“I can’t even drink coffee now!”: what to do if the boss tries to control your every step
Miscellaneous / / April 06, 2023
A professor of psychology tells how to work with an annoying colleague and not suffer.
MIF publishing house published the book "Toxic Colleagues" by associate professor of psychology Tessa West. The guide talks about the seven most common types of employees that you most often encounter at work. We publish an excerpt from the fifth chapter about micromanagers and how to interact with them.
“Last week I managed to break into the toilet twice without Karen intercepting me on the way. Didn't miss a single last week. I can't even drink coffee now! Do you think this is normal?"
My friend Matt has a serious problem. A few months ago, he was moved to another location, a few meters from the office of his boss, named Karen. They used to sit on different floors and Karen tugged at Matt by email. Now she does it in person - up close!
This doesn't surprise me at all. If social psychology teaches us anything, it's that distance matters.
We pay more attention to people who work 5 meters horizontally from us than to those who work 5 meters vertically - above or below.
Even micromanagers are too lazy to run up and down stairs.
Karen is a classic micromanager. She strives to control Matt's every move, from the ideas he puts forward at editorial meetings to the way he signs emails. She has a whole list of favorite niggles, starting with exactly when he might turn to her. (exclusively at certain hours), and ending with what font he should type texts. She is impatient, intolerant, and obsessed with details rather than looking at the big picture. If at the meeting he said something wrong - he made a slip of the tongue or some other little thing - she bursts into a long letter. Matt is a journalist and spends more time at work than anyone else I know, but I think he is mostly busy with small things and fuss. Everyone who came to the editorial office with him at the same time has already moved somewhere, but not Matt - the question of his advancement has never been raised. The irony is that micromanagers work the hardest but achieve the least. The same can be said about the people they lead.
“What is it like when Karen is always looming behind you?” I ask.
“Working with Karen is like working in a room with a toddler who can barely walk,” says Matt. - Just accelerated, and he pulls you. So is Karen. “Have you already done what I asked you seven minutes ago? What about the one I texted you about three minutes ago?” From this endless twitching, your head is spinning, you can’t do anything anymore. ”
Karen is like a broken alarm set so high you can't reach it. Okay, you think, I'll get used to this endless beeping somehow. But you can't get used to it.
When you can't see the forest for the trees
Of all the toxic employees, micromanagers are the most common type. About 79% of all employees have been victimized at some point in their career, and for 69% of those victims, micromanagement became an occasion for dismissal. Among bosses, 89% believe that people change jobs because they want to earn more, but only 12% actually quit because of money. The bulk leaves due to dissatisfaction with management.
Unfortunately, most of us never try to challenge the micromanager, even if we are serious about quitting.
The micromanagers I worked with were in many ways similar to Karen: they didn't count as with my personal space, nor with my time, were unpredictable, and their expectations were unrealistic. And although I could not completely avoid contact with them, I still tried to keep the door of my office closed, and on workplace I made my way in a roundabout way, only to avoid encountering such a character. I have a good audio memory, so I could distinguish footsteps in the hallway and hide.
And when I myself became a leader and got the opportunity to look at the situation from a bird's eye view, what I saw simply shocked me: micromanagers are like icebergs. The surface part - the boss, overloaded with work, the underwater part - the boss is negligent. Micromanagement affects on your daily existence, and in addition, the neglect of basic duties affects your entire career. Time is not unlimited, and by spending it on micromanagement, such bosses neglect important things - teaching employees how to communicate, plan for the future, and make quick but accurate decisions.
Take, for example, Matt, who still can't manage to break through to the top. In the world of journalism, just keep spinning and he can't afford a boss who cares most about type size and paragraph designation. Not only did Karen not notice the forest behind the trees, she treated each tree like a bonsai, trimming the protruding twigs with nail scissors.
Matt understood this perfectly. If he stays under Karen's command, he's doomed for the rest of his days to write notes about heroes taking down trees. cats.
The following week I called Matt and his colleague Khalil for a drink.
“Something strange happened,” Matt said. Karen has disappeared. Either she pulled me ten times a day, or suddenly she didn’t show up for two weeks. ” It reminded Matt of online dating: he could tell exactly whether he liked him or not by how quickly his ad was answered (either after half a minute or never).
“How nice it would be to turn into a ghost! Khalil said without a drop of irony. “They left you alone because for two weeks Karen was stuck in my office, crunching her favorite chips and looking over my shoulder!”
Most micromanagers are not multi-stationers - they cannot torment several people at once, so they arrange a rotation of victims. Either they rush at you at full speed, or they are carried away somewhere far away, to where they cannot be reached. As a rule, this place is the office of your colleague.
