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In Praise of Micromanagement

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the keeping-an-eye-on-things dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Sydney Finkelstein writes at BBC that Steve Jobs, Mickey Drexler, and Jeff Bezos all have something in common. They are all builders of giant brands, very successful, and each is (or was) 'an unmitigated, unapologetic, micromanager!' The modern executive is taught — in business schools and in many jobs — that to manage people effectively is to delegate, and then get out of the way. But it's not delegate and forget says Finkelstein; it must be delegate and be intimately involved with what happens next. Micromanagers must be selective. You can't delve into the details of everything, and in fact superstar micromanagers don't. 'Steve Jobs was intimately involved with each product the company designed, and was even famously involved in designing the glass stairs at the Apple stores. But financial and operational issues were delegated to second-in-command and current Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook.' One key is that micromanagers must be experts. What could be worse than a manager immersed in the details who really doesn't know his stuff? Finally, it takes a strong, trusted team to be a micromanager. Could Steve Jobs have spent weeks with the iPhone design team if there was no one else to mind the store? If not for Tim Cook, perhaps the legend of Steve Jobs would not have turned out quite so well. 'The good news is that the best micromanagers are often the best talent developers,' writes Finkelstein. 'Their attention to detail, their intimate knowledge of the business and their deep involvement in what's going on actually enables more, not less, delegation.'"

9 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What could be worse than a manager immersed in the details who really doesn't know his stuff?

    I don't know but knowing your stuff probably has a bigger impact than micromanaging.

    1. Re: Experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Plus pretty sure that Jobs and co micomanage projects, not people...

      Most micromanaging dunces these days barely knows what kind of business their company is doing. Therefore are reduced to tell you when to poop or how to sharpen your crayons...

    2. Re:Experts by OneAhead · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What could be worse than a manager immersed in the details who really doesn't know his stuff?

      I don't know but knowing your stuff probably has a bigger impact than micromanaging.

      I'd say that someone who really knows their stuff will have an inherent tendency to micromanage to a certain degree. If you're leading a project and have the big picture about exactly where you want that project to go, you'll want certain things to be done in certain ways just because you know that will work better with what other people are doing or with the things you're planning to try in the future. As long as the micromanager can still keep track of the big picture and give his or her employees a feeling of being trusted, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't mind being micromanaged, provided that the person intruding in my work clearly knows the aspect of the work they're intruding in much better than me. It's great to learn from people who really know their stuff.

    3. Re:Experts by MrBigInThePants · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1) Watch a select group of super famous people who were successful for a wide variety of reasons - including many that had nothing to do with them in particular.
      2) Latch on to something they do.
      3) Proclaim that as the source of all their success.
      4) Ignore any counter examples and in fact never look for them.
      5) Pretend you are not completely full of shit.

      Why of why oh fucking why do people keep doing this?!?!

    4. Re: Experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, Jobs didn't tell people HOW to do stuff he just told them things like the results are crap or it has too many visible screws, it's the wrong colour, needs more rounded corners, it's not insanely great. Or it's finally insanely great.

      To back me up: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-engineers-are-being-micromanaged-by-corporate-2012-5

      He's like a food critic who usually knows what he wants and has high standards for many areas. Doesn't tell those in the kitchen how to cook, but sure tells them when it's not good enough. You can do it whatever way you want but come tasting time you better produce something good enough for him.

      Jobs was not a micromanager and the writer is clueless.

  2. What's the lesson here? by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can't really extrapolate from a handful of CEOs what a good management strategy is. Very, very few managers are CEOs, or ever will be.

    And is what's being described here even micromanagement? It's one thing to "micromanage" by insisting that your products meet your standards, it's another to insist on specific details like underlying technologies or what color the office chairs should be.

    On the flip side, there's certain aspects of the old "HP Way" that could be described as micromanagement. But I guess it would be toxic to even mention HP when you're talking about best practices in running a company these days.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    1. Re:What's the lesson here? by RabidReindeer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You can't really extrapolate from a handful of CEOs what a good management strategy is. Very, very few managers are CEOs, or ever will be.

      And is what's being described here even micromanagement? It's one thing to "micromanage" by insisting that your products meet your standards, it's another to insist on specific details like underlying technologies or what color the office chairs should be.

      On the flip side, there's certain aspects of the old "HP Way" that could be described as micromanagement. But I guess it would be toxic to even mention HP when you're talking about best practices in running a company these days.

      I wouldn't call this "micromanagement". I'd call it "focussed management". The people in question determined what absolutely positively needed to be done right, studied their subject and homed in on it. They didn't second-guess paper-clip purchases, make idiot suggestions or otherwise do what makes micro-managing bad: interfering with people's work for trivial purposes.

  3. Steve Jobs on PCB traces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A micromanager who didn't know his stuff.

    http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=PC_Board_Esthetics.txt&characters=Steve%20Jobs&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=high&showcomments=1

  4. Recipe for web hits by LordLucless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) Make controversial statement (Micromanaging is good!)
    2) Redefine your terms so that actually, it's not that controversial (Micromanagers "can't delve into the details of everything")
    3) Spam your headline around the place
    4) Profit

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face