Although micromanaging is thought of as a bad thing, a post on Marc Andreessen’s blog reveals when it can be beneficial to everyone. However, one must be careful to avoid abusing it.

Everybody has strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to make sure the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. As mentioned in my earlier post, address the weakness so it’s not a liability anymore, but spend the rest of the energy on improving strengths, since it’s the competitive advantage from the strengths that will produce success. In a management situation, micromanaging is one approach to address the weakness, such as when a new hire is not familiar with the company’s standard procedures. Ideally, micromanaging would be done while the person being micromanaged is fixing the weakness.

The way to fix a weakness is to either grow the skills in the weak area or to delegate. Using myself as an example, I’m poor with day-to-day organization. Hence, I’m starting to read the Getting Things Done (GTD) book to improve my organizational skills, but in the meantime I will delegate my day-to-day organizing tasks. I’m waiting for science to develop a way for me to create an obedient clone so I can delegate all my dirty tasks, but until then, I delegate my day-to-day organizing to my electronic PDA.

Back to micromanaging… although it can be helpful to everyone for certain situations, it’s important to realize the psychology going on when micromanaging occurs.

There is a saying in the military: you can delegate authority, but not responsibility. In other words, if I missed an important appointment, blaming my PDA is not an option. Same with people. That’s why it’s OK to micromanage for mission-critical tasks, but make sure that the person knows why it’s happening since the natural instinct is to think there’s no trust in the person. When someone micromanages me, I sometimes feel that I’m considered incompetent. I also sometimes feel that I am absolved and now free of the responsibility for the success of the task. Neither are good things.

If I’m being micromanaged because the task I have is mission-critical, I will understand if I’m told and will be even more engaged. If I’m being micromanaged because someone thinks I’m weak in the needed skills to do the task, please tell me so I can fix this weakness. I also need to remember this the next time I find myself micromanaging someone as well.