Experience: Micro Managing- The Bane in the Indian Corporate world

Micro Managing! Everybody must have heard about this and if you ask anybody they would say no not me I don’t do such things. Well Think Again! Micromanaging in India is becoming quite rampant and the worst part is team leaders and management fail to see the signs. Let’s take a case for instance which I am quite familiar with. Due to the ongoing recession and year of no work Larry recently joined a startup firm out of desperation and 1 year sabbatical of no work. He put his heart and soul into this product that the company was building. During those beginning years the client was very close to his team of designers during work. It was more like hovering over each every pixel and toilets breaks they took, a team of 3 designers churning 10-15 designs a day.

Larry, put his heart and soul to it and kept on producing result day by day. Whereas the other two designers who had lesser work experience than Larry found it difficult to keep up with the demands of the client, the time to understand the project was not there, frequent clashes of ideas, disagreements and disappointments and constant pressure, led to factory work like settings in the office.  Larry due to his years of experience found the task provided to him quite natural and kept on churning results.  In matter of 3 months the product was rolled out patched and ready for the demo.  In the background the damage to the team morale and work attitude was already set in motion and this was the beginning of an End in creative thinking.

After the product Demo and due to enthusiasm in the work Larry did, Larry was named the team lead for this design team. Though he tried his best to wiggle out of it he could not. His instincts told him that the damage was creeping up but he also knew that he had very demanding boss who wanted an hour by hour detail of what the team was doing and he felt he was getting played by the client. Changes started setting in Larry began to feel the slowdown in his work and his mode.  He was beginning to question his own motives and his own drives and wondering if it was worth all the effort. It was then he realized that he was leading to fail and that took his drive away from the project, this in turn lead to crippling of the company design team which later effected the product itself.

Let us see what the negatives that set this in motion were:

1. Micro managing the employees for an each and every hour
2. Sudden responsibilities placed on Larry made him doubt himself and failure to take responsibility
3. Making the Larry sit with his team mates which lead to commenting and micro managing on each and everything that the individual was doing
4. Larry started seeing reasons in employee disagreements and started siding with the employees and failed to see the big picture
5. Expecting the team to catch up with his years of experience in matter of 3 months
6. Management provided the team lead and designers the same compensatory benefit and not on the basis of  his/her experience
7. Larry expected the team to catch up with his experience much too fast.
8. Team lead is not appraised of the developments within the management.
9. Though being a team-lead, management failed to use the years of work experience that the team lead had or is willing to give to company.

Preventive measures that can be taken by the management:

1. Place  the Larry seating location away from his team and monitor only by providing clear guidelines and by setting  clear defined targets
2. Provide time and training to counsel the team
3. Management must consult with their employees when they make a decision whether it is project related or management decision.
4. Management should be approachable and give considerations to employee suggestions and feedback
5. Management must set clear guidelines for the team so that match up with the experience and skill
6. Management should understand that employee is only good, based on the research he does and when he is up to date on the matter at hand
7. Work hours should not be confined to work alone – A little diversion, would help employees to take step back and looking at a problem in different perspective.
8. Clear communication should be set from management to employees.
9. Management should be considerate and should not undervalue opinions or suggestions of the employees

Finally, Micromanaging should never be adopted! It doesn’t give you control of project it only paves way for high employee turnover, which in turn will lead to more time and money spent by the management to train the new comer. Management and team lead should recognize the signs and take corrective measure immediately otherwise it will lead to CHAOS and it will be too late to stop.