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Author Archives: Luigi Fu
Posts: 2 (archived below)
Comments: 3
Micromanagement as an essential aspect of a manager’s portfolio
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20131003-in-praise-of-micromanagement
Sydney Finkelstein from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business is promoting selective management as a valuable management tool. We are all taught to delegate responsibilities and let go; Finkelstein argues that “it must be delegate and be intimately involved with what happens next”.
This is an interesting concept but one that is hard to practice. When I am training my colleague to prepare him for my old position or managing my intern, I always have to remind myself to not get too involved, or micromanage, them. Instead, I would like them to learn the process themselves and have it ingrained in them.
However, when I forget, I always worry if the job is getting done correctly or if there is something that I didn’t teach them correctly. It’s hard to find the balance and I find Finkelstein’s point interesting, especially this paragraph:
“You will likely step on some toes along the way and you may go too far on occasion, but which is worse: occasionally butting in on a subordinate’s work to make a point, or not providing real-time feedback to help that subordinate grow and excel?”
How do you feel about micromanagement and do you think that selective micro-management is a skill you practice?
Adhocracy in a Machine Bureaucracy
I read an interesting article on BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24622247 – and in the Economist – http://www.economist.com/news/business/21587792-radical-boss-haier-wants-transform-worlds-biggest-appliance-maker-nimble about Haier and their structure.
Haier, a Chinese manufacturing and appliance company, is a large company with 80,000 employees around the world. It was a failing company in the late 1980s until Zhang Ruimin, it’s current CEO, turned it around and made it what it is today – a thriving international manufacturing company with high-quality goods. He is known for adopting abnormal management practices and structures.
In his current move, he is removing middle managers and creating teams with members from different units – sales, manufacturing, etc. – that are based around ideas with their own performance metrics. The units leaders are the employees that have submitted ideas to the company and won approval from their fellow employees. Within those team, there is a “catfish” – a second-in-command that is looking for a chance to take control of the team if the leader ever fails. Team members can leave whenever they want and join another team, or they can join two or three teams – being a leader in one and a “catfish” in another.
To me, this loose structure seems great in theory but to manage a multi-national company that requires the standardization of products, it can create some inconsistencies. Creating an ad-hoc structure in a manufacturing company seems like a complex move. The risks seems high but if it works out, the reward might be even greater.
Let me know what you think about Zhang Ruimin and his strategy.
Posted in Human Resources, Structure
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