Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Manny here before we get to today's episode,
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring your attention to the no such
Speaker 1: thing listener survey. By filling out this survey, you will
Speaker 1: help us make this show better. You hear from us
Speaker 1: all the time, but now it's time to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Is it the case that we talk too much and
Speaker 1: you want to hear more from experts? Or do you
Speaker 1: think shockingly that we don't talk enough. Are the episodes
Speaker 1: too short or are they too long? Please consider filling
Speaker 1: out this survey and helping us make this show just
Speaker 1: a little bit better, even though that's a little hard
Speaker 1: to do because the show is already fantastic. You can
Speaker 1: find the listener survey in the show notes for this
Speaker 1: episode and in our newsletter at no such thing dot show.
Speaker 1: Enjoy today's episode, gas, I'm Manny, I'm Noah.
Speaker 2: This is Devin and this is no such thing.
Speaker 3: The show resettle our dumb arguments and yours by actually
Speaker 3: doing the research this week. Does micromanaging actually work?
Speaker 1: I know there's no no such thing, no such thank.
Speaker 2: Such, thank.
Speaker 3: Touch, thank touch, thank so. We got a question from
Speaker 3: a listener on management styles asking about micromanaging versus quote
Speaker 3: unquote free range, which gets better results. We're going to
Speaker 3: talk about that and a few other work related topics
Speaker 3: and questions, but let's start with our own histories. How
Speaker 3: do you boys feel about micromanaging slash management styles? And
Speaker 3: you know we're sitting here with a manager ourselves, Devin, Devin,
Speaker 3: you are a manager to both of us in different capacities,
Speaker 3: wanting you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess I did manage you, or attempted to.
Speaker 4: Let's say, yeah, what.
Speaker 2: Is my management style?
Speaker 4: I would say, well, I I guess you guys can
Speaker 4: fact check me on this, but I would like to
Speaker 4: think that I don't micromanage people. I try to manage
Speaker 4: people the way I like to be managed, and I
Speaker 4: really hate being micromanaged. Yeah, in my mind, if you're
Speaker 4: going to micromanage me, why don't you just do the job,
Speaker 4: Like I don't need to just be doing extra stuff
Speaker 4: at work just to stay busy. So in the situations
Speaker 4: that I have been in with managers who micromanage me,
Speaker 4: I often just say, well, instead of you know, both
Speaker 4: of us watching this video leaving notes, how about you.
Speaker 2: Just watched the video notes and I'll just do something else.
Speaker 4: So Yeah, my style is like you sure to set
Speaker 4: someone up, you give them what they need to do
Speaker 4: to job, and then you check in.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's been mostly successful.
Speaker 4: There are instances where you get someone who takes advantage
Speaker 4: of someone who's not micromanaging and then doesn't really do anything. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but I think those people are few and far between,
Speaker 4: And I don't think micromanaging a person who doesn't really
Speaker 4: do their work is helpful either, because you're just taking
Speaker 4: the time that you would be doing something else to
Speaker 4: basically do the job as well.
Speaker 2: So I feel like.
Speaker 4: If you have people on your team who you feel
Speaker 4: like you need the micro manage, you need to get
Speaker 4: them off of your team because like you're just wasting
Speaker 4: your time by doing double the work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: To me, it's always just like we need expectations to
Speaker 3: be clear, whether that's deadlines or how things should be
Speaker 3: when it's when a deadline does come or something, Because
Speaker 3: I think someone who's maybe doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 3: work experience might just show up and be like, I
Speaker 3: have no idea what I'm doing, and then if their
Speaker 3: manager is not telling them, then they're like, well what
Speaker 3: am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: So they need that handholding, but hopefully that's only a
Speaker 3: temporary thing and then they're on their own.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point.
Speaker 4: If you're not going to micro manage, you got to
Speaker 4: really set expectations because lines and what's expected of people.
