Micromanagement

Micromanagement is a counter-productive management style characterized by such behaviors as an excessive focus on observing and controlling subordinates and obsession with details. Micromanagement is generally considered to have a negative connotation, suggesting a lack of freedom and trust in the workplace, and excessive focus on details at the expense of the "big picture" and larger goals. Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines micromanagement as "manage[ment] especially with excessive control or attention on details". The online dictionary Encarta defined micromanagement as "atten[tion] to small details in management: control [of] a person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details". Dictionary.com defines micromanagement as "manage[ment] or control with excessive attention to minor details". Often, this excessive obsession with the most minute of details causes a direct management failure in the ability to focus on the major details. Rather than giving general instructions on smaller tasks and then devoting time to supervising larger concerns, the micromanager monitors and assesses every step of a process and avoids delegation of decisions. Micromanagers are usually irritated when a subordinate makes decisions without consulting them, even if the decisions are within the subordinate's level of authority. Micromanagement also frequently involves requests for unnecessary and overly detailed reports. A micromanager tends to require constant and detailed performance feedback and to focus excessively on procedural minutia (often in detail greater than they can actually process) rather than on overall performance, quality and results. This micro focus on trivial matters often delays decisions, clouds overall goals and objectives, restricts the flow of information between employees, and guides the various aspects of a project in different and often opposed directions. The sum of such inefficiencies is unlikely to be a net gain for the organization, even if it allows a micromanager to their retention of control or the mere appearance of it.