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Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

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Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#21

Post by spaetzleesser »

shoto_io wrote: post #2

Ok, I am going to be brutally honest here. Some may not like it. Micromanaging is complicated. When I was in a leadership position I was the happiest boss when I could let people just do their thing and come back with great results and we'd be all happy. And that's how I loved working with my bosses before as well. But then again, I had some employees I had to micromanage. I really, really abhorred it. But there was…

Agreed. I generally make an effort to trust people to do the right thing but some people don’t do well managing themselves. I think it suspect important for a manager to be able to adapt to people’s styles. Some people need and often prefer to be micromanaged whereas others hate it. You either have the choice to only hire people who fit your style or you have to adapt to individual people.

However, if as employee you feel micromanaged and don’t like it, it’s probably best to leave or switch to a different team. Otherwise it’s a miserable experience.

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#22

Post by lazide »

ljm wrote: post #3
shoto_io wrote: post #2

Ok, I am going to be brutally honest here. Some may not like it. Micromanaging is complicated. When I was in a leadership position I was the happiest boss when I could let people just do their thing and come back with great results and we'd be all happy. And that's how I loved working with my bosses before as well. But then again, I had some employees I had to micromanage. I really, really abhorred it. But there was…

> The truth is probably that I should have gotten into more serious talks with those employees instead. Did you take the micromanaging approach because you didn't open a channel for feedback between you and the team? Micromanagement is one thing: a lack of trust. You micromanage because you don't trust, or maybe they don't trust either. So, what do you do to build up trust? You talk. Note that this is different to ac…

Sometimes you end up with someone who can’t do the job that they were hired for, or won’t, without constant direction. Sometimes they come into the job this way, sometimes factors outside of your control put them here.

Sometimes you can have a Frank discussion about it, or regular ‘adult’ type discussion, and there is something that can be done that fixes it, and it can be fixed. That is not always the case. Sometimes the person is fundamentally incapable of doing the work (rare), or in a place they can’t care about or don’t want to do it - but won’t or can’t acknowledge it.

Re:accountability - there are many different definitions one can use for what this really means. The clearest I am familiar with is ‘if you can’t or won’t do the job to standard, and there is no special circumstance like a leave that should be applied, you don’t have that job anymore’.

That is easier said than done in many business environments.

I’ve worked in places where someone literally not doing any useful work was going on a year+ of dragging on with the team, constantly changing reasons for why they couldn’t do the job, and killing the teams morale. Literally 4 layers of management involved in HR processes trying to drive this to a useful conclusion, but new buttons being pushed every month by the employee and a highly risk adverse HR/Corp culture meant the situation couldn’t be resolved. All this on top of 6 months of coaching and attempting to help this individual be a productive member of the team.

These environments all require micromanagement of low performers as part of the performance management process - it’s the way things have to be to get the documentation and proof of coaching for CYA.

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#23

Post by skrebbel »

ljm wrote: post #3
shoto_io wrote: post #2

Ok, I am going to be brutally honest here. Some may not like it. Micromanaging is complicated. When I was in a leadership position I was the happiest boss when I could let people just do their thing and come back with great results and we'd be all happy. And that's how I loved working with my bosses before as well. But then again, I had some employees I had to micromanage. I really, really abhorred it. But there was…

> The truth is probably that I should have gotten into more serious talks with those employees instead. Did you take the micromanaging approach because you didn't open a channel for feedback between you and the team? Micromanagement is one thing: a lack of trust. You micromanage because you don't trust, or maybe they don't trust either. So, what do you do to build up trust? You talk. Note that this is different to ac…

I think you're oversimplifying. I bet that what you're saying may work fine in a factory line, but when we're talking creative work such as programming, holding people to account without zooming in deep sometimes is impossible.

If a designer makes an unresponsive site, the manager can just say "hey do a responsive design tutorial". But if the designer gets all kinds of patterns or structures or the company design language just wrong, it's very hard to discuss that without making the designer feel like you're micromanaging them.

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#25

Post by spaetzleesser »

logicslave wrote: post #15
barbazoo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My life is too short to put up with being treated like a slave. > logicslave 2 minutes ago That made me chuckle. On a serious note though, why not start by talking about it first? Why not say what you're experiencing, how it makes you feel, and see how your manager responds? Unless you work in total isolation, which few of us do, we have to get along with other people. And talking about things usually is the way to…

It almost never resolves. Ive been doing this for ten years now. People accept too much abuse from their employers, and if more just simply walked out on this behavior then we would all be better off.