Behavior to watch out for
When assigning important work, they never allow reasonable time for it. Everything is urgent, everything should be ready this second. Big projects (like detailed revisions of proposals and budgets) and small projects (like color changes at the boss's farewell party) are equally important to them.
As soon as you adapt to life under the bombs, they disappear somewhere.
The micromanagers don't have enough power to yank multiple people at once, so they switch from victim to victim.
Be prepared for hundreds of emails and messages today and no emails or messages tomorrow. But there is nothing good about disappearances either: during these periods, questions that you cannot move on without are left unanswered.
If an important job fell to your share - albeit a small, but significant part of a large project - you will never know about it. Micromanagers are incapable of painting the big picture. You have been working on a certain part for several weeks budgetbut have no idea where the money will go? Are you tasked with making ten slides for a presentation that looks like it will have hundreds? In principle, this is normal, but working under the guidance of a micromanager, it is impossible to figure out why you are doing all this.
Why do they do this?
The reasons for micromanaging are as varied as the managers themselves, but there are a few commonalities that will help you deal with them.
Too many reporting levels
Fast and high-quality decision making more typical for organizations where there are few levels of accountability - that is, where employees only need to go through one person, and not through two or three, to get approval. If there are many levels, then managers have nothing to do, so they rush into micromanagement. Especially if the micromanager is a conscientious person (or obsessed with control): for him, such an occupation is better than none at all.
I once worked in a coffee shop where there were three managers: the shift supervisor (who made the weekly schedule), the assistant manager (who overseeing the weekly schedule) and a senior manager (who oversaw how the assistant oversaw the weekly schedule). graphic arts). In this small coffee shop, there was no particular need for control of control. As a result, if I had to change shifts with someone, I had to get the approval of three people who were by no means loaded with work. It was a real nightmare.
They are convinced that the more you control, the better the result.
The false belief that closer control leads to better quality is common to many. If you hang on a person, you force him to work harder or better. This is what managers do on assembly lines.
Micromanagers are firm proponents of this theory, which scientists called belief in the effect of supervision. Jeffrey Pfeffer of the Stanford University School of Business had an excellent experimentillustrating this belief. Participants, acting as marketing managers, assessed the quality of a watch advertisement created by an outsider. One group of participants saw only the finished product, the second group watched the work, but could not see it. influence, and the third gave advice, which, according to its members, was used to create the final version advertising. And you know what's most interesting? Everyone was shown the same advertisement. The only difference between the three groups is their opinion of how actively they participated in its creation.
What did the researchers find? The participants in the third group had a higher opinion of the final product than the participants in the first and second groups. They were convinced that the advertisement was so good because they had a hand in its creation.
The problem with micromanagers is that they apply this logic to everything. Each product - even the smallest and most insignificant - under their close supervision will certainly become better.
They are ill-prepared for their role
Most executives become such because they showed themselves well in the same place, and not at all because they know how to manage. And since they have not really learned this art, they turn to the experience of successful leaders. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk - All of them recognized in his penchant for micromanaging.
We think that micromanagement is an indicator of dedication. Perhaps, but this is dedication at the expense of efficiency.
Decisions that bring maximum profit differ both in quality and in the speed of their adoption. Good managers are capable of both at the same time, but, alas, this skill is rare. If your manager is lucky, he is trained in one thing. But, most likely, both of these skills are immediately inaccessible to him. Not surprisingly, a survey of more than 1,200 employees showedthat the time it takes to make a decision has nothing to do with its quality. Practice doesn't seem to mean much. Preparation is what matters.
They just don't have anything to do with you.
This explanation seems obvious, and it is true. Not everyone is as loaded with work as you are, when it seems that the ground is on fire under your feet, but you still don’t have time to do anything. I learned this lesson during the pandemic. A whole bunch of my colleagues had to come up with at least some semblance of work.
I remember the first time I got a pointless, stupid assignment from the micromanager. When I was young, I worked in retail. Once, one rainy day - there was a terrible wind and rain on the street - there were no customers at all, and we were loitering around. My boss Ellen couldn't stand the sight and gave her shift the task of going to the warehouse and re-sorting all the clothes, hanging them first by size and then by size. flowers from the lightest to the darkest. As soon as she said that, I realized that she was not going to check whether we did it or not. There was no point in the task, since in practice we had to look for clothes by size, not by color.
Unfortunately, Ellen didn't intend to waste our time—she just couldn't think of anything to keep us busy. Then I learned that on that rainy day, some salespeople, under the guidance of their manager, spent informal and fun training on the topic "How to persuade a client to fork out and buy more than he was going to."
