Does micromanaging actually work?

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Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we got a question from a listener on management styles, asking about micro managing versus quote unquote free range, which gets better results. We're going to talk about that. And a few other work related topics and questions. But let's start with our own histories. How do you boys feel about micro managing slash management styles? And, you know, we're sitting here with

a manager ourselves. Yeah. Devin. Devin, you are a manager to both of us in different capacities. I'm wanting to talk a little bit about that. Yeah. I guess I did manage you. Or attempt to too. Let's say. Yeah. What is my management style? I would say, well, I'll guess you guys can fact check me on this. But I would like to think that I don't micro manage people. I try to manage people the way I like to be managed. And I really hate being micro managed. In my mind, if you're

going to micro manage me, why don't you just do the job? Like, I don't need to just be doing extra stuff at work, just to stay busy. Yeah. So, in the situations that I have been in with managers who micro manage me, I often just say, well, instead of, you know, both of us watching this video, leaving notes. About you just watch the video, leave notes. And I'll just do

“something else. So, yeah, my style is like, you should set someone up. You give them what they need”

to do to job. And then you check in. I feel like it's been mostly successful. There are instances where you get someone who takes advantage of someone who's not micro managing and then doesn't really do anything. Yeah. But I think those people are few and far between. And I don't think micro managing a person who doesn't really do their work is helpful either because you're just taking the time that you would be doing something else to basically do the job as well. So, I feel like

if you have people on your team who you feel like you need the micro manage, you need to get them off of your team because you're just wasting your time by doing double the work. Yeah. To me,

it's always just like we need to expectations to be clear whether that's deadlines or how things

should be when it's when a deadline does come or something because I think someone who's maybe doesn't have a lot of work experience might just show up and be like, I have no idea what I'm

You know, so they need that hand holding, but hopefully that's only a temporary thing. And then

“they're on their own. Yeah. That's really good point. Yeah. If you're not going to micro manage,”

you've got to really set expectations. Yeah. Because I wanted to know what's expected of people. Because then as a freelancer, more recently, I've had jobs where I'm on call or something and then it's like, I'm kind of just waiting for stuff and it's like, all right, I know this thing ultimately has to be due on Friday, but like, do you want to see something before then or, like, you know, and it's just on me to send it and like, I'll get it done and send it just so it's off my plate,

but it's like, yeah, sometimes it's a little bit like, am I doing enough for you? Or yeah. It's sometimes more helpful for there to be some middle ground. Like, okay, let's get one cut on this day and then something else the next day and my story. Yeah, exactly. Versus like, it's really annoying though when it's someone every two hours being like, hey, do you think you have this edit done? And it's like, no, it's going to take four hours just to export it. So you know,

whatever. So we should note too that like, we've always been working in media. Yeah. There might be some

fields where micromanaging might be more required if you're, I don't know, nuclear plant or something. That's throwing that out. That was an example. Yeah. We are in media and Devon had always to me anywhere. So both of us I imagine been kind of a bigger picture manager like, you know, think about this over the course of these few months versus being in every edit that's true, doing this, this and this. However, you know, there were other times when Devon was in our

boss exactly and someone else would come in and they were was a lot more micromanaging and that

“does make the work experience more strenuous, I think, especially because Devon was our manager”

and we were also friends or like, you know, or at least liked each other on the very beginning. And then other people will come in and you're just like, actually, I can hear that from Devon, but hearing the same exact thing from you as much worse because I don't like you as much. Yeah. I also also, I say, bias not only in being friends, but I know Devon can, like, so we're editing videos. I know Devon has editing videos and can do it. I've had managers who,

as far as I know, haven't edited videos, so they're coming to me with notes or feedback, which sometimes is valid. You don't need to be a video editor to say this video looks horrible, right? Obviously, but the expectations are maybe misaligned with the reality of the footage and what we have and the time and all this. And it's like, okay, Devon's not going to give notes that are insane because he knows that's going to take way more work or whatever.

Versus other times, I've had managers who feel like they're leaving notes because they need to say something to say they did something to justify. Yeah, otherwise it's like, I could have just sent this to your boss ahead of you and you know, we don't need to exist. So it's the middle manager issue. And there are some people who are good at managing and some of who I just aren't, like I was in charge of someone at business insider once and I realized how bad I was at

“being a manager. Yeah. Like, they just kept asking me like, you know, what should I do today?”

Or like, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? I'm like, just, you, I don't know, use your brain. I'm busy. I'm like, I've really got other ships to work on. And that's terrible. Like, you're not, that's not a, that's not, I immediately realize, oh, I should not be managing anyone because, yeah, this is not a good dynamic. Like, but I guess what do you guys think as far as if we're doing micro managing versus free range? What do you think is more productive?

And I guess this could be too forward for you for an employee and as a manager or a company side. What do you think actually would get better results? I think free range with clear expectations in clear goals. Yeah. Because I've been micro managed. I've been with managers or more free range. I guess there's no advantages to me of being micro managed. There are sometimes advantages to the free range thing. But free range with no clear goals or expectations

is also very annoying. Yeah. We kind of set up to fail. Yeah. Because then you're just doing stuff in a bubble and then your manager who hasn't been around for a month shows up and it's like, this is not what I want you to do. It's like, well, you get me no goals or expectations at all.

