Micromanagement
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Napoleon said ‘If you want a thing done well, do it yourself’. There is no denial to this statement. We all can vouch for veracity of this statement from our experiences. But does this means that we should not delegate work? If one can, I would never suggest to delegate work, but this is simply not possible. If you have to achieve the larger goals then you have to delegate work.
This does not always mean you won’t get the desired result. The key is to manage the delegated work skillfully. If one wants to know ‘how not to do things’? I would suggest study ‘Enron Corporation’. The CEO of Enron who resigned just before the story was out Jeffrey K. Skilling, an MBA from Harvard University was one of the most unpopular among his colleagues. Though Kenneth Lay thought highly of me and said, “I don't think he has a non-strategic bone in his body". He always used to micromanage the projects (word from his colleagues) without taking care of the fundamentals.
It has never been a good idea to micromanage the work, after you have delegated it. Your employees need to be empowered so that they can take decisions on their own. If you want to delegate work and still take all the decisions, then it is sure shot recipe for disaster. What one should do is to have proper measurement system and checks in place.
Choosing proper measurement system is tricky and more so when you are choosing it for micromanagement. For example – productivity, efficiency, etc does not mean anything. Just like a balance sheet alone can’t tell about the health of a company so does productivity and efficiency for a task.
The point that I am trying to make is:-
Though it is best to do the work yourself, it becomes imperative to delegate work.
Once you have delegated the work, it is bad idea to micromanage it.
To still keep the work on track, have proper measurement system in place.
One should not go for conventional measurement system but anything that can measure and more importantly can communicate should be the choice.
It is in devising the measurement system ingenuity plays a big role.
Napoleon said ‘If you want a thing done well, do it yourself’. There is no denial to this statement. We all can vouch for veracity of this statement from our experiences. But does this means that we should not delegate work? If one can, I would never suggest to delegate work, but this is simply not possible. If you have to achieve the larger goals then you have to delegate work.
This does not always mean you won’t get the desired result. The key is to manage the delegated work skillfully. If one wants to know ‘how not to do things’? I would suggest study ‘Enron Corporation’. The CEO of Enron who resigned just before the story was out Jeffrey K. Skilling, an MBA from Harvard University was one of the most unpopular among his colleagues. Though Kenneth Lay thought highly of me and said, “I don't think he has a non-strategic bone in his body". He always used to micromanage the projects (word from his colleagues) without taking care of the fundamentals.
It has never been a good idea to micromanage the work, after you have delegated it. Your employees need to be empowered so that they can take decisions on their own. If you want to delegate work and still take all the decisions, then it is sure shot recipe for disaster. What one should do is to have proper measurement system and checks in place.
Choosing proper measurement system is tricky and more so when you are choosing it for micromanagement. For example – productivity, efficiency, etc does not mean anything. Just like a balance sheet alone can’t tell about the health of a company so does productivity and efficiency for a task.
The point that I am trying to make is:-
Though it is best to do the work yourself, it becomes imperative to delegate work.
Once you have delegated the work, it is bad idea to micromanage it.
To still keep the work on track, have proper measurement system in place.
One should not go for conventional measurement system but anything that can measure and more importantly can communicate should be the choice.
It is in devising the measurement system ingenuity plays a big role.
posted by greensatya @ 11:48 PM
11 Comments:
At 6:20 AM,
XVSA013 said…
Green ... seems you have got internet strain of Napolean fever ... :-)
Good I like this !!!!
At 6:29 AM,
Raj said…
Its not always a bad idea to micromanage. Sometimes the employees don't want to be empowered. Like when they are working on something mew for the first time. They want to be told each and every step. And then sometimes when you do empower them, they take stupid decisions and then eventually, you have to correct their mistakes.
At 7:04 AM,
Y said…
I concur with what you say and it is valid at most times. Actually in my opinion it becomes necessary when u r running a big corporation with several business units.Like Tata.
I kept track of Tata Motors, where Ratan had the vision of building an Indica. So he hired V Sumantran from GM and told him what to do and the whole task was entrusted on to him, other seniors and their team. As you say a means of measurement and communication is very important. And they did build one. We can see the results.
At 9:01 AM,
greensatya said…
Mowgli- you have beaten 'sher' in changing names.Every morning you get a new name. Yeah it is Napoleon month in my blog calendar :p
Raj- The case can be different for the first time, but even then I am not sure if the employees don't want to be empowered. I as an employee will always want to take decisions on my own.
Yeah, they take stupid decisions and for filtering out these decisions, there needs to be proper measurement system.
Sher - Do you work for TATA ?
My thoughts exactly, when you are looking to achieve something bigger you just can't afford to micromanage everything.
At 10:38 AM,
Y said…
No,I dont work for Tata. I read a lot of car magazines and have followed the Indica story ever since it was conceptualized.
At 1:01 PM,
Anonymous said…
This is where choosing the right person for the job comes in.
The key to delegation is, if you want to delegate, you better be good at spotting 2 traits in the person you choose to delegate to:
a) Technical Competence for the job
b) Commitment/Sincerity.
This is the first step towrds putting in "systems and checks in place".
-Reetu
At 1:35 PM,
Anonymous said…
Satya, maybe depending on what we are good at. I would say that if we want a thing to be done the way we want it, do it ourself rather than a thing to do well since we may not really do well in things we are not good at. just my opinion.. :)
At 4:09 PM,
greensatya said…
Sher - so you are also interested n cars other than bikes.
Reetu (Anon) - yeah, you are correct about the prerequisite of delegation. Finding someone with sincerity is so difficult these days. But the main point I wanted to make is "once you have delegated the work do not micromanage it.
Heather- Wow! that was a twister.I am not sure I understood it properly. Many a times, you know you are good at doing something but still you can't do it, you have something more important to do. So you need to ask others to do it.
At 4:59 PM,
XVSA013 said…
this is the last name change ... when u change from original name to anonymity, you have do this dude.
and abt delegation ... Napolean was a real expert at that. he had 18 marshals ... who worshiped him as God send leader ... its part reason for his success.
same with Sam Walton. Expert at delegation ... its clear from his auto-bio. read it?
Map is not territory. Kapich?
At 6:32 PM,
Anonymous said…
Maybe I did not make myself clear enough.
What I mean is, delegating it to the RIGHT person makes any kind of micromanagement redundant.
-Ritu
At 6:38 PM,
Anonymous said…
Speaking of Napolean, did you know that there are subtle historical references to his being gay?
See here. http://members.aol.com/matrixwerx/glbthistory/alexander.htm
-R
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