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  • October 7th, 2009
  • 38 Comments »
  • Management

An open letter to micromanagers

Dear Micromanager:

Owners of thoroughbreds never stop their horses during a race, every ten seconds, to remind  the horse and jockey how to run, where the finish line is, or that it’d be a good idea to finish first. Why? It would slow them down. Only an idiot would do this.

If you’re a manager, you must assume you have thoroughbreds working for you. Your job is to give them what they need to win their respective races, agreeing with them on the goal  and rewards, but then getting the hell out of the way. Until they start jumping fences or attacking other horses, you have to let them run their race.

Even if you are 30% better at a task than someone who works for you, the time it takes for you to check on them every few hours, and demand approvals over trivial decisions, costs more in lost morale, passion for work, and destruction of self-respect among your staff than the 30% you think you’re adding.  No one works well if they feel they are being treated like an idiot child. Having two people involved in work that should only require one wastes everyone’s time.

Perhaps you don’t think you are managing thoroughbreds and that your horses need lots of help.

This is possible.

But if you are in fact a micromanager, you started over-managing the day you started. You have  no idea of the potential of the people who work for you. Odds are good you’re treating at least one potential  Seabiscuit as if he were a toy pony at the county fair.

A healthy, confident, well-adjusted manager knows their job is to do three things:

  1. Hire thoroughbreds, point them at the finish line,  and get out of their way unless they ask for help
  2. Coach, teach, encourage and position ordinary horses to maximize their potential and approximate thoroughbreds in some of their work.
  3. Fire those who can never do the work needed without your constant involvement to make room for those who can.

If you don’t do these things, the burden of failure is on you. Good managers  achieve all three. Mediocre managers at least are working towards good ends. But bad managers are too distracted by their own egos, paychecks or insecurities to recognize how self-destructive they are.

An easy test of micromanagement is to let your team know you are confident in their ability to do their job and offer, if they wish, that you will be less involved in their day to day work to give them more room to perform. Tell them you are available if they need you, but otherwise you will put some of your attention elsewhere. See what happens. Hold your tongue. Don’t demand to review that email. Don’t insist on regulating who can meet with who. Take one small step backward and see what happens.

Odds are extremely good the world will not end. Your best employees will be happier and more productive, giving you new energy to invest in the rest of your work or more afternoons where you can head home early. Some of your team might surprise you, and thrive with more autonomy. And for those who fail to improve or make mistakes, you’ve lost nothing, as you can step back in where it’s actually needed.

If you are terrified of trying this and have a list of excuses why this is a bad idea, the only thing you are managing is your ego. Perhaps you’re afraid to admit your people can function quite well without your approval or input on every stupid little thing. Or it could be you are proof of the peter principle, and would be happier and more useful if you stopped managing and worked solo. A bigger paycheck is not a healthy trade for making yourself and your staff miserable.

Good managers are brave, and generous with trust in their people. They want them to mature in their judgment and grow in their skills, preferring to err on the side of trusting too much than trusting too little. They take pleasure in letting go and giving power away to their staff, accepting that when someone who works for them shines, they shine too.

But if you do not enjoy these things, and struggle to trust you staff, or can’t bear to see a decision made or reward earned without your name all over it, you should stop managing people.  You and everyone who works for you will be happier if you did.

Hugs and kisses,

Signed,

The people you are micromanaging

——————————————————————————–

Know someone who needs to read this?

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  • Posted Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 11:03 am

  • in Management, rant | 38 Comments » |

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38 Responses

  • Tony Rudie' - October 7, 2009 at 11:55 am

  • This is all true, but unfortunately managers have one other responsibility: they need to be able to report to THEIR managers on progress and problems. In order to do that, they need to know about any problems that their direct reports encounter, so that the organization can react and adapt. Managers AND reports need to work together to distinguish this from micro-managing. If you hit a snag, you need to let your manager know. As a manager, when one of your reports does that, you need to learn to say: “ok, what’s the plan to deal with the snag? do you need anything from me?” instead of immediately telling your report what to do.


  • Ash Tewari - October 7, 2009 at 12:18 pm

  • Very well articulated, Scott. This is relevant also in Scrum, where giving up control to the team members is a central tenet. A lot of P.M.’s transitioning into Scrum Masters role neglect/fail to appreciate this, especially where Scrum is being “implemented” from top-down.

