The Debilitating Effects of Micromanagement

By Bob Blackney

At some point in every person’s career, you get to work with a micromanager: the person who tries to control everything that happens in a school or office. Micromanagers have excessive attention to details and avoid delegation of tasks and decisions to staff members. The parody of the micromanager is the leader who spends the better part of their day counting the office supplies used. While the micromanager often believes they are doing a great job and are very structured, they are most often oblivious to the effects they have on the rest of the organization. In the best situations, micromanagement is an impediment to progress and, in extreme cases, it can cause the organization to stagnate.  Let’s look at the some of the effects that come with micromanagement.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) micromanagement prevents innovation. Employees cannot come up with new ideas and procedures on their own; they have to constantly check with the micromanager, who is often unavailable. Workers become “drones” that wait to be told what to do rather than take risks that come with innovation. Employees with skills and knowledge will leave such situations and the organization is left with workers who are content to wait to follow instructions.

CTO micromanagement slows workflow, as all approvals have to go through the manager who will not give up control. It is not efficient for normal work to have to wait for approval from an overzealous manager. Delegation is an essential element in the work of any organization and it is an essential skill for any manager.

CTO micromanagement prevents an organization from using the talents and skills of the staff.  Employees are hired because they have the knowledge and ability to do a job. If they are constantly being hovered over by an oppressive manager, they cannot do the jobs they were hired to do.

CTO micromanagement creates a “wait to be told” culture. Why do work ahead of time if the micromanager will change everything? Better for employees to just wait until the deadline approaches and then do the job. There will be far less time to have to make changes and redo the work. Everyone in the organization learns to wait until it has to be done and then do what you are told to do.

CTO micromanagement slows progress because meetings must contain the micromanager.  Workers learn that if the micromanager has not “signed off” on the project there is no use moving forward unless it is done exactly the way the micromanager wants it done.

CTO micromanagement retards communication within a school or office and the community. When someone asks a question, workers will often reply, “I’ll have to check with my manager.” Employees should be able to respond to coworkers and with the community without being held hostage. If the answer is not correct, then it can be corrected.

CTO micromanagement discourages teamwork. Workers don’t work together; they just have to work with the micromanager. I have heard work groups say, “What’s the use of getting together to plan when we will just have to change it all.”  This is not how an efficient organization runs.  Managers should encourage everyone in the organization to constantly be innovating, communicating and improving and this cannot be done if the manager cannot delegate and respect the work of his or her employees.

In some situations, the micromanager will assign work and then micromanage the work to enable the oppressive manager to take credit for any positive results, and also to blame the employee for negative results. In this scenario, the micromanager actually delegates the accountability for failure to the worker without giving them the ability to take initiative that might have made the project a success.

Are you a micromanager?

According to Alyssa Gregory (visit http://sbinformation.about.com/od/businessmanagemen1/a/small-business-micromanagement.htm) ask yourself the following questions.  If the answers are “yes,” then you may be over managing that area.

• You have more work than you can handle because you can’t delegate effectively.
• You frequently assign work, then take it back because it’s not getting done the way you want it done.
• You tell your team exactly how you want things done and leave them no room for them to take initiative.
• You continuously take on project manager roles, even when there already is a project manager.
• You rarely complete projects on time because you can’t get past the details.
• You need to know what everyone is doing—all the time.
• Your team avoids you and all one-on-one conversations with you.
• You don’t let any of your team members contribute ideas, communicate with clients or even talk to each other.
• You become the bottleneck because everyone is always waiting for your approval on everything.
• Your team has unreasonably high turnover.
• You question the processes followed, work completed and proposed next steps at every status meeting.
• You feel that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

Micromanagement disables a school or office in countless ways. All managers should be careful not to fall into the traps of over-managing. The damage that comes with micromanagement is not easily or quickly corrected.

 About the Author

Bob Blackney is the Director of Curriculum and Instruction with the Azusa Unified School District and can be reached at (626) 858-6194 or bblackney@azusa.org.