So, like, here's what we've been doing. But yeah, you know, I also hate managers that are just

micro managing and looking over your shoulder because it's like you put me in this position for a reason. Like, let me do the job. Give me some room to sort of figure it us out. So yeah, I would prefer free range with clear expectations in clear goals and like regular check-ins. Yeah. You know, once a week. Yeah. That's enough. It's kind of a happy medium between the two styles. Yeah, if I'm going, you know, if I'm not doing what you expect in a week, let's talk about it then. But like,

every, like you're saying these hourly daily check-ins, it's just like, is unnecessary and doesn't

do some things that don't work to figure out what those work. Well said, smoking like a true middle manager. I guess before we give our takes to like, like, Devon, it's interesting thinking as, you know, because even middle managers say, they have, I mean, I manage a team to be, yeah, you know that? And it's really frustrating because when you're the middle manager, you don't have the power to do anything. So, you know, all you're doing is filtering down what's being passed to you. So,

“they say, oh, we want more of this sort of thing. Then you have to do that and then the people below,”

you're like, well, I don't really like that. And your your hands are tied because you don't even,

you're not, you don't have power to decide really what you're doing. You're just, you're basically

just a spokesperson. Yeah, the messenger. And it's like incredibly frustrating. Because no matter what you do, it's like, your boss is probably getting stuff from someone way above them. Yeah. And you know that. And it's just like, there's not the transparency of just like, hey, this is no one wants to do this. Someone thinks it's a good idea. And that might not even correlate to numbers or anything. Yeah. Just a feeling. So it's, I mean, that's almost a worse. I feel like

it's almost worse to be micromanage, say, but as a middle manager than as the like lower level employee where it's like, you can't do anything except maybe micromanage or check in and do annoying things like that. Yeah, like, so much of middle management is like kind of being like a like a a hostage negotiator to some degree, right? Of like, all right, nobody wants to be doing this.

All right, the people in charge, here's what they want. How do I communicate this to

“the people who are actually doing the work in a way that makes them not want to kill themselves?”

Yeah, exactly. It's sure to do to work in a way. And then how do I communicate their concerns to upper management and the way that they're going to be receptive? Yeah. So it's a lot of, yeah, a lot of middle management is just like playing politics. And I think people deal with that in different ways, like you're saying, man, adding some people. When they get that pressure from upper management, they, the way they deal with it is like by micromanaging and being super in a

weed. Yeah, man, where do you fall on the micromanaging to free range continuum? Yeah, my, I guess, you know, my only kind of intro to this conversation is that one time I managed someone, and I, I was in favor of a kind of a hands off. Like, I'm not doing this. I'm not really managing you. So figure it out. You're technically under me, but you just go to your own thing. This one, the org chart. Well, I guess, you know, obviously without getting into details,

you feel like that hurt your employees, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, I, I, I, I see you think, I mean, you think really, probably a medium. It's actually a good, a medium would be good, a medium would be good. And at the time, I was like, I then told my manager at the end, I'm like, I'm not, this isn't for me. Yeah. And it's actually bad for the intern. Yeah. So then we fix to that situation. Eliminated that position. Yeah. Yeah. So that's not. We'll fire fire. Yeah.

“Yeah, we got a solution. You're gone. I think we basically all agree. Can I provide a counterpoint?”

Yeah. And I just thought of just in this moment. Please. A real one. Um, I do wonder at times if younger or more entry-level people suffer from the more free range. Yes. For management in a lot of places that I've been at the people who, like, you know, younger people who are just have more of that, quote unquote, entrepreneurial spirit. I've just like, I'll figure it out. I'll look it up myself. Yeah. Like, I'll just yeah. Exactly. Who just need

sort of less handholding tend to perform well because managers often don't have time to like sit

down with someone in like, coach that actually keeps doing. Yeah. So it's basically like entry-level

people are basically just kind of doing the job that everyone else at the company is doing, but there's just paid plus. Yeah. And our last experienced versus, you know, and I think in an ideal world, that person is being coached more, or, you know, they're getting more, sort of like hands-on feedback. And there is more of a like easing you into the job. Yeah. That's not really how work works nowadays. It's like, you sign up. You got the job. Congrats. You're going to do the job

everyone else is doing. You're just going to pay less and chore you won't be as good at it. But I think the people who I've seen suffer from that lack of micro managing are those younger people who don't quite have, you know, they're just like not naturally good at the thing, or they need more like step-by-step directions on how to do those things. And those people tend to not last

when we talk to Eric Baker, a Harvard lecturer who specializes in the history of labor and management after the break. All right fellas, I need you to help me with a problem that I got. You know, usually we're the ones helping other people with their problems, but I'm about to go abroad and I want to watch met games. Noah, how can I watch them? That's a tough one. Maybe get a really

“large telescope. I don't think that's the best way to do it. Many, you have any solutions on how”

I can watch mid-Scange abroad. I think I've got a slightly more practical solution for you Devon. If you use NordVPN, you'll be able to change the location of your laptops IP address and watch the content with no problem. What about my privacy online? I'm worried someone's watching me.

First of all, no one is watching you know it. But in case someone was watching you, NordVPN provides

you with privacy online, leaving no digital footprint by hiding your IP address. It's like wearing an invisibility cloak while you're surfing the web. Sounds comfy. So many, I've heard about these VPNs and how they're super slim. How do I make sure my internet is not throttling? If you want to use a VPN without slowing down your internet Devon, you're going to want to use NordVPN because whenever I use it, I don't see any buffering or lagging while I'm streaming my favorite content.

“How do I get NordVPN? Devon, if you or our listeners want to get the best discount off of your”

NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com/nst. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan and there's no risk because Nord has a 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the show notes that's NordVPN.com/nst. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster,

I Heart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only I Heart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think I Heart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you it. I Heart Advertising.com. That's IHeartAdvertising.com. We're back. I'm Danny. I'm Noah. Devon. And we are joined by Eric Baker. Eric, why don't you

introduce yourself? I'm Eric. I'm a writer and historian and an editor at the Drift magazine. The book called "Maker Own Job," how the entrepreneurial work ethic exhausted America, which is about how our culture of work came to be. So toxic. Our main question that we're talking about is how efficient various management styles are. I'm talking about micro-managing versus

free range. That sort of thing. But first, can you explain kind of how the basic kind of standard

corporate office structure came to be as we know it? Yeah, and this is a big question and a process that takes a long time. So I'll try to stick to the highlights. In general, the large corporations come to start to dominate the American economy in the late 19th century. And by the early 20th century, you could walk into the downtown of a city like New York, and you would start to see some office buildings that are familiar to us today, cubicles, things like that.

