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Signs you might be a micromanager

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Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#51

Post by Minor49er »

chrisweekly wrote: post #36
Minor49er wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are referring to a situation that you're in, you should consider sharing this with your manager. If you are worried that something bad will come from it, then it might be a sign that it's time to get away from that job.

Thanks -- but no, for me personally it couldn't be farrher from the case. Meant broadly / generically, bc IME there's so much of this -- and IMHO it's often perpetrated unknowingly. A convenient mechanism to shed light could end a lot of misery.

Those mechanisms exist. The worker could talk to their boss about it. Failing that, they should go to their boss's boss or to HR.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#52

Post by brailsafe »

Lipsey wrote: post #8

Micromanaging might be one way to salvage a project that may have suffered due to inexperience on the part of the ones it was delegated to. In an ideal situation, to avoid micromanaging altogether, a manager must have extremely capable team members that are aligned with the common goal.

If the problem is that the members aren't aligned with the common goal, micromanagement would be a sure-fire way to get them to quit.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#53

Post by withinboredom »

telchar wrote: post #46
withinboredom wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For awhile there, I was “the second opinion” if you outsourced a project. You’d hire people like me to tell you if it really would take 100 man hours to make photo uploads faster, or did they really patch a security issue, etc. It was pretty neat to read so much closed source code. But more than once, the developer would send obfuscated code and claim that it was how they worked on it. Only once did someone say, “oop…

I'm curious, how would they obfuscate code and how could you tell?

Imagine every variable, class, file, and method name being gibberish with no comments. Also, no white space devs usually use to group related functionality in a method. You have to not only figure out what the heck is going on, but also why. It’s very difficult to figure out at first.

A normal code base has some (not always descriptive) names. But it’s at least useful for context.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#54

Post by pizlonator »

Alex3917 wrote: post #27
nharada wrote: post #9

I don't see one of the most important parts of how to stop micromanaging, which is to help your team grow . I don't mean add more people, I mean to grow the skills and competencies of the people already on it. I've noticed that often people micromanage because they don't trust their team, but it's not necessarily because the manager is a dumb narcissist who vetoes their team's brilliant ideas as some of these article…

> I've noticed that often people micromanage because they don't trust their team There's also some tasks that just shouldn't ever be done by one person. E.g. naming features and global classes and functions. There isn't any way to know if a name is intuitive to everyone else unless you actually ask everyone else. Although this the canonical example of bike shedding, I've never once had a discussion about what a bunch…

I feel like controlling naming is a great example of micromanagement. I mean, if in addition to manager you act as a code reviewer then as a code reviewer you might suggest a name. Or if you are an architect in addition to a manager and you came up with a name for a thing that was your idea, then cool. But if Jim or Jane came up with a thing and named it, global or not, then ideally they have an established process to have that reviewed (like as part of normal code review) and ideally the manager stays out of it unless they are part of that process as a reviewer (not as manager). The reviewer-not-as-manager part is crucial since it establishes trust: you’re saying to your folks they can have that authority at an equal level to you if only they are a code reviewer. Flexing the manager muscle isn’t the right thing there IMO.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#55

Post by nfriedly »

cocoa19 wrote: post #10

The opposite of micromanagement can be damaging as well. Let's call this "no management". I quit a job where I would only see the manager on 1-1 meetings, and was clueless about the state of the business and how to help team members succeed and get promoted. I stopped discussing work topics on the 1-1 meetings since I didn't see any point, and eventually quit, as well as other team members.

As a counterpoint, I think I did some of the best work to my career when I only talked to my manager every 3 to 6 months. I talked to other people on my team, I talked to our customers, and I figured out for myself what was important, and just did it.

I ended up shipping something that literally became the deal-maker for prospective customers who were considering us and a competitor.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#56

Post by cdavid »

unabst wrote: post #29

To some people managing equals micromanaging. They don't want to be told what to do at all. But then can they do it alone? No. And this is the dilemma. One solution is to hire more competent people and hand them the work. It's like outsourcing but inside. It's insourcing. And outsourcing works too. Place the work outside the business. This eliminates management. Another solution is to minimize the complexity of what…

Indeed. Some teams I took over complained to me I was micro managing them, because I was reviewing code and asking on a regular basis them when things would be done. The regular basis was once, max 2 a week, and I was not reviewing more than 1 PR / dev per month. They were used to no accountability, and ofc compared to that, everything feels like micro management.

