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AND
YOU THOUGHT YOUR BOSS WAS BAD
By Robert McGarvey
Nearly
eight in 10 employees are victims of a micromanaging
boss. Here's how to cope.
The
margins are wrong. The period is in the wrong place
. That should be a semicolon, not a dash.
THOSE
WORDS RANG in Rebecca Weingartens ears every time
her unit turned in work to her supervisor. Everything
came back covered in red ink, says Weingarten, who now
can look back and see her team as a classic victim of
micromanagement. Under her old boss, Weingartens job
performance had been considered exemplary. But with
her new supervisor, suddenly, everything Weingartens
unit touched needed dramatic improvement and was accompanied
with a blistering critique. I felt frazzled like a kid
again. Controlled. Everything started falling to pieces,
says Weingarten, who ultimately fled her job and now
is a New Yorkbased career coach who, not surprisingly,
often works with victims of micromanagement. Ive been
through it. I know how terrible it feels.
We
are in a micromanagement pandemic, says Dr. Robert Trestman,
vice chair for clinical affairs at the University of
Connecticut Health Center. Its so widespread that 79
percent of us say we have been micromanaged, reports
Harry Chambers, author of My Way or the Highway:
The Micromanagement Survival Guide. Chambers says
71 percent of us indicate that micromanagement has interfered
with our job performance, and 85 percent say morale
has suffered as a result. How could it be otherwise?
A micromanaging boss, by definition, robs an employee
of independence and freedom to do the task. Suddenly,
every speck of work has to be put under a managerial
microscope and, usually, subjected to endless rounds
of criticism as a micromanager painstakingly deconstructs
the job until, finally, its exactly as it would be had
he done it himself.
Nightmare
stories are abundant. Just ask Pamela Yaeger, a communications
expert from Long Island, New York, who says that, at
a past job, her micromanaging boss would literally time
staffers bathroom breaks. When they seemed too long,
shed stick her head in the door and yell, Breaks over.
Back to work! That boss, like all classic micromanagers,
wanted to script every minute of her subordinates day.
She wanted to know what I was doing every second. If
she sent me an e-mail at nine a.m. and I hadnt responded
by 9:05, shed fire off another e-mail: Are you ignoring
my e-mail?? This bosss favorite line, adds Yaeger, was:
I order you to....
Joni
Kirk, who now lives in Moscow, Idaho, knows that story
line all too well. Her micromanaging boss would log
on to her subordinates computers and delete e-mails
she felt they shouldnt answer. She also told us that
when we signed documents, we could only use black ink,
says Kirk. She liked degrading us. Shed loudly say in
front of everybody, I need to speak with you, and shed
go into a tirade about a perceived mistake. She liked
doing that in front of everybody. Instilling terror
is another hallmark of the micromanager. Frightened
workers are that much more pliable.
Chicagoan
Kingsley Day, now in the Department of University Relations
at Northwestern University, says he can go one better:
His micromanaging boss at a former job expected workers
to log hours long into the night and on weekends. I
once heard him yell at somebody, I never see you here
after 10 at night!? This boss also had a peculiar prejudice
against zip codes. We were banned from using them, reports
Day. That boss was so determined to eradicate zip codes,
he would even sneak into the mail room to prowl for
envelopes that defied his ban. When he found them, he
trashed them, no matter what was inside. He also, like
clockwork, annually announced a reorganization of office
assignments, where we all had to shift office spaces.
Why? He wanted us to know he was in charge. That urge
to take vivid control is another hallmark of a hard-core
micromanager. When workers feel off balance, micromanagers
feel that much more in control.
What
triggers micromanagement impulses? Judith E. Glaser,
author of The DNA of Leadership, says there are
three main causes. The first is an extreme detail orientation
(also known as perfectionism). This kind of manager
will always need to stick in refinements, says Glaser.
Second: Some managers really just love to micromanage;
that is, he or she believes he is the center of the
universe. This persona is also known as the Diva, says
Glaser. And third: When the manager is nervous about
results, it can trigger micromanagement.
Meditate
on Glasers third type, probably the most common cause,
and suddenly, the reasons for the epidemic become clear.
For 10 years, management slots have been under attack,
as organizations have trimmed budgets. When anxiety
over that business reality gets out of control, an easy
upshot is micromanaging. Insecurity is pandemic, too,
among managers, says Trestman. There are strong pressures
for productivity. Many managers have never been trained
how to manage. These managers feel a lot of anxiety.
Most micromanagers frankly feel they are doing what
they need to do to produce quality work.
Thats the stumbling block facing an employee who feels
micromanaged and who suffers the resulting problems
(poor morale, lack of creativity, no enthusiasm about
the job). When a boss feels he or she is doing only
what must be done, where can change arise?
Philadelphia
employment lawyer and human resources specialist Robin
Bond draws upon her personal experience from a past
job. I know about micromanagers. At an in-house counsel
position where I worked, I had to photocopy every document
I produced for review by my boss before it went out.
Everything. She read everything and always had comments
and changes. I had to learn to build a lot of time into
every workday just to communicate with her. As long
as I communicated with her, she was happy, even if I
wasnt getting much done.
Getting
along and going along is one coping strategy. Another
is to just quit.
But there may be a shrewder way. Executive coach and
leadership trainer Marcia Reynolds whispers the word
she says every micromanaged employee needs to know:
aikido. Thats a martial art where the key is to turn
an opponents force back against him with clever footwork,
leverage, and ducking. Dont see how that applies to
work? Reynolds says that when she had a micromanager
for a boss, she consulted a therapist who told her:
He's doing the best he can. Don't fight, don't push
back, don't resist. That will only make the micromanager
do it harder, says Reynolds. The therapist didnt expect
Reynolds to quietly suffer, however. He told me to model
what I wanted from my boss. In other words, to act as
though he were the worlds best boss with the worlds
best employee. A funny thing happened: When I stopped
resisting him, he started trusting me. When there no
longer was any resistance, he quit fighting. Doing that
really empowered me. This definitely isnt giving up,
says Reynolds, who at that time held a senior human
resources position in a semiconductor company. When
you model what you want, sometimes thats exactly what
you will get.
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Creating
WE with employees, can be orchestrated by engaging
individuals at all levels in unearthing and sharing
best practices that come from within the organization.
Seeking best practices shifts the focus from I to We,
and from withholding to sharing. This process releases
new energy for collaboration and raises the Cultural
IQ. In addition, once best practices become transparent,
it’s easier to focus larger groups of people in the
organization on integrating them into everyday life
across the organization.
View
an example of WE-centric culture:
Author
American Way contributing editor Robert McGarvey
frequently covers management issues for the magazine.
His work also has appeared in Harvard Business Review,
the New York Times, and Fortune.
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