the basis of the ability of the

manager's division to satisfy them.

Such 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.

Less frequently, micromanagement is a tactic consciously chosen for the

purpose of eliminating unwanted employees: A micromanager may set

unreachable standards later invoked 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

Regardless of a micromanager's motive for his or her conduct, its potential

effects include:

Creation of ex post resentment in both "vertical" (manager-

subordinate) and "horizontal" (subordinate-subordinate) relationships

Damage to ex ante 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).

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."[8] Disengaged employees invest time, but not effort or creativity, in

the work in which they are assigned. The effects of this phenomenon are

worse in "assembly line"-type situations where work is passed from one

specialized employee to another, differently specialized employee who

cannot perform his or her own task until the previous employee's is

complete; in such a situation, apathy among "upstream" employees affects

not only their own productivity but also that of their "downstream"

colleagues.

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 criticismthat 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 (see constructive

discharge, supra).

Finally, the detrimental effects of micromanagement can extend beyond the

"four walls" of a company, 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 firms 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

company, forced-out employees, especially those whose advanced skills

have made them attractive to other companies 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 company'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.

PRO AND CONS OF MICROMANAGEMENT

“Micromanager” is often used as a derogatory term. In the business world,

a micromanager can be seen as judgmental, controlling or even dictatorial.

In these cases, micromanagers either relegate very little work to

subordinates or are overly critical of every detail of a project. Workers in

this situation can start feeling resentful and even loose motivation.

However, micromanaging can also be a beneficial tool in starting a new

business and training new employees. When a business is first opened, it

will be the responsibility of the manager to establish procedures and

protocols for everything from location and office supplies to the hiring

process and project loads. In such cases, the micromanager is likely to be

the business owner.

Pros:

1. You ensure that everything is being conducted as it should be.

2. Things are always done ‘your way‘, and if you have your own

business, this can be a big deal.

3. It’s effective in a situation when a small business owner hires first

employees and needs to train them properly.

4. Micromanagement might be necessary when working with people

new to the industry.

5. The master is always completely in control

6. Always aware of what is going on with their s-type

7. The s-type will always be dependent upon the D-type

Major cons:

1. Those who are being micromanaged become resentful, less loyal,

less productive and less willing to give potentially valuable feedback.

Eventually people start to avoid talking to you or try to reduce

conversations to a minimum.

2. People micromanaged by you may think that you neither trust nor

respect them.

3. A manager is supposed to delegate responsibilities, and by

micromanaging you fail to do it. If you micromanage people, you simply

don’t let them do their job and do it for them instead.

4. People stop thinking, analyzing and trying to understand what they

are doing and why.

5. S-type doesn’t have the ability to grow as a person

6. Once the micromanaging has started, it’s hard to break the s-type of

this kind of management

7. The s-type has no successes of their own from a completed task

TIPS TO AVOID MICROMANAGEMENT

1. Commit to hiring the right people. It's much easier to create a

culture of accountability with accountable people. At RadioFlyer, the

famous maker of children's wagons, accountability is a core value

central to finding new employees. Prospective job candidates are

screened on whether they proactively seek needed information and

feedback, and whether they strive to accomplish team goals. The

company remains doggedly loyal to this value, going so far to keep

positions open for more than a year if they are unable to find an ideal

match between the candidate, the culture and the position.

Additionally, all 55 of RadioFlyers's employees, hiring managers and

the executive team receive training on the selection process annually.

2. Make people accountable to each other. There is nothing like peer

pressure to drive behavior. At Bridge Worldwide, a Cincinnati-based

digital and relationship marketing agency, employees are given the

chance to give anonymous feedback to various teams in a quarterly

satisfaction survey and an annual benefits opinion survey. Through

these regular audits, employees have the chance to give genuine

feedback on performance from other departments as it relates to their

job. The goal is to create a productive community culture.

3. Clearly and frequently articulate expectations. Entrepreneurs

often find themselves micromanaging their staffs when they don't

adequately communicate their expectations. Employees atHoar

Construction, a construction management firm, are evaluated twice

annually, and receive personal, detailed feedback. New tracking

measures, goals and developmental needs are determined during

these evaluations. The frequency is even greater at FatWallet, the

Illinois-based online discount clearinghouse, where employees and

managers set "Key Performance Indicators" at the beginning of each

quarter to re-evaluate goals, progress and successes/failures.

4. Give employees decision-making power. Your employees are

much more likely to "own" their work when they help create or have a

voice in what they're doing. Bridge Worldwide puts many decisions to

a company vote or suggestion. An example of this was the process of

naming its conference rooms. Employees were asked to nominate a

20th-century icon who embodied the company's values. Based on

these nominations and subsequent votes, the company now has

rooms named after the people who inspire the dynamic culture --

including Henson (Jim), Parks (Rosa), Einstein (Albert), DiMaggio

(Joe) and Coltrane (John).

5. Give them an ownership stake. If you want employees to work like

they own the company, then give them a stake in the game. For

example, at Hilcorp, a sense of ownership is instilled through its long-

term incentive "Buy-in Compensation Plan." Through this plan, the

Houston-based energy company grants each full-time employee

phantom participation interests in company projects (which

essentially are stocks, except they are for a particular product or

project, not the overall company). Employees also have the

opportunity to buy additional interests using either their money or by

taking advantage of company loans. Employees received cash

distributions totaling more than $130.7 million between 1997 and

2008.

CONCLUSION

You may resort to micromanagement in environments where employees

are easily replaced and little training/spending is necessary to do so.

However, if low employee turnover is important and you are trying to

establish ongoing employee/customer relationships, micromanagement

may stand in the way of achieving these goals.

Micro-managers are bad news for business and bad news for

employees. They dis-empower staff, stifle opportunity and innovation, and

give rise to poor performance.

Because micromanagers rarely recognise their behaviour and the impact it

has on the team it is worthwhile pointing this out to them once you have

gained some trust.

They may be open to working with you. But then again, don’t expect too

much — sooner or later they will revert to type. Sometimes it’s you who has

to move on!

Striking the right balance between empowerment and accountability is

not easy. But small business owners who set the right tone will enjoy the

benefits of greater employee initiative and innovation, as well as the

freedom to transition from managing to leading.  

REFERENCES

BOOKS & MAGAZINES

My Way or the Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide

Managing Up: Obsessive Micromanager

WEBSITES

en.wikipedia.org/.../Micromanagement

www.leadershipthoughts.com

http://work.chron.com/handson-managers-vs-micromanagers-

3516.html