Speaker 3: Because then as a freelancer more recently, I've had jobs
Speaker 3: where I I'm on call or something and then it's
Speaker 3: like I'm kind of just waiting for stuff and it's like,
Speaker 3: all right, I know this thing ultimately has to be
Speaker 3: due on Friday, but like do you want to see
Speaker 3: something before then, or like you know, and it's just
Speaker 3: on me to send it, and like I'll get it
Speaker 3: done and send it just so it's off my plate.
Speaker 3: But it's like yeah, sometimes a little bit like am
Speaker 3: I doing enough for you? Or it's sometimes more helpful
Speaker 3: for there to be some middle ground of like Okay,
Speaker 3: let's get one cut on this stay and then something
Speaker 3: else the next day a milestone and yeah exactly, versus
Speaker 3: like it's really annoying though when it's someone every two
Speaker 3: hours being like, hey, do you think you'll have this
Speaker 3: edit done? And it's like no, it's going to take
Speaker 3: four hours just to export it, so you know, or whatever.
Speaker 1: So we should note too that like we've always been
Speaker 1: working in media, Yeah, there might be some fields where
Speaker 1: micromanaging might be more required if you're I don't know,
Speaker 1: a nuclear plant or something, throwing that up as an example. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are in media, and Devin had always to me anyway,
Speaker 1: or both of us, I imagine, been kind of a
Speaker 1: bigger picture manager, like you know, think about this over
Speaker 1: the course of these few months, versus being in every edit.
Speaker 1: That's true, doing this, this and this. However, you know,
Speaker 1: there were other times when Devon wasn't our boss exactly,
Speaker 1: and someone else would come in and there was a
Speaker 1: lot more micromanaging, and that does make the work experience
Speaker 1: more strenuous, I think, especially because Devin was our manager
Speaker 1: and we were also friends or like you know, or
Speaker 1: I at least liked each other on the very beginning,
Speaker 1: and then other people will come in and you're just like, actually,
Speaker 1: I can hear that from Devin, but hearing the same
Speaker 1: exact thing from you is much worse because I don't
Speaker 1: like you as much.
Speaker 3: Also, I say bias not only in being friends, but
Speaker 3: I know Devin can like. So we're editing videos I
Speaker 3: know Devin has edited, and you can do it. I've
Speaker 3: had managers who, as far as I know, haven't edited videos,
Speaker 3: so they're coming to me with notes or feedback, which
Speaker 3: sometimes is valid. You don't need to be a video
Speaker 3: editor to say this video looks horrible, right, obviously, but
Speaker 3: the spectations are maybe misaligned with the reality of the
Speaker 3: footage in what we have and the time and all this,
Speaker 3: and it's like, Okay, Devin's not going to give notes
Speaker 3: that are insane because he knows that's going to take
Speaker 3: way more work or whatever, versus other times, I've had
Speaker 3: managers who feel like they're leaving notes because they need
Speaker 3: to say something to say they did something. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Otherwise it's like I could have just sent this to
Speaker 3: your boss ahead of you, and you know, we don't
Speaker 3: need to exist. So it's the middle manager issue.
Speaker 1: And there are some people who are good at managing
Speaker 1: and some people I just aren't. Like I was in
Speaker 1: charge of someone at Business Insider once and I realized
Speaker 1: how bad I was at being a manager.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like they just kept away.
Speaker 1: They just kept asking me, like, you know, what should
Speaker 1: I do today? Or like what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: What do you think about this? I'm like, just you
Speaker 1: I don't know, use your brain. Get like I'm busy,
Speaker 1: Like I've really got other shit to work on, and
Speaker 1: that's terrible, Like you're not, that's not, that's not. I
Speaker 1: immediately realize, oh, I should not be managing anyone because yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not a good dynamic.
Speaker 3: Like, but I guess what do you guys think as
Speaker 3: far as if we're doing micromanaging versus free range? What
Speaker 3: do you think is more productive? And I guess this
Speaker 3: could be twofold for you for an employee and as
Speaker 3: a manager or a company side, what do you think
Speaker 3: actually would get better results?