Because these big corporations, they need a ton of white color work to make happen. You need a countenance. You need people to manage all of this paper that's going back and forth. You have trans-continental communication, lawyers, people doing advertising all this stuff. And so increasingly, they get concentrated in office buildings. And that leads to demand for new ideas about how to

“manage these workers. I mean, it's important to remember that before all this happened before”

this turned to corporate consolidation in the late 19th century, the fraction of the people who were doing what we do today called white color work was very, very small. You know, so it was predominantly a gerary in society. You know, then increasingly start to get people working in manufacturing industry. But even the office kind of emerges in tandem with the emergence of this new workforce who are working primarily with panor-bensal and paper at desks. That's kind of a novel

historical development. So now we have all these kinds of, you know, pencil publishers set up,

how were kind of the management styles first developed. And then also shared, like how did they

become so widespread? Well, there were a range of ideas and, you know, one of the important things to remember about this history is there's what people thought they were doing or what experts advised

initially there was the kind of natural school of thought is to just say, you know, oh, well,

“we should we have these strategies and schemes that we've developed to manage industrial workers”

in factory settings. You know, let's just kind of apply that to our pencil publishers. But that often proves actually much easier said than done. These are huge scrolling bureaucracies. I'll often quite literally scrolling, you know, there's some famous film from the 1920s of, you know, there's a shop that's just, you know, shows you row after row, a kind of almost surreal sort of endless sea of desks. You know, that's actually something a little different than an assembly line where,

you know, you can line up, line everyone up and, you know, monitor whatever one's doing and sort of dictate really precise steps and stuff like that. So, you know, in addition to these sort of, this sort of advisor kind of expert schemes for managers, they're also emerges, what we might call a sort of self-help literature, and how to how to survive as an employee in these

“in these settings and, you know, reading that literature really showed me how many people were”

sort of navigating with the reality that the bosses, in some cases they wish that they were had more clarity about what they were supposed to be doing. And so there's really a kind of set of advice, you know, this is part of the, the titular phrase of my bookmaker and job, you know, these people sort of cast a drift in these big bureaucratic settings where, you know, our, our image and often what the manager thought they were doing was this highly

brutalized sort of systematic kind of control, but really people kind of felt like it was not always

obvious what they were actually expected to be doing. And, and would it be fair to say then that kind of this idea of micromanaging in some ways evolved from that where it's like, we don't really have an idea of what's happening, but maybe we can check in a million times a day and try to find some sort of structure in this, or how would you kind of describe that? Yeah, so in a lot of offices, for, you know, roughly the 1920s to 1970s, there's a trend of adding layers of what comes to me

known as middle management, I mean quite literally they're like in managers in between. That's because there's a big communication challenge in these workplaces, there's no slack, there's no email, how do you get a message, how do you create channels of communication between, you know, people who are doing some kind of like concrete tasks that's involved in the functioning of one of

“these big firms and, you know, executive leadership, you have to create, I mean, almost a kind of”

like game of telephone, you know, a set of managers talking with each other all down the hierarchy. And so, if you're a middle manager, your primary expectation, your job is really about communication, you know, knowing what's going on beneath you, knowing what people above you, you know, want and sort of passing messages up and down when we think of the kind of stereotypical bureaucratic office environment, you know, it's the soft answer to emerges from this,

this fact that it's actually kind of hard for people to figure out what they're supporting that's our up to. This requires a lot of checking in. That kind of brings me to something we were talking about in our intro where, and I think this aligns with your book and kind of the entrepreneurial work ethic where someone will be a, you know, regular, maybe low-level employee and then get a promotion and then now their task with being a manager without having been trained up on how to

manage, or maybe you're balancing, like, man he was at one point balancing, doing his own work, but then also managing someone kind of on the side. Can you talk a little bit about that, like, how has that own has been put on the employees to kind of figure it out as they go along on those kind of dual roles? One of the big shifts kind of after this period that I was just talking about, you know, in the 1970s, you start to see a lot of economic dysfunction in the United States a lot of

increasing anxieties of that international competition, slowing rates of productivity and profit, and one of those sort of silver bullets that management experts arrive on that's often kind of enforce through private equity, takeover, and all of this stuff is to strip out these layers of middle management that have been accumulated. You know, there's a real, there's a real

sort of shift in opinion, you know, that the fact that we're employing all these people basically

to pass messages up and down the corporate hierarchy, you know, that's a huge, that's a huge waste, and so, you know, really the ideal firm is one in which, you know, there are people with managerial roles, but, you know, everyone is like doing something productive, everyone is, you know,

whatever buzzwords that gets really entrenched in this, in this period, you know, which makes

“a lot of sense on paper, you know, but in practice, again, is kind of easier said than done,”

because the actual tasks of, you know, management supervision, coordination, communication, you know, these are non-trivial, they take a lot of time, there's often, you know, certain kind of skill involved, and so, you know, if you're primary task, you know, what you're being evaluated on is, you know, coming up with the next big product, it's going to save the company firm, it's, you know, global competitors or something like that, you're not necessarily, you know, as you say,

you're not necessarily going to be skilled at the sort of communication and coordination

side of management. Further more, there's one problem that sets in, is that a lot of these shifts

stripping down the middle management, this is often sort of justified or goes hand in hand with the emergence of the sort of cult of the kind of charismatic executive. So, you know, a lot of

