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I look at it a bit less negatively. I think there are people who believe in micro-management. Most micro-managers don't think of themselves as such, but it isn'

I look at it a bit less negatively. I think there are people who believe in micro-management. Most micro-managers don't think of themselves as such, but it isn't really up to them. IMO you know you are looking at micro-management when negative outcomes are dominated by decision fatigue on the part of the micro-manager. I call it decision fatigue because I generally assume my manager is a smart guy. A micro-manager's first instinct is to find something to change whether it is needed or not. Don't give it to them. Make them ask questions and work through the problem themselves. If they are allowed to skip to the end you tend to find they end up off in the weeds and are dogmatically opposed to retreading ground where they have made a mistake or an incorrect assumption. That's your Mad Men style turn a no into a yes sort of situation and you are going to be fighting against the decision fatigue your manager is feeling because they micro-manage :-) This is the same strategy I use when mentoring or managing. If I can't convince someone who thinks they are subordinate to me then how do I know I am right? How do I equip them to come to the correct conclusion on their own in the future? I generally ask people to articulate rather than trying to figure it out myself because I am usually juggling N other balls and they can do it faster and better. I care a lot less about larger organizational issues. Why take on someone else's responsibility? Employees are free to leave at any time in the current environment so why borrow trouble? Are you expecting someone to thank you?

derefr 11y ago
That's "manager"-style micromanagement. There's also "lead"-style micromanagement: someone who was in the trenches handling everything, and now is supposed to delegate and manage others, but doesn't necessarily know how—their first instinct is still to do everything themselves, and when they don't have enough time, to micromanage whoever is doing it so that the result will come out the same as if they did it themselves. I wish there was a single book I could hand to these people, or a training course I could suggest for them, because they frequently know they have a problem "letting go" but don't know what to do about it. If such a book existed, I could imagine it becoming the standard "gift" a VC gives a founder the day they hire their first salaried employee. ;)
- arielweisberg 11y ago
  I recently read "The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development"[1] that was recommended to me. Some of it was familiar. Some of it was new. The language used and how the book articulates the reasoning behind various strategies has been invaluable to me in expressing to others why something is a tractable problem as opposed to an unavoidable one that is just the cost of doing business. To date I have not succeeded in getting anyone to read it though. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Principles-Product-Development-Flow/dp/1935401009 http://www.amazon.com/The-Principles-Product-Development-Flo...
- Retric 11y ago
  >Letting go. Delegation means someone else is making important choices without your input. This is a good thing. Effective management means managing People, Resources, and Goals not execution.
copsarebastards 11y ago
This is exactly why I think that managers are counterproductive to the success of technical products and should not have the authority to make these kinds of decisions. If you can't solve problems, you have no business managing people who can. If I'm really making the decisions, I shouldn't have to give up credit for the decisions I've made, or make someone else feel like they were useful when they weren't to feed their ego. Managers in many tech companies are just secretaries who somehow were given titles, authority, and pay that makes it seem like they are the decision makers, when in fact their only value is to handle the paperwork and PR so that the actual problem solvers can solve the problems. It's unfortunate, because it's really holding our entire industry back.
- lordCarbonFiber 11y ago
  I vehemently disagree with this sentiment. Not to argue against the existence of bad managers (nearly everyone has an anecdote from one time or another), but that doesn't diminish the worth of a strong manager (especially in larger organizations). A good manager of technical team server 2 main purposes in my mind. The first is an insulation between the team and and the outside world. Your "problem solvers" aren't going to get anything done if they spend their entire days negotiating with clients or fielding reqs from other departments. Secondly, a good manager acts as a focusing lens for the team. This allows the individual member to concentrate on any given technical problem without needing to expend the bandwidth to constantly come back to how their piece needs to work into the bigger picture. There might be a whole host of things holding the tech industry back but the idea of the manager certainly isn't one of them.
  - derefr 11y ago
    If you just want a position that gives the people around them those two benefits—without assuming where the position would sit on the org chart—then you will notice there exist a lot of other, similar jobs, that do not also possess the assumption of "supervising" and "being responsible for" the output of the people around them. For example, what you're describing fits closely to the idea of a shared administrative assistant. Or a talent agent. Or a sports coach (or "team manager", which is a misnomer.) Or a diplomatic envoy. None of these people are the boss of the people they work with; they assist the people they work with in getting things done. They do not hire or fire the people they work with; they are not blamed for the incompetence of the people they work with; and they have no incentive to play politics with the lives of the people they work with for the sake of a promotion. Their job is purely to help their team work, and to deflect things that prevent work. Personally, I think we could use way more of these types of "pure interfacer" people in companies; and, in so having them, the need for "managers" would decline sharply. There'd still be some managers—people whose job is to take ultimate responsibility for the output of a group, and who are thus incentivized to direct and reorganize that group. But, with the jobs of keeping the team protected and glued-together taken care of, the active role of "manager" would be reduced enough that they could either be scaled across greater numbers of people, or could be a "manager" for their own group as an accessory role to their regular job.