    There will be a presentation/discussion about this at the SoCal Code Camp, at USC in November. More details here – http://www.tewari.info/2009/06/30/is-scrum-bad-for-developers/ and http://www.socalcodecamp.com/
    Please join us, if you are going to be in L.A area after the PDC-09.


  • Bill G - October 7, 2009 at 12:58 pm

  • Thanks, Scott!! One of the best pieces I’ve ever seen. I’m now free of micromanagers, but I hope those in my past will read this.


  • Justin Warren - October 7, 2009 at 3:14 pm

  • Hear hear!

    If only these managers were self-aware enough to realise they have this problem.

    And the ones who keep reminding you to run as fast as possible, but don’t tell you where the finish line is.

    Or keep moving it. Or suddenly teleport you onto a completely different track.

    @Bill G: how did you escape?


  • Mike Nitabach - October 7, 2009 at 6:51 pm

  • Awesome post!

    Of your three things a good manager needs to do, #1 is relatively easy if you’re not psychologically defective, #2 requires some skill for most people, and #3 is brutal even for the best.


  • Mike Nitabach - October 7, 2009 at 6:53 pm

  • What the frig is “Scrum”?


  • Greg - October 7, 2009 at 11:08 pm

  • “Scrum” is a term borrowed from rugby football, and inappropriately applied to a group activity performed in a certain ideological approach to software development. Like most sporting analogies, the relevance to a business context is dubious, but somehow resonant – it makes a good story with an emotive impact, but doesn’t bear up to any kind of analysis.

    The use of the word “scrum” is particularly annoying, because it seems to have been applied by people who had little or no familiarity with the sport of rugby. I suspect they watched rugby on TV a couple of times, and liked the sound of the word. After all, it’s suitably monosyllabic and unfamiliar to a North American audience.

    But hey, that’s just the opinion of someone who grew up in New Zealand, where rugby is more of a religion than a sport. So maybe I’m just concerned that the use of the holy “scrum” for something as trivial as software development is blasphemous…


  • calvin - October 8, 2009 at 2:05 am

  • wow !


  • Aarti - October 8, 2009 at 7:39 am

  • Hi Scott,
    Its really amazing to see such a bold and transparent opinion stream-lined to hit the hearts of those RULERS(I prefer to call them this way). I believe there should always be a quotient of empathy in their brain boxes than being a subordinate’s nightmare!!!

    Keep up the spirit…and best wishes for your endeavors

    regards,
    A supporter.


  • Elisabeth - October 8, 2009 at 12:01 pm

  • Wonderful post!

    My only question is: will this blog post ever reach its intended audience? *sigh* How on earth do we really get this behaviour to stop? As Tony pointed out: most managers also have to report to a micro-manager, which makes the whole problem almost epidemic. Besides, do managers and their bosses read blogs? One can only hope…


  • Scott Berkun - October 8, 2009 at 12:12 pm

  • Tony: You’re right in that managers need to report on progress and problems. But there is a sweet spot of involvement that allows the manager to understand what’s going on, with a minimum level of hand holding and annoyance.

    The easy place to start is, as you suggest, for one party to say to the other: “Hey. We need stuff from each other but don’t want to get all up in each others business. Lets find ways to be smart about how we communicate, so we don’t need to communicate every 30 seconds.” Or something of that nature.


  • Scott Berkun - October 8, 2009 at 12:15 pm

  • Elisabeth: It’s a good idea to learn how to smell and avoid micromanagers before they become your boss. It’s always good to ask people who used to work for your possible new boss before you take the job. And if they wont suggest people for you to talk to, it’s a warning sign.

    As far as feedback and change, when good people quit jobs it shows and it’s a flag to the manager of the micromanager.

    And lastly, there’s a link at the end of the post for sending email anonymously. Anyone can send this post to anyone they like.


  • Jorge - October 9, 2009 at 3:02 am

  • I’m pretty sure that a hardcore micromanager would try to screw up is less-liked employee, ya know, the one that bitches for every tiny not so good thing that happens around here, upon arrival of this mail from an “anonymous” sender (It’s far from anonymous: it’s signed on behalf of a group, which will be too much).
    Why not: on a particular issue directly ask your manager more trust/room; mention the micromanaging style at peer reviews; if all fails buy your manager lunch and tell him you’ll leave if he keeps the act… and be prepared to leave.


  • laurie ruettimann - October 11, 2009 at 6:29 pm

  • You never know you’re a micromanager until someone tells you — and you rarely believe the messenger.

    (Coming from a micromanager.)