Speaker 4: I think free range with clear expectations, in clear goals.
Speaker 4: Because I've been micromanaged, I've been with managers who are
Speaker 4: more free range. I guess there's no advantages to me
Speaker 4: of being micromanaged. There are sometimes advantages to the free
Speaker 4: range thing, but free range with no clear goals or
Speaker 4: expectations it's also very annoying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're kind of set up to film, yeah.
Speaker 4: Because then you're just doing stuff in a bubble and
Speaker 4: then you're manager who hasn't been around for a month
Speaker 4: shows up and it's like, this is not what I
Speaker 4: wanted you to do, and it's like, well, you gave
Speaker 4: me no goals expectations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah at all, So like here's just what we've
Speaker 2: been doing.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you know, I also hate managers that are
Speaker 4: just micromanaging and looking over your shoulder because it's like
Speaker 4: you put me in this position for a reason. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like let me do the job, give me some room
Speaker 4: to sort of figure it this out. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: would prefer free range with clear expectations and clear goals
Speaker 4: and like regular check ins. Yeah you know once a week.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's enough.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a happy medium between yeah, the two styles.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if I'm going you know, if I'm not doing
Speaker 4: what you expect in that week, let's talk about it then.
Speaker 4: But like every like you're saying these hourly daily check ins,
Speaker 4: it's just like it's unnecessary. It doesn't give people enough
Speaker 4: time to like figure stuff out, and like you got
Speaker 4: to break some stuff and like do some things that
Speaker 4: don't work to figure out what does work.
Speaker 3: Well said spoken like a true middle manager, I guess
Speaker 3: before we give artics to it, Like Devin, it's interesting thinking,
Speaker 3: as you know, because even middle managers say they have
Speaker 3: I mean, I manage a team too at BI, and
Speaker 3: it's really frustrating because when you're the middle manager, you
Speaker 3: don't have the power to do anything. So all you're
Speaker 3: doing is filtering down what's being passed to you. So
Speaker 3: they say, oh, we want more of this sort of thing,
Speaker 3: then you have to do that, and then the people
Speaker 3: below you are like, well, I don't really like that,
Speaker 3: and you're your hands are tied because you don't even
Speaker 3: you don't have power to decide really what you're doing.
Speaker 3: You're just you're basically just a spokesperson, yeah, the messenger.
Speaker 3: And it's like incredibly frustrating because no matter what you do,
Speaker 3: it's like your boss is probably getting stuff from someone
Speaker 3: way above them and you know that, and it's just
Speaker 3: like there's not the transparency of just like hey, this
Speaker 3: is no one wants to do this. Someone thinks it's
Speaker 3: a good idea and that might not even correlate to
Speaker 3: numbers or anything. Yeah, so it's to me, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's almost a worse I feel like it's almost worse
Speaker 3: to be micromanaged, say, but as a middle manager than
Speaker 3: this as the lower level employee. Yeah, where it's like
Speaker 3: you can't do anything except maybe micromanager check in and
Speaker 3: do annoying things like that.
Speaker 4: It's like, so much of middle management is like like
Speaker 4: kind of being like a like a hostage negotiator to
Speaker 4: some degree, right of like, all right, nobody wants to
Speaker 4: be doing this, all right, the people in charge, here's
Speaker 4: what they want. How do I communicate this to the
Speaker 4: people who are actually doing the work in a way
Speaker 4: that makes them not want to kill themselves? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 4: short of do to work in a way, and then
Speaker 4: how do I communicate their concerns to upper management in
Speaker 4: a way.
Speaker 2: That they're going to be receptive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's a lot of Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 4: middle management is just like playing politics, and I think
Speaker 4: people deal with that in different ways. Like you were saying, Man,
Speaker 4: I think some people, when they get that pressure from
Speaker 4: upper management, they the way they deal with it is
Speaker 4: like by micromanaging and being super in the weeds.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Many Where do you fall on the micromanaging to free
Speaker 3: range continuum?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: My, I guess you know. My only kind of intrude
Speaker 1: to this conversation is that one time I managed someone
Speaker 1: and I was in favor of a kind of a hands.
