It's Official: Micromanaging Kills Productivity

What is surprising given how many bosses used to be somebody's underling, is the degree to which they still believe that their way or the highway is something other than a poster slogan.

In an economy that values knowledge and respect, getting in someone's grill just doesnt make a whole lot of sense unless your goal is getting them to quit. Of course it has helped that the economy has been on the rocks for five years so that those who have jobs are happy to have them. But even so, with bonuses and stock options based on improving metrics, behaving in ways that are detrimental to performance objectives would seem almost gratuitous if we didnt know that it is often based on emotional rather than rational factors.

One benefit of the Big Data era is that it tosses up frequent and irrefutable evidence of what works and what doesnt. That micromanagement is deleterious has been a staple of management lore at least since Westinghouse authorized the Hawthorne experiments almost a century ago. But then there were probably Sumerian, Khmer or Mixtec artisans who could have told them that. We now have our own data in our own context. The only question is whether we will do something with it. JL

Jill Krasny reports in Inc.:

Highly educated employees work more when given autonomy over their schedules.

Ever wonder what really makes employees work harder?
Let's start with what doesn't. Contrary to the instinct of micromanagers everywhere, watching over your employees' shoulders and dictating where and when they should work is perhaps the worst tactic for productivity.
New research from University of Pennsylvania professor Alexandra Michel finds highly educated employees work more when given autonomy over their schedules. In fact, they'll often work to the point of exhaustion.
Michel saw this herself, when she began her career at Goldman Sachs years ago. There, the average investment banker burned out after nine years and typically quit by age 35. To understand this, Michel spent 12 years studying young executives at two large investment banks.
When employees were pressured to work more, they were less inspired, she found. But when allowed to set their own pace, taking fewer vacations and working on weekends, they could accept it because it was their choice, Michel explained in the summer issue of The Sociological Quarterly, where her study was published.
Of course, employee-dictated schedules aren't without their flaws. Michel noted many autonomous bankers worked excessively hard, suffering "debilitating physical and psychological breakdowns" as well as back pain, insomnia, addictions, and eating disorders. Others often sacrificed personal needs at the expense of a healthy work-life balance. So while the work schedules were on their own terms, their judgment, creativity, and ethical sensitivity suffered, making life miserable for those around them.