(About a year later, my colleague Adam asked, “Do you remember that rainy day when Stephen shared his tricks with us?” - and I replied: “Sure! That day, I hung clothes by flower.")
And a few years later, I found out that we were not invited because Ellen did not like colleagues from other teams. Humans have a so-called cross-situational sequence of behavior: if your boss annoys you, then others probably do too. And we all paid for it.
They are driven by fear
It is unlikely that you will be able to find a fearless micromanager. Most of them are scared to death of losing power and status. Some are afraid of everything, because this is a new job for them, others are afraid of competitors. Still others are afraid of failure because they did an excellent job with their previous job (most likely, this is why they were promoted to leaders). Many consider their position risky: one mistake by one of the team members and goodbye job title.
Ellen turned into a desperate micromanager when a much more qualified Joe was hired to work with her. When their shifts overlapped, Ellen made me clean the counter every fifteen minutes (note: we were selling clothes, not rolls). She, like a hyena, marked her territory in this way: “These are my workers! And they will do whatever I tell them to do!”
There are micromanagers who are terribly afraid of making mistakes, either because they themselves gravitate towards perfectionism or because a culture of perfectionism thrives in their work environment.
I sincerely sympathize with such managers. They believe that the best way to prevent mistakes is to personally ensure that each of the employees meticulously fulfills their duties. The saddest thing is that with this approach - trying not to make small mistakes - they make big mistakes: they neglect people (and projects). But both are the most important things in any job.
What can you do about it?
There are more than enough tips on how to deal with the micromanager. "Take the time to talk to your boss to get clear on exactly what he expects from you and reassure him that he can rely on you." "Convince your boss that you can do the job on your own and on time." "Set boundaries."
I have no intention of arguing with any of these tips because they have nothing to do with the root of the problem. Micromanagement is rarely the result of distrust per se, but here we are talking about barriers of a different kind. For example, such as the false belief that more control leads to better results, or that it is better for people to be busy with meaningless work than not at all. Also, I'm far from convinced that if the boss doesn't trust you, then the problem can be solved by simply saying, "Hey, you can trust me." This strategy does not work in romantic relationships, I doubt it will work in worker relationships.
To determine how best to communicate with a micromanager, the first thing you should ask yourself is, "Does the work I'm doing make sense, or am I hanging dresses by color?"
Many people have experience of meaningless effort - my grandfather called such work character building. But if you want to go higher, then you need to reduce the amount of time spent on unskilled labor (exception: you like it and have no desire to build career, that's fine too). At the same time, it is necessary to increase the amount of time devoted to projects that are strategically important for career growth.
To do the work that will help you move forward, you will have to go beyond the limits set by the micromanager and look for interactions with people who are outside your social circle.
Find out how your work aligns with the organization's goals (if at all). I recommend looking for advisors - people who know all the ins and outs and help you see the big picture. […]
I had a friend, Eric, who spent hours perfecting weekly reports to his micromanager boss. He sent her reports and only then moved on to the next task. Eric believed that hard work would be rewarded promotion on service. But two years have passed, and no progress has been made. Then he discovered that his reports, like the reports of other employees, were accumulating on the boss's desk, and she did not even read them. All his efforts only increased the fire hazard of the building.
Sometimes micromanagers annoy their bosses to such an extent that they give them meaningless tasks, which they then delegate to you. I once asked a senior executive how he handles micromanagers, and he replied, “To get rid of them, I come up with all sorts of committees and appoint them as leaders. Their activities have nothing to do with anything at all, but they don’t hustle before my eyes.” And I immediately thought of people like me who are stuck doing "character-building" jobs on these useless committees.
If your micromanager has no public contacts, or worse, his own boss, only get rid of, occupied him with senseless activities, then work under his command threatens your entire career.
There is no chance of getting into the management of the company if you have worked for ten years - and even excellent work! — to some bogus committee.
If you think the tasks you are doing are important, but you are not satisfied with the style of your immediate supervisor, then I can help you convince him to change this style.
How to have a conversation with the boss
At the heart of all problems with toxic employees is a matter of control. All control is concentrated in the hands of the boss, but you also want to get at least a little. Managers do not know that their employees are unhappy with them, for one simple reason: people are frightened by the thought of confronting someone they depend on. So most don't even try.
But here's the good news: problems control - such a common place in any relationship that sociologists and psychologists have spent a lot of time and effort figuring out how to properly build a conversation on this topic. Not only do we walk away from bosses who stifle us with control, we also walk away from spouses because of this. “He (or she) is always sawing and picking on me” - this is one of the three main reasons divorces.