“these people, you know, they're being celebrated, you know, you're the ones who are really creating”

value, you know, you're so innovative, you're so creative, and then so, you know, often, you know, lined up with people where, you know, the idea is they're not supposed to be doing the old, kind of bureaucratic managing style, but they frankly have such a high opinion of themselves, you know, there's this kind of heroic, culture personality that develops around them, and then so it almost like pack fires and you get, you know, people who really see it, this is their,

you know, mission is to be involved, have their hands on, you know, hands on managing, this is another sort of buzzword that gets celebrated, you know, and so you get these people, this is like how we wind up with Elon Musk and nano managing, because he's so great, you know, he has to hit, have his hand in every pie. Do you feel like the actual design of an office could be born out of some of these management styles, like we've kind of as a society,

have been moving away from cubicles into these more open office layouts where you can literally see what your employees are doing at all times. I'm just curious, if you feel like that, that's born out of different management styles evolving over time, or maybe that's just cheaper to do it like that. Yeah, probably a bit of comment, a bit of a comment. The, there's a great book by the scholar and the kills of all who's actually now a politician is a state senator

in Pennsylvania or something, but it's called cubed. It's a great book that's about how the design of the office evolved in tandem with these, with shifting ideas about what it meant to manage well, you know, what the office should be, because, you know, as you say, it makes, it makes sense, you know, if your, if your vision is one where, you know, these, your employees are almost kind of like factory hands, you know, it's more of an assembly line thing, that's going to be reflected

in the layout of an office, you know, whereas, again, if you're trying to instead envision a workplace where it's, you know, everyone is like productive and contributing and, you know, heroic, then you're trying to have a less kind of visibly hierarchical sort of set up. And if you want your CEO to, you know, be, have be hands on, you know, these facilitate that by literally like removing the walls that would separate the boss from the workers, stuff like that.

I guess, to kind of just answer the main question from our listener about how effective micro-managing is versus, say, free range. I mean, do you have data on this? Like, both, I guess, for the employee and for the company as, as however they would measure productivity. What stands out to me is not so much that the study say one thing or the, or the other, you know, I've a colleague here in the history science department, I already was written a lot about

like nutrition science. And it almost kind of reminds me of how whether or not coffee is good for you, according to the experts, you know, that like changes every week. And so I think there's

“good right now, they say, yes, you have to be able to. Yeah, thank you for that. But I think it's,”

you know, it's, it's similar in the, you know, attempting to sort of evaluate, purely the efficacy of different management styles. And part because, you know, there's so many

confounding variables. And in the case of management, you know, there's the, the most important

variable is the, the workers themselves. And, you know, so there's, I mean, going back to that, the 1930s, there was a, a famous set of, of studies where, according to the authors of the studies, and actually some, retrospectively, there's been some doubt cast on it, with the extent that to which they were actually sort of reading the data, honestly. But what they said was that

often this was sort of physical stuff like, you know, changing lighting or, you know, rest break cadence, things like that. But they, they found that whenever they did anything, including stopping what they had been doing before, that this went to an increase in productivity. And their interpretation was that, you know, workers just liked feeling like their managers were paying attention to them. They liked being, you know, feeling like they were, like, a kind of project

going on. And then work with something, that, you know, ultimately mattered more than the details of,

you know, what they were doing. And so, you know, this is, again, become kind of a, a folk tale

“in, in the management world. But, you know, I think that there's, you know, ironically, it's,”

it's that sense that, like, what really matters is trying to make sure that workers are excited about what's going on in their, in their work, you know, that has sort of taken on a life in its own as a management philosophy. And so, you know, endless pizza parties and whatnot. Obviously, in the past few years, there's been more remote work and hybrid work, which I could see kind of going both towards and against micro managing as far as you're not here physically

with me. So I might need to check in with you if you're my employee. What's your read on kind of how management has kind of adapted to the kind of new climate of work? Initially, there was, I think, some hope, in fact, there were a range of efforts to, you know, come up with new technologies that would essentially enhance remote workers, surveillance. And that's something that, you know,

“people still deal with, but, I mean, my read is that return to work is like the overwhelming”

push from the management or the executive class bosses in general are dissatisfied with, you know, the, the, the degree of monitoring and, you know, frankly, kind of, like, compliance that they've been able to get from workers in a remote environment. And it's hard to say where the empirical evidence stops and sort of stories that take them a life of their own. Begin, you know, there's all kinds of other narratives that have emerged in the last five years, you know, about sort of, you know, worker

laziness or, you know, whatever, quite quitting all this stuff. And again, you know, as the,

the empirical evidence there was, was always a little dubious. So there's very much a strong perception

among, you know, people who call the shots in a huge range of workplaces that there's something missing, you know, they're not able to kind of ensure the same kind of results from that, you know, ultimately actually getting people back in a physical environment. That's the only solution. I'm curious how, you know, work in the US as far as management styles, like, how does it compare to, you know, across Europe or Asia or elsewhere? Is there just super wide variants as far as expectations

on workers or, you know, because definitely, yeah. I can't claim to know what it's like to

“work in China or, you know, in France or wherever, but I think that there's attention because on the”

one hand, different cultures and different places, their histories will have an effect on basic expectations. I mean, so much of our culture of work is not just about what's happened in the workplace, but it's related to broader, you know, broader developments, you know, broader facts of American national culture and identity and stuff like that, and that's true anywhere that you're going to go. But it's also the case that management expertise is increasingly a global market that they

consultancies, you know, operate globally, manage the training, you know, this is a global market, you know, they're people from all around the world who, you know, come into the top American business schools and one of the same things that American executives are learning. And so there is, there is, I think, a certain degree of homogeneity or at least a certain set of shared touchstones or, you know, you can count on people to have heard the same stories or the same

advice, you know, regardless of whether or not they follow it. But yeah, I mean, I'd been, you know, since my book came at, you know, I did one interview at the Chinese paper and one interview at the German paper and this sort of confirms my suspicion that this American culture of work has to significantly, significantly, gone global.

So I dug into some studies on micromanaging and here's what I found. One report suggested six scenarios

where micromanaging might be helpful. So here are the six, count on me, one. Uh-huh. The strategy of the organization is changing. That makes sense. That makes sense. Hey, if we got a pivot, we're doing this thing. Exactly. Now we're doing this other thing. I'm a micromanage because we all got to be on the same page. Yeah, we're doing the plan. Yeah. Similarly to a new endeavor is

project. Yeah, we've all been there. Oh, I have we. They love to start a new project. Um, three,

“there is a new leader, a new employee or a new division or unit. So again, similar, some new,”

something new is happening. Okay. Four. And employee or leader fails to execute on an initiative. And as a result, the program lingers. So the micromanaging program lingers meaning. So yeah, things are getting messed up. We got to figure this out. I'm going to watch you extra hard now. Five. Serious complaints or errors have occurred. What's going on here? All right. That's true. You know, you have an employee makes it, you know, it's a huge factual error and a report that

goes out. Go on forward. You got to be. You're going to be texting. No, I know. That, that, got to be sources. Yeah, get me access. Where did you get, where did you get this? Where did you get this number? Oh, you got this from business insider. We can't fix that. X. I mean, not. Yeah, you double-check your sources. Right. The opposite of that. Yeah. And six, the division or department has poor results. Again, we got to figure out what's going on.

