
William Bligh, Captain of HMS Bounty, which experienced a mutiny on April 28, 1789. Illustration from A Voyage to the South Sea, his book on the subject. Courtesy Project Gutenberg
, the oldest producer of
micromanagers, but about
1000 times worseIs isolated from peers, with possible exception of other nanomanagers.
free ebooks on the Internet.
If you think you might be working for a micromanager, but you aren't sure, count yourself lucky, because when your boss is a micromanager, there's absolutely no doubt. Um, wait, there is some doubt — your boss might be a nanomanager. Nanomanagers are about a thousand times worse. They do most of what micromanagers do, but they do it more often, and way better. Here's a little catalog of what it takes to be a nanomanager.
There's more, but do I have to spell it out for you? (Just kidding.) Top
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More about micromanagement
When Your Boss Is a Micromanager [December 5, 2001]
- If your boss is a micromanager, your life can be a seemingly endless misery of humiliation and frustration. Changing your boss is one possible solution, but it's unlikely to succeed. What you can do is change the way you experience the micromanagement.
There Are No Micromanagers [January 7, 2004]
- If you're a manager who micromanages, you're probably trying as best you can to help your organization meet its responsibilities. Still, you might feel that people are unhappy — that whatever you're doing isn't working. There is another way.
Are You Micromanaging Yourself? [November 24, 2004]
- Feeling distrusted and undervalued, we often attribute the problem to the behavior of others — to the micromanager who might be mistreating us. We tend not to examine our own contributions to the difficulty. Are you micromanaging yourself?
Managing Pressure: Communications and Expectations [December 13, 2006]
- Pressed repeatedly for "status" reports, you might guess that they don't want status — they want progress. Things can get so nutty that responding to the status requests gets in the way of doing the job. How does this happen and what can you do about it? Here's Part I of a little catalog of tactics and strategies for dealing with pressure.
Managing Pressure: The Unexpected [December 20, 2006]
- When projects falter, we expect demands for status and explanations. What's puzzling is how often this happens to projects that aren't in trouble. Here's Part II of a catalog of strategies for managing pressure.
Managing Pressure: Milestones and Deliveries [December 27, 2006]
- Pressed repeatedly for "status" reports, you might guess that they don't want status — they want progress. Things can get so nutty that responding to the status requests gets in the way of doing the job. How does this happen and what can you do about it? Here's Part III of a set of tactics and strategies for dealing with pressure.
Reverse Micromanagement [July 18, 2007]
- Micromanagement is too familiar to too many of us. Less familiar is inappropriate interference in the reverse direction — in the work of our supervisors or even higher in the chain. Disciplinary action isn't always helpful, especially when some of the causes of reverse micromanagement are organizational.
Lateral Micromanagement [September 10, 2008]
- Lateral micromanagement is the unwelcome intrusion by one co-worker into the responsibilities of another. Far more than run-of-the-mill bossiness, it's often a concerted attempt to gain organizational power and rank, and it is toxic to teams.
Bottlenecks: I [February 4, 2015]
- Some people take on so much work that they become "bottlenecks." The people around them repeatedly find themselves stuck, awaiting responses or decisions. Why does this happen and what are the costs?
Bottlenecks: II [February 11, 2015]
- When some people take on so much work that they become "bottlenecks," they expose the organization to risks. Managing those risks is a first step to ending the bottlenecking pattern.
What Micromanaging Is and Isn't [April 14, 2021]
- Micromanaging is a dysfunctional pattern of management behavior, involving interference in the work others are supposedly doing. Confusion about what it is and what it isn't makes effective response difficult.
On Schedule Conflicts [May 10, 2023]
- Schedule conflicts happen from time to time, even when the organization is healthy and all is well. But when schedule conflicts are common, they might indicate that the organization is trying to do too much with too few people.
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
The Politics of the Critical Path: I
- The Critical Path of a project or activity is the sequence of dependent tasks that determine the earliest
completion date of the effort. If you're responsible for one of these tasks, you live in a unique political
environment.
The Opposite of Influence
- The question of why some people are so influential has a partner question: why are others largely ignored,
or opposed, even when their contributions are valuable?
Narcissistic Behavior at Work: I
- Briefly, when people exhibit narcissistic behavior they're engaging in activity that systematically
places their own interests and welfare ahead of the interests and welfare of anyone or anything else.
It's behavior that threatens the welfare of the organization and everyone employed there.
Gratuitous Complexity as a Type III Error
- Some of the technological assets we build — whether hardware, software, or procedures —
are gratuitously complex. That's an error, but an error of a special kind: it can be the correct solution
to the wrong problem.
Additive Bias…or Not: I
- When we alter existing systems to enhance them, we tend to favor adding components even when subtracting
might be better. This effect has been attributed to a cognitive bias known as additive bias. But other
forces more important might be afoot.
See also Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 2: The True Costs of Contractors
- Among the more commonly cited reasons for hiring contractors instead of direct employees is cost savings. But are these savings real? Direct compensation, including perks and benefits, might favor the contractor arrangement, but indirect costs tell another story. Available here and by RSS on July 2.
And on July 9: On Being Seriously Funny at Work
- Humor is such a valuable tool at work that it ought to be recognized as an official contribution by team members who provide the laughs that keep some teams from auto-destructing. Even if you're not known for bringing the funny, there are a few simple techniques that can change your image. Available here and by RSS on July 9.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group