Speaker 4: Off like I'm not doing this, I'm not really managing
Speaker 4: figure it out.
Speaker 1: You're technically under me, but you just go do your
Speaker 1: own thing.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess you know obviously without getting into details,
Speaker 3: you feel like that hurt your employees though, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like I so you think, I mean you think really
Speaker 3: probably a medium happy.
Speaker 1: Medium would be good. A medium would be good. And
Speaker 1: at the time I was like, I then told my
Speaker 1: manager at the time, like, I'm not this isn't for
Speaker 1: me and it's actually bad for the intern.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then we fixed that situation yet.
Speaker 3: Eliminated that position. We got a solution, You're gone. I
Speaker 3: think we basically all like.
Speaker 2: Can I provide a counterpoint? And I just thought of
Speaker 2: just in this moment case a real one.
Speaker 4: I do wonder at times if younger or more entry
Speaker 4: level people suffer from the more free.
Speaker 2: Range form of management.
Speaker 4: In a lot of places that I've been at, the
Speaker 4: people who, like you know, younger people who are just
Speaker 4: have more of that quote unquote entrepreneurial spirit of just
Speaker 4: like I'll figure it out, I'll look it up myself,
Speaker 4: like I'll just get yeah exactly, who just need sort
Speaker 4: of less handholding tend to perform well because managers often
Speaker 4: don't have time to like sit down with someone and
Speaker 4: like coach they actually teach them. So it's basically like
Speaker 4: entry level people are basically just kind of doing the
Speaker 4: job that everyone else at the company is doing, but
Speaker 4: they're just paid less or less experienced versus, you know.
Speaker 4: And I think in an ideal world, that person is
Speaker 4: being coached more. They're you know, they're getting more sort
Speaker 4: of like hands on feedback, and there is more of
Speaker 4: a like easing you into the job. Yeah, Like that's
Speaker 4: not really how work works nowadays. It's like you sign up,
Speaker 4: you got the job. Congrats, You're gonna do the job
Speaker 4: everyone else is doing. You're just gonna get paid less,
Speaker 4: and sure you won't be as good at it. But
Speaker 4: I think the people who I've seen suffer from that
Speaker 4: lack of micro managing are those younger people who don't
Speaker 4: quite have you know, they're just like not naturally good
Speaker 4: at the thing or they need more like step by
Speaker 4: step directions on how to do those things, and those
Speaker 4: people tend to not last at the companies that I've
Speaker 4: been at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we'll hear all about this and hopefully get
Speaker 3: some answers when we talk to Eric Baker, a Harvard
Speaker 3: lecturer who specialized in the history of labor and management
Speaker 3: after the break.
Speaker 4: All right, fellas, I need you to help me with
Speaker 4: a problem that I got. You know, usually we're the
Speaker 4: ones helping other people with their problems. But I'm about
Speaker 4: to go abroad and I'm going to watch met games. Noah,
Speaker 4: how can I watch them?
Speaker 2: That's a tough one.
Speaker 3: Maybe get a really large telescope.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's the best way to do it, Manny,
Speaker 4: Do you have any solutions on how I can watch
Speaker 4: Mets games abroad?
Speaker 1: I think I've got a slightly more practical solution for you, Devin.
Speaker 1: If you use Nord VPN, you'll be able to change
Speaker 1: the location of your laptop's IP address and watch the
Speaker 1: content with no problem.
Speaker 3: What about my privacy online? I'm worried someone's watching me.
Speaker 3: First of all, no one is watching you, Noah.
Speaker 1: But in case someone was watching you, NordVPN provides you
Speaker 1: with privacy online, leaving no digital footprint by hiding your
Speaker 1: IP address. It's like wearing an invisibility cloak while you're
Speaker 1: surfing the web.