“That's all you need to try. Either new or things are going poorly. Yeah. And I think the idea here”

is these are temporary measures. And the the more stuff we'll talk about, we'll get into that. But it's not supposed to be this is just how we work. Yeah. We're solving a specific thing. There's something new happening or something we need to change. Yeah. Let's focus in and get this done. And then hopefully we can move on. And the study found that micromanaging in these instances. That's where it might be helpful. Yeah. So another quote from that report is me quoting,

"While micromanagement is sometimes necessary, doing it for too long can be detrimental. And managers should be attuned to the need to re-evaluate their role and back off at the appropriate time." In the words of one management expert, quote, "effective micromanagement for setting structure, developing strategy and plans, creating reliable systems for others, and teaching people how to be independent thinkers can actually empower others to do their jobs with little

involvement from you at all. Managers need to assess how often they are practicing in a micromanaging mode. If managers feel they are spending too much time in the weeds, they should consider whether they are hiring the right team members." I mean, I disagree. Every damn day, I work with you, too. Consider whether or not, I have the hard guys to write any of those. We need a new many.

Another more critical paper, you're going to like this title called the micromanagement

disease. By Richard J. White. Junior. It is the micromanagement disease. Symptoms diagnosis and cure. This guy's getting creative with his time. If you're writing about his management, you've got to have some kind of spruce. All right. The author of that said this quote, quoting a lot here. All right. That means it's put some music on there. Okay. Copy. At its more severe level, micromanagement is a compulsive behavioral disorder,

similar to other addictive patterns. People who are micromanaged generally do so because they feel unsure and self-douting. Micromanagers like many addicts and alcoholics are the last people to recognize that they are hooked on controlling others. Extreme micromanagers behave pathologically refusing to accept personal responsibility or accountability and create scapegoats to blame for their own mistakes. They seldom develop people, but instead exploit them,

preferring to control results rather than inspiring creativity. Fair and competition. They rarely hire people with the talent experience and know how to challenge them. Micromanagers tend to dumb down their organizations. As they hire drones, they must work even harder because drones take more work to manage than do thinking, industrious workers. It becomes a vicious cycle. Good workers leave, more drones are hired, and the organization begins a downward spiral in skill, morale,

and productivity. No organization can be truly efficient when it is constantly rehiring and training new workers. I've worked out a few legacy media outlets, and I know a lot of drones tell you that much. Attack of the drones. There's two things that stood out from that paper for me. Number one, the idea that micromanagers despite all the micromanaging that they do, despite as annoying as they are, then they will still scapegoat if something goes wrong.

Exactly. It's like you are involved in every single step in this process. You basically did it.

“Yeah. So if it fails, that's really bad. You need to be held accountable as well, but they love”

to throw people under the bus, and it's like, so what was the point of you micromanaging then? Yeah. Exactly. Look at the mirror. Crazy. Yeah. Look at the man in the mirror. As Michael Jackson said, yep. And then number two, this idea of drones, right? Like Michael Managers love a drone. And I think that's where I'm in my career, you know, my younger life. I'm in a young man. So in the places where I felt like, oh, it's time for me to leave. It's when it's gone from,

okay, actually, we just need you to be a drone, and then it's like, all right, it's time for me to

drone up out. Yeah. And now this last report I looked at is an actual kind of analysis where they live through different studies over decades of micromanagement. So it's called micromanagement, a systematic literature review and future research agenda. So they looked at tons of studies over the years to report findings. They said there still needs to be more research, but here are some top line things they found. So micromanagement can generate positive outcomes in the short term,

such as increasing organizational productivity, initiating organizational changes. Some found that supervisors close scrutiny, excessive guidance and detailed feedback help inexperience people develop their competence and improve their performance. It can help

“support and avoid procrastination and stay focused on their core tasks. So that's why micromanagement”

exists again, short term and helping build people up to the skills they need. Yeah. As for a negative impacts, it increases job stress, dampened psychological safety climate in organizations, signals distrust and disrespect for subordinates. And on the other hand, requests for frequent reports and attention to unnecessary details increase subordinates workload, whereas strict imposition of rules, directives, and arbitrary decision-making process

reduce their job autonomy. So again, just gives people less control of their own work, puts more stuff on managers. So, you know, it adds stress for managers and leads to job runoff for all due to these perfectionist standards. So managers and employees or subordinates are getting more stressed out. This leads to job dissatisfaction and more employee turnover, which means now you're spending this time hiring new people, training them on board and doing the whole thing over again,

“instead of just giving people the skills they need to work and then everyone can, you know,”

rising tides. Yeah, they've thought about it. Exactly. Then it reduces employee creativity and

operational efficiency. So the bottom line, it's worse for the bottom line. Hmm, damn. After the

break, many Devon and I tackle some work related questions sent in by the audience. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcast than add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, I Heart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only I Heart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast

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10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the fourth. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that

excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just the podcast. It's a space for honest conversations,

stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So,

“if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right what you need to”

be. Listen to the Clifford Show on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow @ Clifford, and a TikTok podcast that worked on TikTok. So we are back. I'm Noah. I'm Annie. Devon. Yeah, so that was Eric Baker who walked us through management styles, and more broadly, the history of work. I'm gotten to a lot, but we did have a few more questions from our listeners that we're going to get into now.