  • Ricardo Duarte - October 13, 2009 at 12:35 pm

  • I completely agree with you. I work for a huge brazilian company and seen things like this happening all the time.
    Great piece.


  • Monica Granfield - October 20, 2009 at 11:11 am

  • How much does being a micromanager directly relate to being a type A person who needs control and how can you work with that personality type, if at all possible, seems key here. Wondering if people who like to control naturally gravitate to management positions? Would be great if a well written article like this could do the trick : )Thanks again for another insightful read!


  • Elle - October 21, 2009 at 11:04 am

  • I’d love to send this to my micromanager, but she’d just sic IT Services to find this link in my cookies! Scott – awesome, awesome letter. Thank you from the bottom of this micro-managed employee’s heart.


  • Developer Art - October 22, 2009 at 1:11 am

  • That is all true, couldn’t agree more. Micromanagement is a very effective disruptive power that can ruin entire projects.

    Once I worked in some place where the manager felt the need to regularly review our database model! and approve or disapprove certain design decisions. It felt so dull and demoralizing when you as an experienced developer have to listen to suggestions from basically an unqualified individual and agree to incorporate them into your database model even if you see how bad it’s going to be.

    Went even worse. There were two managers who were trying to manage as in parallel but to forward us into opposite directions. Today we paint a wall green, tomorrow we paint it blue. So the team was just staying in the middle not knowing where to go. From what I have seen in my not so long time there, they were staying in the same place for maybe like two years without any evident progress.

    One could hope these days they should have learned already how to manage software projects. It’s year 2009 already.


  • Ricardo Duarte - October 28, 2009 at 10:31 am

  • Hi Scott,
    May I have your permission to translate this letter to brazilian portuguese and post it on my blog?
    Let me know what you think about it.


  • Ash Tewari - October 28, 2009 at 11:18 pm

  • Very well put, Slaughter. I will summarize your response here :)

    =============

    Son (or Daughter) : Dad, stop treating me like a kid ..

    Dad : Well, why don’t you stop behaving like one ?

    =============


  • Micromanagement « kyantonius.com – daily babblings! - November 5, 2009 at 5:30 am

  • [...] resources on the Internet which might be useful for you with regards to micromanagement. Reading this article is more like freshening my mind how we should manage people in our subordination and also get the [...]


  • Bees Knees - November 9, 2009 at 2:03 pm

  • Thank you so, so, SO much for this post. I’ve spent lots of evenings and mornings before work crying to my husband about not being appreciated at work and dreading each day. This helps. It does.


  • Hire thoroughbreds - gregtyree.com - November 13, 2009 at 2:55 pm

  • [...] updates… Powered by Twitter ToolsMy Wishlist Facebook del.icio.usAn open letter to micromanagers « Scott BerkunRetrieves and Aggregates Profiles from Across the Web | Web Resources | WebAppersCreate & [...]


  • Sosena Kebede - November 18, 2009 at 7:05 pm

  • Hi Scott

    After working with three horribly managed institutions (great potentials though), I am inspired to write a book on why good employees (thoroughbreds) should not put up with too much crap and why employees may want to pay attention to these class of employees… so I stumbled upon your work on the web. My question: I have never written a book and although I do have some grasp on basic HR management principles I am hardly an expert in it- so what is your suggestion for me in regards to pre-reads or researches I need to do for such a book.

    Thanks by the way for your great blogs- I will remain a fan

    Sosena


  • Laura - January 1, 2010 at 6:35 pm

  • Scot, how I wish I could convince my boss that micromanaging is crazy. But he thinks it is a GREAT idea. I cannot even send out an e-mail without printing it off first for his approval. It is EXHAUSTING. I have been thought of as an excellent administrative assistant by every person I have ever worked for, but nothing I do is good enough. That proposal was completed in 10 minutes? Why wasn’t it done in 6? 500 mail merge letters sent in 3 hours? What took you so long?

    My only question is how do I spot a boss like this during the interview process, so that I don’t go out of the frying pan and into the fire? Yes, even in this economy, recruiters are calling me for interviews. So I am ready to go, but very gun-shy, as you can understand. What questions can I ask properly, without sounding like I am complaining about my current situation to find out what type of environment I am going into?


  • Derek - January 23, 2010 at 12:21 pm

  • What are micromanagers (or worse micromanaging CEOs) doing instead of reading this? Why Micromanaging! Nice letter into the firewall. Hope it survives. :(


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