Also, micromanagement gets a bad rep, but actually, figuring out when micro management is needed is also a skill. It depends on your own skills and availability, your team seniority, etc. Outside of very junior programmers, the need to micro manage is often a sign that you did not hire well, but managers don't always have a say in firing people.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#57

Post by cdavid »

bird_monster wrote: post #26

I was a micromanager when my team refused to go in the direction the rest of the company was going. My hiring was actually a trap, in that my job was mainly to fix and/or fire an entire team of people. Nobody on my team liked me, nor did they like the direction the company was going, so a nontrivial part of my job was monitoring that my team doing anything at all in the right direction. It was rough, because I was he…

Wow, asking a new manager to do this is terrible. You certainly did the right thing to get out as soon as you could.

That situation (team that refuses to 'get with the program') is actually one of the typical setup experienced managers have encountered in their career I think.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#58

Post by Alex3917 »

pizlonator wrote: post #54
Alex3917 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've noticed that often people micromanage because they don't trust their team There's also some tasks that just shouldn't ever be done by one person. E.g. naming features and global classes and functions. There isn't any way to know if a name is intuitive to everyone else unless you actually ask everyone else. Although this the canonical example of bike shedding, I've never once had a discussion about what a bunch…

I feel like controlling naming is a great example of micromanagement. I mean, if in addition to manager you act as a code reviewer then as a code reviewer you might suggest a name. Or if you are an architect in addition to a manager and you came up with a name for a thing that was your idea, then cool. But if Jim or Jane came up with a thing and named it, global or not, then ideally they have an established process t…

Yeah managers shouldn't be carte blanche naming things. Basically there should be discussions about names during the architecture phase of any project, and any name that gets flagged during code review should get brought up in some meeting that happens every couple weeks. What shouldn't be happening is passive aggressive comments constantly getting traded back and forth between developers and code reviewers.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#59

Post by c22 »

grecy wrote: post #25
cocoa19 wrote: post #10

The opposite of micromanagement can be damaging as well. Let's call this "no management". I quit a job where I would only see the manager on 1-1 meetings, and was clueless about the state of the business and how to help team members succeed and get promoted. I stopped discussing work topics on the 1-1 meetings since I didn't see any point, and eventually quit, as well as other team members.

I know all about this! I worked at a large Telco and after a year my manager retired. For the next 18 months I literally thought I didn't have a manager. Nobody ever came to check on me or assign me work (I had tickets to work on and fires to extinguish). When HR asked who my manager was and I had to tell them I didn't have one. They were shocked and explained that by default the manager of my previous manager became…

Of course he got promoted! They clearly determined he'd be better off with fewer direct reports and moved him up another rung.

Re: Signs you might be a micromanager

#60

Post by unabst »

unabst wrote: post #31
ilaksh wrote: post #4

I have heard Musk say that he is deeply involved in engineering. Makes me suspect he might be micromanaging. Or is what he does different?

I am sure he does. But he isn't a micromanager. He will do whatever it takes to get things done and done right. Same with Steve Jobs. If you can get it done and done right, you wouldn't hear a peep. No one at that level has issues with delegation either. It's far too much work and too many people. So what they activily manage are results. And because results involve people, you can get yourself steamrolled if you're…

Why is this being downvoted? Even in the cnbc article above, there is little "micromanaging" going on as far as I can tell. He has new ideas, rejects proven methods sometimes, and wants everything a certain way. But compare that with the list in the original article "signs you might be a micromanager" there is little in common.

Engineering requires attention to detail. A disgruntled employee can always pull out the micromanager card. And any executive coming down the chain to put out a fire or fix or change something will be deeply "on your case".

Think of it this way. If you work at Tesla is Elon your manager? No. Then if all managers at Tesla abide by a "code of micromanagement conduct" then I'll take that as valid evidence. Anything regarding executive decisions, preferences towards automation, and employee complaints? Not so relevant.

Is Elon perfect? No. The way he reopened his factory amidst Covid was disturbing to me. And although we have all these "Elon is a micromanager" pieces, the media generally gave him a pass regarding Covid. It was not brought up during his earning report reporting and no one seemed to care on HN either when commenting on earning related stories. But I guess it all depends where the voices are coming from.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-extreme-...

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