Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Micro-Management has been given a bad name. What is bad is nit-picking management. Used properly, micro-management is a good practice.

Micro-management is a good management practice. There, now fight the urge to stop reading while I explain.

Here is what micro-management is about: A senior manager bores down through several levels of bureaucracy to a key element of a project. The senior manager pays close attention to the key element to help the project succeed.

Some may protest now. That is not micro-management. Yes, it is. It was invented to do that to help projects succeed.

What most of us know and have experienced is nit-picking management.

Nits are the eggs of lice. Nits are really small. The literal practice of picking nits is when someone, I guess they are using a magnifying glass and a tiny pair of tweezers, picks the eggs of lice out of your scalp. That takes a lot of time, prevents you from doing anything useful, and is generally painful for you and frustrating for the nit picker.

Now that we have covered actual nit picking, we can all imagine what nit-picking management is. We don’t want it.

Micro-management, however, can be quite helpful when practiced correctly.