In this section, I'll share what I've learned from the academic writings to give you guidance on how to have a calm and productive conversation with your micromanager boss. Be prepared that some strategies go against your instinctive notions. If all goes well, you'll both enjoy the new interaction. Your boss may not even think about it, but later on he will certainly appreciate the opportunity to regain some hours of his life.
Tip #1: What Not to Start a Conversation with a Micromanager
You have probably been advised not to beat around the bush when starting a conversation: they say that honesty is the best policy, even if the truth hurts. Matt did just that. He told Karen that she was simply strangling him with her incessant attention. And, in accordance with all the rules, he proposed a solution - to appear at his place once a day instead of five and give him at least three hours instead of three minutes to write another note.
Karen snarled back that she knew how to do her job, but if he was good at his, she wouldn't have to supervise him so carefully. This ended the conversation. Matt crawled back to his office, closed the door, and hid from Karen for the rest of the day.
Karen and Matt's interaction is a typical example of what John Gottmancalls "four horsemen of the apocalypse", foreshadowing the unhealthy development of the conflict: there was criticism, and a defensive position, and contempt (disrespect), and building walls instead of rapprochement.
If you start a serious conversation with criticism, it will quickly get out of hand.
Karen responded to Matt with contempt - she questioned his logic in anger and ridiculed him. In self-defense, she began to blame Matt and stated that she would not have needed to control him if he did his job well. Frustrated by the way Karen responded to his criticism, Matt cut himself off from her by locking himself in his office.
Tip #2: Talk About Big Goals
Ask your boss if he can talk to you about big goals. To disarm my boss, I would start with questions like: “I would like to better understand the role my work plays in the overall picture of our organization. What is important that you are working on and how does my work contribute to this important cause?”
Because micromanagers are so focused on the moment, they often forget to take a step back, look at the big picture, and remind people why their work matters.
And, like most of us, they have a transparency bias: they assume that the people who work for them know something they don't. If you have ever worked with leader, which tells you: "Do it right," but does not tell you exactly how to do it, know that you have fallen victim to such bias.
The transparency bias is inherent in myself. Research projects are big undertakings, sometimes spanning years, and rarely do everyone involved know how their work fits into the big picture. For example, one particularly tedious but necessary job is coding behavioral data. The person doing it has to watch the interaction for hours and record things like how many times someone takes a deep breath, or fusses, or laughs nervously while talking to someone. My students find it redundant (and rude) if their professor looks over their shoulder and says, “Why didn’t you record that short breath? Are you asleep?" When I first tried this approach, eleven people left me in a month. They didn't care how many times someone sighed.
And why would they be interested? I never explained why it was so important: I assumed that they already knew. Any deviations in non-verbal behavior can change the interaction in very interesting and dramatic ways, but data about this is only valuable when it is accurate. As soon as I told my people about this - and explained how important their work is and how it relates to the main goal of the project - they immediately began to properly register these sighs. Plus, to everything else, they stopped grumbling and complaining.
Tip #3: Set Mutually Agreed Expectations
Once you've identified how your work helps the entire team achieve big goals, you can move on to talking about expectations. “What do you think are my big tasks and what is my small everyday work?”
I have had to mediate a fair amount of conflict between micromanager bosses and employees, and In all these conversations, there was one constant theme: bosses often disagree about what kind of work their subordinates consider priority.
Micromanagement is one of the tactics managers resort to when they want subordinates to rethink their priorities.
Matt and Karen eventually moved on to talking about goals, and then it became clear that Karen believed that Matt's job was to write notes that she wanted to publish, and Matt felt it was his job to be independent thinking and creative in following his chosen direction. Gradually they worked out a compromise. If Matt finishes work on what is important to Karen ahead of schedule, he can work on his own project. When you ask your boss what his goalsyou can present yours.
Tip #4: When confronting, avoid generalizations
Come up with a plan for how you and your micromanager will develop the relationship further after you've cleared your goals. But since micromanagement builds obstacles in any path, we will first have to talk about the most serious of them.
There is a science on how to properly conflict and make claims. In his writings on family quarrels, John Gottman defined two basic tactics for a successful confrontation. First of all, no matter how disappointed and devastated you feel, in no case should you resort to sweeping generalizations about the actions of a partner. Instead, one should talk about specific problems in his behavior, without delving into the alleged reasons for such behavior. And secondly, criticism must be surrounded by compliments from all sides in order to soften the blow.