derefr 11y ago

That's "manager"-style micromanagement. There's also "lead"-style micromanagement: someone who was in the trenches handling everything, and now is supposed to delegate and manage others, but doesn't necessarily know how—their first instinct is still to do everything themselves, and when they don't have enough time, to micromanage whoever is doing it so that the result will come out the same as if they did it themselves. I wish there was a single book I could hand to these people, or a training course I could suggest for them, because they frequently know they have a problem "letting go" but don't know what to do about it. If such a book existed, I could imagine it becoming the standard "gift" a VC gives a founder the day they hire their first salaried employee. ;)

arielweisberg 11y ago
I recently read "The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development"[1] that was recommended to me. Some of it was familiar. Some of it was new. The language used and how the book articulates the reasoning behind various strategies has been invaluable to me in expressing to others why something is a tractable problem as opposed to an unavoidable one that is just the cost of doing business. To date I have not succeeded in getting anyone to read it though. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Principles-Product-Development-Flow/dp/1935401009 http://www.amazon.com/The-Principles-Product-Development-Flo...
Retric 11y ago
>Letting go. Delegation means someone else is making important choices without your input. This is a good thing. Effective management means managing People, Resources, and Goals not execution.

copsarebastards 11y ago

This is exactly why I think that managers are counterproductive to the success of technical products and should not have the authority to make these kinds of decisions. If you can't solve problems, you have no business managing people who can. If I'm really making the decisions, I shouldn't have to give up credit for the decisions I've made, or make someone else feel like they were useful when they weren't to feed their ego. Managers in many tech companies are just secretaries who somehow were given titles, authority, and pay that makes it seem like they are the decision makers, when in fact their only value is to handle the paperwork and PR so that the actual problem solvers can solve the problems. It's unfortunate, because it's really holding our entire industry back.

lordCarbonFiber 11y ago
I vehemently disagree with this sentiment. Not to argue against the existence of bad managers (nearly everyone has an anecdote from one time or another), but that doesn't diminish the worth of a strong manager (especially in larger organizations). A good manager of technical team server 2 main purposes in my mind. The first is an insulation between the team and and the outside world. Your "problem solvers" aren't going to get anything done if they spend their entire days negotiating with clients or fielding reqs from other departments. Secondly, a good manager acts as a focusing lens for the team. This allows the individual member to concentrate on any given technical problem without needing to expend the bandwidth to constantly come back to how their piece needs to work into the bigger picture. There might be a whole host of things holding the tech industry back but the idea of the manager certainly isn't one of them.
- derefr 11y ago
  If you just want a position that gives the people around them those two benefits—without assuming where the position would sit on the org chart—then you will notice there exist a lot of other, similar jobs, that do not also possess the assumption of "supervising" and "being responsible for" the output of the people around them. For example, what you're describing fits closely to the idea of a shared administrative assistant. Or a talent agent. Or a sports coach (or "team manager", which is a misnomer.) Or a diplomatic envoy. None of these people are the boss of the people they work with; they assist the people they work with in getting things done. They do not hire or fire the people they work with; they are not blamed for the incompetence of the people they work with; and they have no incentive to play politics with the lives of the people they work with for the sake of a promotion. Their job is purely to help their team work, and to deflect things that prevent work. Personally, I think we could use way more of these types of "pure interfacer" people in companies; and, in so having them, the need for "managers" would decline sharply. There'd still be some managers—people whose job is to take ultimate responsibility for the output of a group, and who are thus incentivized to direct and reorganize that group. But, with the jobs of keeping the team protected and glued-together taken care of, the active role of "manager" would be reduced enough that they could either be scaled across greater numbers of people, or could be a "manager" for their own group as an accessory role to their regular job.