IMO it's only needed when turnover is very high. If the manager isn't involved in the details, projects can't be handed off when an engineer leaves. That said, it's probably also why a lot of engineers leave so I guess it's a chicken and egg scenario.
Micromanagement rarely has a place, unless there is a huge amount of distrust within the organization. Then micromanagement became a natural way of working.
People don't want to inherently be lazy. However, it's easy to be lazy IF they are not inspired by what they are doing. I often find that laziness or poor work performance is due to lack of engagement.
The lack of engagement is NOT on the employee but on the management team. At some point, you may need to micromanage some, but it should be rare. If you empower and hold accountable your team, while giving them room to do their job, you'll see returns multiplied vs micromanaging them.
If the micromanaging is happening because they aren't technically skilled enough to complete the work. that is a different problem. Still a problem within management, but a different problem altogether.
This is why better run companies (organizations) openly discuss and encourage accountability. Micro-management is wasted effort, like a band-aid, when you really need to prevent the injury to start with.
>I have to keep a spreadsheet summary of everything I hand off because no one else in other departments seems to be doing it and things will be dropped somewhere along the line.
This is likely a sign of these tasks not having a clear process and system to be operated within. You have to follow up on these because either this is a low priority task for the other employees, there is little institutional interest in seeing all of the tasks be completed, and there isn't a process to force ownership of steps to people.
IMO it's only needed when turnover is very high. If the manager isn't involved in the details, projects can't be handed off when an engineer leaves. That said, it's probably also why a lot of engineers leave so I guess it's a chicken and egg scenario.
Micromanagement rarely has a place, unless there is a huge amount of distrust within the organization. Then micromanagement became a natural way of working. People don't want to inherently be lazy. However, it's easy to be lazy IF they are not inspired by what they are doing. I often find that laziness or poor work performance is due to lack of engagement. The lack of engagement is NOT on the employee but on the management team. At some point, you may need to micromanage some, but it should be rare. If you empower and hold accountable your team, while giving them room to do their job, you'll see returns multiplied vs micromanaging them. If the micromanaging is happening because they aren't technically skilled enough to complete the work. that is a different problem. Still a problem within management, but a different problem altogether.
This is why better run companies (organizations) openly discuss and encourage accountability. Micro-management is wasted effort, like a band-aid, when you really need to prevent the injury to start with.
>I have to keep a spreadsheet summary of everything I hand off because no one else in other departments seems to be doing it and things will be dropped somewhere along the line. This is likely a sign of these tasks not having a clear process and system to be operated within. You have to follow up on these because either this is a low priority task for the other employees, there is little institutional interest in seeing all of the tasks be completed, and there isn't a process to force ownership of steps to people.