Some are more advicey, and then some are a little bit more in the weeds, but let's just go through them. Here's the first one. How do I handle an incompetent boss? Now, many, and I have both dealt with this. How do we make it through? You were a name or a incompetent boss? Yeah, Devon. No, but in all seriousness. Yeah. It's not a laughing. Yeah, no, it's tough. What do you guys think?

definitely felt like an obstacle at times. And what I would do, I would have my own little

“strategies to kind of get what I want, which is like, you know, bake whatever I wanted it into a”

verbal package of the things that he wanted. I don't know how to articulate it really, but you try to understand about it. It's the like you're putting the vegetables in a cake a little bit. Yes, exactly. You're hiding, you're hiding peanut butter in the dog or hiding dog food in the peanut butter? No, dog medicine. Like a pill. Yeah. I don't have a dog. He has no idea. He's going to hide their food. They don't want to eat it. He's the medicine.

He's peanut butter, right? And then he's medicine. The thing you want to do is the medicine in this case. Yes. And you're covering it right in peanut butter, which is what your boss wanted at the time. Yeah. He doesn't even realize that you've got

your medicine in there. Right. This is the stuff that you want to follow. Because the goal ultimately

was to have a video or a TikTok or an Instagram reel that would get a lot of views. And so if I did this and we just skipped to the result where I'm showing him, oh, look, it's kind of went viral or whatever,

“then he wouldn't have minded the process. So that's what I would do is like try to massage what I wanted”

into our communication. It was kind of cheeky though. So, you know, it's not necessarily great advice for anyone who's dealing with this. I'm curious, have you ever, either have you had a situation where, you know, you're frustrated with your manager to the point where you're just going to go around them and complain to their manager or whoever's above them? Has that ever, have you done that? I don't know if I've ever done that. Mostly because it's real in above them. We're all so stupid.

Or, I guess that's three with them or... Or my problems with my manager are probably coming from the person above them. Yeah. I've actually had a few instances knowing like, oh, actually you're not the problem. Yeah. Yeah. That's when I was a manager, that's how I, what I kind of, you know,

not to just pass the buck along. But I was, I would always try to be like, hey, I know this is an

ideal, but like, this is kind of what we need to do and try to figure out a way to make it tolerable at least. Yes. And be like, listen, trust me, I don't, I don't want to make a video on how Tom Brady makes and spends his millions. You know, this is not my choice, but this is what the people need it. These are lights off. Someone needs it, you know. So I don't know if I've had, I don't think I've worked for, let's say a stupid boss. Yeah. I work for people who are incompetent

and that they don't want to learn what the team is doing or understand what the team is doing. So therefore, your suggestions aren't helpful or the goals they give are unrealistic. Right. And that's in some ways tougher because you know, the person has the capacity to understand, they just are choosing not to. I feel like, like, I've had bosses that are kind of like Donald Trump to something great, right? Where it's like Trump to me is like, I don't think he's a

dumb person. I think he just chooses not to understand certain things or it's learned about certain things. Yeah. And it's, to me, yeah, that's more frustrating than if you were just dumb, it's like, I can't tell you that. You're navigate because it's like, you're just stupid to like, let me just work around you. Yeah. I mean, it's harder when you have somebody who could be competent and is smart, but chooses not to learn and to understand because it requires more work.

And a lot of your job becomes just educating that person on what you're doing. Yeah. And because they

“aren't learning each time you're educating them, you have to keep re-educating them every conversation”

that you're having. So it does suck, but I guess to many point, I think the way you deal with it is, you've got to kind of learn what they care about. Yeah. And when you communicate with them, make sure you emphasize what they care about. Yeah. But you also don't need to tell them the things that they don't know or don't care about. Like, don't waste your time over explained things that they're not going to remember and they don't, they aren't going to affect valuable. Yeah.

It's like working. It's, it's a bit of, it sucks. But you, you start, you have to manage your manager a bit and just give them the things that they need to leave you alone. Yeah. Yeah. If you've got like, you know, some strategy on employee at work for your job, the strategy A, which your boss wants to do and the strategy B, which do you want to do? Okay, we're going to go from point A to point B over the course of a few months, maybe not so drastically. And then, you know, you're just

kind of slowly pushing the needle. Yeah. It's inching closer to what you want by like, yeah, doing it in the gut. Like, why don't we try this, this piece out. Yeah. Try this thing out. Slowly. Yeah. That makes sense. All right. Here's another one. This one, I don't know. How can I politely let my coworker know their body odor is horrendous? Something else be a many of those. We have dealt with this literally half. Wow. All three of us. Yeah.

you can't really, you can't, like, what are you going to do? Complain to HR? Yeah. I guess.

Yeah. I guess. Yeah. I guess it would be HR. It could say something. I don't know if they would be. And like what? I mean, what are you going to do? You can make a general announcement.

“Yeah. That's the only way to try to do it. It's going to say, like, I'm wearing clone now.”

Like, don't we all love wearing clone? Like, hey, what are you? What are you wearing? Like, plus there's no way to do it. Yeah. What, what the odor in our way all use. Yeah. Yeah. Plus sometimes you detect someone's odor and it's not clear that it's because they're not hygienic or something. Like, sometimes I'm like, that is something else. And that may be a mix. That may be medical. I don't know. That's just a medical grade issue. This is a military grade thing. Yeah.

Doctrine is going in the hazmat. It's a vanic syndrome, soil. No, there's nothing you can really do in that situation. Yeah. It's like, say, like, general, I think you can make a general announcement around. Hey, guys, let's all make sure, you know, when we're coming to work, we're presentable. Yeah. You know, make sure that we're taking care of ourselves. It's, we've got general complaints in the office about smells, but you can't. You can't. Because it's like, yeah, I'm legal too.

