Micro Management

Micro Management means excessive control or attention on minor details. It is defined as attention to small details in management, control a person or a situation paying excessive attention to micro details. 

Micromanagement can stretch to any social context where one person takes a bully approach in the level of control and influence over the members of a group. It is management where a manager closely observes, control, or remind the work of their subordinates or employees.

In reality, it’s a way for management to ensure that the tasks are performed in a very precise manner. The problem is this,it isn’t always the right or most productive way of doing things. It sounds like someone trying to personally control and monitor everything in a team, place, or situation. This usually results in the manager losing track of the larger picture and annoying the team by being over-controlling. They would either watch your every move or task, progress report more often than is necessary, they would likely punish you for the slightest mistake. 

If you feel like someone is always sticking their eyes on your work, picking apart every mistake or deviation without due cause, your boss is probably a micromanager. 

The Pros and Cons of Micro-Management

It’s not always a bad thing. It is helpful when the team is small and the problems tend to arise when the company grows and the manager can no longer effectively keep up with those elements. 

Pros of micromanagement

While the negatives of micromanagement quickly stand up in a crowd, it serves a definite purpose for small teams and specific projects or situations. Like,

• It allows accurate knowledge of matrix and minutes.
• It can help on-board employees.
• Gives greater control.
• It makes complex and custom operations more reliable to execute.

Micromanage is to have control over the operation. The manager has reported back to them with frequent status reports, letting them check that everything is being done according to their standards and this is turning in, great for guiding small teams and new employees.

Extra guidance and instructions help on-board employees faster and the smaller team can perform consistently without putting too much strain on the manager. In other words, when there is not too much information, the person who is micromanaging it can be a detailed and valid approach. There are also some benefits of micromanaging when dealing with highly complex or customized order. These will usually require a great deal of instruction according to the order, which can be provided and tracked if a micromanagement approach is taken. 

Cons of Micro-Management

The problem always arises when teams get longer or when employees start to restrained.

Now come to the negative and the main reasons we often think of ‘Micromanagement’ as a dirty word.

• It is vulnerable to human error on both sides.
• Damages employee trust.
• This leads to burnout in managers and teams alike.
• Annoys employees.
• Isn’t scalable at all.
• Makes managers lose sight of the big picture.
• Increases employee turnover rate.
• It can cause employees to become dependent on micromanagement.

Even if you are working in a small team, imagine your manager is asking for a constant progress report, it’s quite annoying, watching your work like a hawk and criticizing both mistakes and deviations from their methods. In micromanaging you are telling your employees that you don’t trust them enough to work on their own and still produce good results. This makes the employee getting annoyed with the manager and damages the trust they have in their higher-ups.

In other words, micromanaging employees doesn’t just angry. It makes employees further micromanagement to do their job. 

Micromanagement isn’t scalable. Think about it – someone is having to spend their whole day in reporting and reviewing the fine details of what their team is doing. At some point, the micromanager can’t keep up with everything leading to either mistake due to burnout or oversight. 

What are the Issues Create Micro-Management?

Micromanagement creates many issues like: 

• Loss of control.
• Loss of trust.
• Dependent employees.
• Your burnout.
• High turnover of staff.
• Lack of autonomy. 

Loss of control: 

When you micromanage your staff, the management tool at your destruction become very narrowed, until the only tool you have in reach is control. And the funny part of control is that when it’s your only means of management, you always end up losing it. It is important to acknowledge that there are many valid styles of management and every staff member reacts differently to each.

Loss of trust:

Micromanagement will eventually lead to a massive break down of trust, your staff will no longer see you as manager but a despot whose only desire is to wall up its staff until the only thing they see is a job. When trust is gone, two things that happen are a serious loss of productivity along with the loss of employees. 

Dependent employees:

After being micromanaged, your employee will begin to depend on you even for the smallest thing, rather than having the confidence to perform tasks on their own. Micromanagement makes your staff feel like they can’t handle the work without your constant guidance. You have to remember that employees were hired to bring something new to the table with their skills, talent, and insights all unique to each staff member. This will lead employees to depend upon their managers and kill their skills to innovate or present their talent in front of management.

Your burnout:

This is one big and the main reason that micromanagement is something you should never practice, it’s downright exhausting. Looking over so many shoulders for smallest to smallest things every day will very quickly burn you out. Eventually, you’ll grow to hate your job, hate it enough and you may even end up leaving it, never wanting to revisit a management role. Burnout is always a danger in any job, but energy burned while micromanaging will burn that wick faster than anything. 

High turnover of staff:

Most people don’t take well to being micromanaged. When employees are micromanaged they often do two things, either stop giving their effort or quit the job. Considering the reasons why managers micromanage – ego, insecurity, perfectionism, arrogance, inexperience, it’s simply not worth the high turnover rate. It affects the company’s bottom line and destroys morale. This will crush the spirit of your employees.

Lack of autonomy:

In micromanagement, your employees begin to feel like they are losing their autonomy. When this happens they will slowly lose their interest and desire to do anything but that which you demand. No one will step outside of the box or go the extra mile or a task.