Similarly, when speaking to your boss about his behavior, don't say, "You're too bossy and distrustful." Instead, talk about the boss's specific actions and how they make you feel. (“You send me a hundred letters an hour. It's a lot, and it makes it hard for me to focus on my other things.”) Then remind your boss not of what he shouldn't do, but of what he's good at. (“But I really appreciate your attention to every detail of what I write,” in short, construct any appropriate compliment.)
I reminded Matt that not everything Karen does is so bad. For example, he quickly receives detailed feedback from her, which is good. If he told her this, it would ease the tension and make her smile, however fleetingly.
Tip #5: Plan for regular checks
We don't want to spend any more time with the micromanager. But all relationships have to be worked on. You continue the tradition of romantic dates with a spouse or wife, right? Because otherwise your relationship will turn into a relationship with roommates.
As with all goals, the key to staying on track is to keep checking the map.
Make it a habit to have short but frequent meetings with the boss, during which you will exchange updates on your progress.
Have we reached our goals for the week, for the month? If not, what's stopping us? Is micromanagement ruining everything again? If this is the case, then it is worth stopping at an early stage slipping into the old “he demands - I” relationship with the boss. hiding": the boss makes more and more demands, you avoid him in the hope that he will leave you alone, he presses everything in response stronger. This model characteristic for all relationships: with spouses, with children, with colleagues.
Tip #6: Be clear about your time at work
The concept of time spent at work has changed a lot in recent years. People want to be able to work from anywhere, anytime. In fact, 51% of employees replaced would work for the sake of greater flexibility. Millennials even ready For this reason, change your place of residence.
A flexible work schedule is, of course, wonderful, but only if a micromanager does not loom behind you. Micromanagers aren't very good at managing their own behavior, so it's best for them if you set clear boundaries. I was recently told about a micromanager who started video conference at the end of the working day. The conference dragged on for three hours, until late at night. The subordinates did not grumble and as a result were left without dinner.
If you work from home or are in a different time zone than your manager, discuss your work hours and record this agreement.
To get started, develop a plan for weekly or monthly meetings at times that are convenient for everyone.
I have a friend who lives in New York and works for a London company. This means that most of her meetings with management are at 8 am instead of 4 pm New York time.
Next, be clear about the time at which you will respond to e-mails (it may turn out that your letters will inevitably reach the addressee in the middle of the night). Micromanagers often tend to "forget" about minor details like time zones, so agreements like this can help avoid conflicts in the future.
I would also recommend that leaders who read this book create rules for working time limits in their own organizations. I have a manager friend who has included this automatic addition to each of his mailings: “I sometimes work at unusual hours, but I do not require the same from you. If I wrote to you on the weekend, it is not at all necessary to answer before Monday. I really liked this message. It clearly signals, "I don't intend to bug you on Saturdays." […]
Summing up
- Micromanagers are easy to spot, but a lot of things are going on under the surface and we don't know about it. It's strange, but micromanagers can also be inattentive.
- Inattention manifests itself in different ways. Some micromanagers are inattentive to people (change them, rearrange them from place to place), others miss important moments in their work. It's not that they focus on the details - they focus on the wrong details.
- There are many reasons why your boss micromanages. Some lack training—they are promoted because they did a good job, not because they were good leaders. They simply have not been taught to make quick and accurate decisions.
- The behavior of micromanagers is also explained by false assumptions, such as belief in the effect of observation - the belief that the closer you look at the process of work, the better the result.
- In some cases, micromanagement is the result of fear. The main fears are mistakes and before the loss of status and power.
- There are certain warning signs that micromanagement is thriving in a team. During a job interview, ask the following questions. What management training do employees receive? How many managers over my future leader? Too many bosses, too many levels of accountability - this is not a good sign. If your company has flexible working hours, find out how employees set time limits and whether they respect each other's boundaries. Micromanagers should clearly delineate the line between your work time and your non-work time.
- Before confronting the micromanager, ask yourself the ultimate question: Does the job I'm doing make sense? If you have to hang clothes by color, quit.
- When you decide to talk to a micromanager, don't start with criticism. He will go on the defensive, you will build a protective wall. Instead, turn the conversation to a discussion of shared goals.
- When it comes to debriefing what and how the micromanager is doing wrong, don't indulge in generalizations that might seem offensive to the boss. Talk only about specific things.
- Even if you don't like it, arrange for frequent and short review meetings. Healthy relationships must be maintained. With practice, communication gets better, so these meetings will be more painless each time.
The Toxic Colleagues book will help you figure out how to properly interact with careerists, freeloaders and other negligent employees who do not respect your personal boundaries. You will learn several strategies for dealing with inappropriate behavior of colleagues and how to recover from forced communication with them.
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