Yeah, it's not like it. Because I mean, I'm even think like, let's say it was one of us. Yeah. Like, right here. Yeah. It would take a lot for me to be like, hey, Devon, let me pull you just like, to pull you aside and just be like, hey, like, I can't even imagine doing that in the nicest way. Let me say this, everybody, because if we spelled, it would be a one off. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. My boy. My boy. No, I'm a guy who jog over here. Yeah. I forgot his deodorant. We've all had days where it's like,

I'm having a clock. You know, oh, shit. I'm one, one I'm right now. Yeah. You know, you may need help. Yeah. Oh, she's done a hit. You know, yep. So I'll one off. Yeah. Oh, as excusable. If you were shown here, week after week. Yeah. Well, you do. We might have to just because we know you so well. We have to be like, amen. Different. If it's a coworker. Well, yeah. We had to make a amen. I don't know what's going on, but like, you kind of stick. How would you? Let's let's let's roll flat. Yeah. So someone

you to presumably like in me. If it would be. So let's say we come. We recorded for an hour. We're taking a break. And now we're going to do another session right now. And this is like, this is about three or four sessions in a row that you see. Yeah. Yeah. So let's say it's not my first time to want off. It's like that. Something's going on. We would probably catch it in a joke. Like, no, let's, you know, just we're going to be real with you for a second. Would you take me out of this

room? Or would you do it in front of. Do it right here on the camera. Yeah. Yeah, I'll record it. Yeah. We'll get, we'll get. We'll get Connor to do it. Yeah. I'd probably be, go smoothly. Connor comes in like we, we have a new policy. Hey, go give it to me. Oh, you give him a script. Everyone coming into studio must wear the odor. I would be, I'd be like, have you been coming here straight from the gym or something like, kind of joke about it. And then maybe get to it. That's actually

pretty good. We never had to do this. I think my experience would be go through Julia. You're going to

make it. That could be offensive. No, because if wait, we'll have to explain. Okay. So we're coming. If I'm hanging out with you week after week, and you just start to stink, I'll hit Julia. I mean, like, hey, I don't know if you notice. I don't know if you ask something. You

“don't know. But no, it's been smelling lately. But then what if, no, we'll found out that that's how you”

did it. He might be like, why didn't you just talk to me about it? Why, I can do see. I'm going through her. Yeah, he can say something. Oh, in case there's something bad. Yes. You smile over something. You're like, I'm going through it. I don't know. And then you then clear that it's not something medical or like, yeah, something. No, no, no, this happened at home. Yeah, I'll bring it up. But she's like, oh, actually, that's good. It's what happened is he can't shower because she's taking

X, Y and Z medicine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going shut my mouth. That makes sense. He slashed and she can tell her. Yes. And then she can easily be like, yeah, say something. Yeah, like, I'm married to her. So yeah, I know. Hey, do we think I get that? Bro, you got to put on some deal. But yeah, but you know, normal workplace. You're not going to be able to reach out to their spouse. Yeah, we can't talk to her. So this is not that helpful. Do we

think, you know, the people we're talking about. What is the likelihood that they know and they don't care? No, people get no's lawn to it. Yeah, just their own, your own thing. Wow. Do you basically can't say anything? Yeah. You can ask HR to make a general announcement

“about making sure people are coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, the only thing you can possibly”

do is have a vague conversation about deodorants and calones and hope that they're,

now hope that it's lessen and maybe out there over here. Yeah. All right. Here's what I looked

office jobs actually spend working? So the total amount of hours, let's say, out of an eight-hour work day that people are actually working. We're talking about in the office. In office, let's say, in office. Yeah. If I'm being generous, I would say four and a half to five. Wow.

“I'm lower than that. Yeah. What would your guess be? It also depends on where. I think I've”

only worked in places that are super social. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was like probably my favorite thing to do in the office is like leave my desk and go bother people, go to the other floor, see what's up with this guy. I would say, I mean, depends on the day, obviously, like if you're on a deadline or something. But probably like three hours, three out of eight hours, I'm actually working on something. Yeah. But it's true that like the other hours, like they are kind of like necessarily,

like you are in a meeting. Does that count as working on something? I guess you're not doing work related stuff. No. Yeah. I was talking about something. I don't know how the survey was done. So I'm curious how that would factor in. I would guess no. But yeah. So this is from, let's say, 54. Let me be clear. This is not me. You were eight hours a day. I work more. I'm doing, because I'm doing like, he works 10 hours in an eight hour shift. Yeah. I'm doing. I'm doing three four jobs simultaneously. Yes. So it compounds.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. With that in mind. Yeah.

This is survey done in the of UK office workers by vouchercloud.com. But every, basically, this is one of

those things. Some place does some survey and then everyone. For now almost 10 years every article about writing this. Yeah. And who knows how good it is. So with that grain of salt. Yeah. The average worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes per day. That sounds right to me. Which sounds right to me. Yeah. And to be honest. That's so. Especially on these computers. Like, if you have a

“computer, you're on with access to everything. Yeah. You remember when we were working right next to each”

other, like, we would be bullshitting for hours. I remember when that fucking Popeye's chicken sandwich came out, we left the office. Yeah. We lost three hours yet. Yeah. This was not good because I'll be back at 100 years during this time. So this is not. That's 22 because that's really good to be done a video that. Yeah. I know that could have been work for sure. So then there's a work life survey. They did a survey. It says in 20, 23, 45% of workers said they work four hours or less

a day. Yeah. And that's included. Like, that's talking about Amazon Microsoft Google meta employees. So those four are all in the kind of the 33. Yeah. 33 to kind of 40% range. They work four hours or less per day. Okay. So how effective are PIPs? A PIP is a performance improvement plan, which a manager gives to an employee if they're maybe not doing so hot. It's kind of a little usually kind of milestones and things to check in on to, you know, and usually it's kind of like,

okay, we have three months or six months to meet these measures. You're basically kind of on thin ice essentially. Yeah. Meet these expectations. Yeah. Or going to be, we can get ready. Yeah.