I tend to agree. As an employee the chances of changing your manager’s behavior are extremely low.

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#26

Post by barbazoo »

logicslave wrote: post #15
barbazoo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My life is too short to put up with being treated like a slave. > logicslave 2 minutes ago That made me chuckle. On a serious note though, why not start by talking about it first? Why not say what you're experiencing, how it makes you feel, and see how your manager responds? Unless you work in total isolation, which few of us do, we have to get along with other people. And talking about things usually is the way to…

It almost never resolves. Ive been doing this for ten years now. People accept too much abuse from their employers, and if more just simply walked out on this behavior then we would all be better off.

I've been in the industry longer than that and I never had an issue that couldn't be at least mitigated, if not resolved through communication. Obviously it's easier to just walk out the door and that's a totally valid option. I just think it wouldn't allow me to grow in any way.

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#27

Post by marcinzm »

shoto_io wrote: post #2

Ok, I am going to be brutally honest here. Some may not like it. Micromanaging is complicated. When I was in a leadership position I was the happiest boss when I could let people just do their thing and come back with great results and we'd be all happy. And that's how I loved working with my bosses before as well. But then again, I had some employees I had to micromanage. I really, really abhorred it. But there was…

>But before you fire people, you have to invest to be absolutely sure you're doing the right thing.

I disagree. It's like parents who spend all their time on the problem child, and then the children who are doing well become bitter and resentful. You're neglecting the rest of the team for one individual, who they all probably see is problematic, which is not a good way to run a team.

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#28

Post by clint »

majormajor wrote: post #10
ljm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is probably that I should have gotten into more serious talks with those employees instead. Did you take the micromanaging approach because you didn't open a channel for feedback between you and the team? Micromanagement is one thing: a lack of trust. You micromanage because you don't trust, or maybe they don't trust either. So, what do you do to build up trust? You talk. Note that this is different to ac…

> So, what do you do to build up trust? You talk. What do you do when talking leads to them saying "I understand, next time I'll either get it done faster, or let you know when I realize it's gonna slip" but then what actually happens is that it slips without them giving you any updates again after all? Repeatedly? Talking doesn't build trust when the actions don't match the talk.

You fire them. What's so difficult about that?

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#29

Post by petee »

shoto_io wrote: post #2

Ok, I am going to be brutally honest here. Some may not like it. Micromanaging is complicated. When I was in a leadership position I was the happiest boss when I could let people just do their thing and come back with great results and we'd be all happy. And that's how I loved working with my bosses before as well. But then again, I had some employees I had to micromanage. I really, really abhorred it. But there was…

I read a good book about management recently that pretty much defined the need for micromanagement as either lack of training, and/or lack of clear expectations and appropriate resolution when those expectations are broken.

The sum of it is an employee that knows the right way, and is given the freedom to do that will make the correct choices, if they fail occasionally that's ok. If they can't be trained, or refused to follow the expectations, then they need another job.

Micromanagement will just repress those employees further where they'll be too afraid to make their own decisions.

Humorously, the book is called "It's your Ship", by a navy captain who turned the worst ship in the navy into the top ship

Re: Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss

#30

Post by moshmosh »

barbazoo wrote: post #11
logicslave wrote: post #6

The way I deal with it is by leaving the team immediately. My life is too short to put up with being treated like a slave. I am too good at programming.

> My life is too short to put up with being treated like a slave. > logicslave 2 minutes ago That made me chuckle. On a serious note though, why not start by talking about it first? Why not say what you're experiencing, how it makes you feel, and see how your manager responds? Unless you work in total isolation, which few of us do, we have to get along with other people. And talking about things usually is the way to…

That may work sometimes, but most of the time you're going to run into one of two problems, and possibly both at the same time:

1) Micromanaging is often co-morbid with other bad-boss habits. These may make attempts at "managing" your boss toward improvement unrealistic and even highly ill-advised.

2) If your boss is micromanaging you, this is a strong signal that their opinion of you is already somewhere around the Earth's core (unless they just do it to everyone, but then, see #1). Your best bet is trying to honestly evaluate why there was a mis-match so it doesn't happen again (even if the problem truly is them, not you, it's worth reflecting on what exactly about them is the problem and how to spot it early next time) and look for another opportunity. That'll be much faster & more pleasant than trying to dig out of that hole.

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