Farad. Here's what our guest Eric had to say. That's a great question. I mean, the idea that

the most effective way to manage somebody was by it clearly communicating a set of expectations and then kind of leaving them to figure out how to how to meet them. You know, that's an idea that really goes back to an 1840s, 1950s in a management by objectives and self-control was the the the knowledge of some when that became a tool for discipline. I'm not exactly sure. It's so clear that when you're put on a tip of the message is like, if you get fired, you know, it's

your own fault. People aren't fooled. You know, that's one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in diving into this history is that bosses can come up with all kinds of ideas for trying to get their employees to imagine that something else is going on in the word place and what what really is. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, people understand when they're being manipulated or taken for a ride and rather than sort of mid-rombinated style, I enjoy firing people kind of

“culture. We have the sets of no, you know, we did everything to help and, you know, again, I think”

that's a response to an increasing sense of like empowerment or self assertion among my coworkers. Have you guys been on PIPs? I have not been on a PIP. I have managed people who have been put on PIPs. So I would have their manager complaining to me that this person is not performing. Yeah, yeah. I would talk with them. I would talk with the manager or talk with HR and a certain point. We'd say, okay, well, this person, if they don't improve, needs to be put on a PIP. So I would

be part of the conversation, but I was never a person initiating it. Got it. My experience with it is

it's mostly a way for HR to make sure that you have paperwork so that the person can't

companies being afraid of being sued. Yeah. So it is, like, it forces you to

“document feedback. There's a Wall Street Journal report from 2024 by Lauren Weber and Chip Cutter”

about the rise of PIPs and they're increasing and they have, you know, they have an example of one. I'll put it in the show notes for people to look at so you can kind of see what they look like. But there's some data in this story that in 2020, 33.4 people for every 1,000 workers had documented performance issues, according to a software firm. And in 2023, that number went up to 43.6. So that's

a pretty high rise in just three years. Then there's a bunch of executives saying, these are basically

made to get people out and have a paper trail and just be safe on that way. This, this one guy Larry works out a software company. He estimated that 10 to 25% of employees who get put on PIPs survive the process. Wow. And it seems like from reading this article to mix of even if people get through, then a lot of times they'll just decide they want to leave anyway. So it's kind of

“like, you know, you're not wanted. Yeah. Yeah. So whether you're a good worker or a bad worker,”

however you wanted to find that, it's like, yeah, probably time to go like you can read the writing on the wall. I would say most of the tips that I have seen, it's very clear that the person does not have the skill sets or drive to do the thing that they're being tasked with doing. So you're giving

them goals knowing they're basically they're not going to hit it. Yeah. Um, but to to this point, yeah,

it's providing a paper trail. It's getting rid of some of the ambiguity around, oh, my manager didn't give me this feedback because a lot of PIPs I've been involved with HR is involved in the check-ins from week to week. So it's like there's a third person involved to be like, oh, no, this part, your manager did say X, Y, and Z. But it does, to Eric's point, it puts a lot of the onus on the employee to improve their performance, right? Yeah. It's seen as like, hey, we as a

company has done all that we can do, it is now you to, you know, basically pull up, you know, what your, your boots better, what is the boot traps, pull up your boots traps and get your shit done because we're giving you all the tools and we're being very clear about what your goals are and if you don't hit it now, there's nothing more that we can do. Yeah, the sky, yeah, there's a guy in this article who worked at Cisco and is like an HR guy, he said they did a five-year look back

at all the PIPs and found that 90% of people who were placed on them, whether or not they survived that plan left within a year anyway, he said that he now gives two envelopes, one is a PIP and the other is just a generous severance offer with, you know, separation insurance,

separation agreement and cobering all that stuff and 75% of the time people take that second option

and just leave to get out of the whole process. That's really smart and it's such a bad way to do it because it's just waste every all the time, everyone knows what's happening and you're saying no one is full of body process. Yeah, I like that option. I like the idea. Yeah, it's just like, hey, we know we're going to sort of like do this stupid process for three months in a far or you anyway. How about we just give you six months or nine months severance and like

just go find something else that's better for you and like we could just move on. Yeah, exactly. It's like forget it and then yeah, then they they talked to another guy who worked at a law firm who was an employee who was placed on a PIP and he he created a document kind of point-by-point in response and shared it with the HR people and the manager not disputing anything but just outlining kind of specific things he planned to do to actually meet what they asked for. So that way,

I think it led to a little bit more clarity to like, okay, is this actually viable? How can we actually do it and was a little bit more proactive beyond just like trying to do these vague tasks?

“So that's if you want to if you do get one of these plans and want to you want to stay”

try to stay. This seems like a good way to do it where like be vocal and try to actually argue back as much as you can. I mean it's tough. It seems to be it's not going to work. A couple of warnings at least before the PIP comes. It's not like it comes out of nowhere. Yeah. I've seen people take that approach of trying to be like really specific about, okay, I'm going to do these things. At the end of the day, if you don't hit the goals, it doesn't matter.

If you wrote out how you were going to plan to. If you don't do it. Because then it just becomes the conversation and becomes, oh, you need your handheld to hit these goals. Yeah, which in the case. Who can just do it? If you're taking too much of our time in effort to

being put on a PIP to start looking for another job. Try to hit your goal so that you could stay

“a little bit longer, but I'll say they are effective in a sense.”

Yeah. And they're not effective in getting you better at your job. They're effective in removing from the company. Low performers. Yeah. Yeah, good luck. No such thing as a production of kaleidoscope content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne

and Maygash hot to Kadir. This shows us great by Manifadou, Noah Friedman, and Devon Joseph.

Theme and credit song by Manifadou. Mixing by Steve Bump. Our guest this week is Eric Baker.

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Within probably 10 days I put on 10 pounds. I was having troubles stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the look back at a podcast. The next seminar that was big moment for me. 84 is big to me. I'm Sam Jack. And I'm Alex E. Grish. Each episode we pick a year, unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, federal comedians and favorite

authors like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it was good job. You're listening to learn the hard way with your favorite therapist and host care games. This space is about black men's experiences having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows

what he's doing, how many men carry a suit or arm it. It's similar to the world that you

“not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to.”

Listen to learn the hard way on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought provoking Star Wars related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tauntons and wampas on the ice planet hot

or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to your mind on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.