Speaker 4: Sounds comfy, So, Manny, I've heard about these VPNs and
Speaker 4: how they're super slipt.
Speaker 2: How do I make sure my internet is not throttling.
Speaker 1: If you want to use a VPN without slowing down
Speaker 1: your Internet, Devin, You're going to want to use NordVPN
Speaker 1: because whenever I use it, I don't see any buffering
Speaker 1: or lagging while I'm streaming my favorite content.
Speaker 2: How do I get NordVPN, Devin?
Speaker 1: If you or our listeners want to get the best
Speaker 1: discount off of your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN dot
Speaker 1: com slash nst. Our link will also give you four
Speaker 1: extra months on the two year plan, and there's no
Speaker 1: risk because Nord has a thirty day money back guarantee.
Speaker 1: The link is in the show notes. That's NordVPN dot
Speaker 1: com slash nst.
Speaker 3: We're back. I'm Manny, I'm Noah Devon, and we are
Speaker 3: joined by Eric Baker. Eric, why don't you introduce yourself?
Speaker 5: Hi all, I'm Eric Kammer, raider and historian and an
Speaker 5: editor at The Drift magazine. A book called Make Your
Speaker 5: Own Job, How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which
Speaker 5: is about how our culture work came to be so toxic.
Speaker 3: Our main question that we're talking about is how efficient
Speaker 3: various management styles are talking about micromanaging versus free range, that.
Speaker 2: Sort of thing.
Speaker 3: But first, can you explain kind of how the basic
Speaker 3: kind of standard corporate office structure came to be as
Speaker 3: we know it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and this is a big question and a process
Speaker 5: that takes a long time, so I'll try to try
Speaker 5: to stick to the highlights. In general, the large corporations
Speaker 5: come to start to dominate the American economy in the
Speaker 5: late nineteenth century, and by the early twentieth century, you
Speaker 5: could walk into the downtown of a city like New
Speaker 5: York and you would start to see some office buildings
Speaker 5: that are familiar to us today, cubicles, things like that.
Speaker 5: Because these big corporations they need a ton of white
Speaker 5: collar work to make happen. You need accountants, you need
Speaker 5: people to manage all of this paper that's going back
Speaker 5: and forth, you know, transcontinental communication, lawyers, people doing advertising,
Speaker 5: all this stuff, And so increasingly they get concentrated in
Speaker 5: office buildings, and that leads to a demand for new
Speaker 5: ideas about how to manage these workers.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's.
Speaker 5: Important to remember that before all this happened, before this
Speaker 5: turned to corporate consolidation in the late nineteenth century, the
Speaker 5: fraction of the people who were doing what we today
Speaker 5: called white collar work was very very small. You know,
Speaker 5: it was a predominantly agrarian society. You know, they increasingly
Speaker 5: start to get people working in manufacturing industry. But you know,
Speaker 5: the office kind of emerges in tandem with the emergence
Speaker 5: of this new workforce who are working primarily with pander
Speaker 5: bensil and paper at desks. That's kind of a novel
Speaker 5: historical development.
Speaker 3: So now we have all these kind of you know,
Speaker 3: pencil pushers set up. How were kind of the management
Speaker 3: stuf aisles first developed and then also shared, Like how
Speaker 3: do they become so widespread?
Speaker 5: Well, there are a range of ideas, and you know,
Speaker 5: one of the important things to remember about this history
Speaker 5: is there's what people thought they were doing or what
Speaker 5: experts advised managers to do, and then kind of what
Speaker 5: the reality was actually on the office floor. So you know,
Speaker 5: initially there was the kind of natural school of thought
Speaker 5: is to just say, you know, oh, well, we should
Speaker 5: we have these strategies and schemes that we've developed to
Speaker 5: manage industrial workers in factory settings. You know, let's just
Speaker 5: kind of apply that to our pencil pushers. But that
Speaker 5: often proves actually much easier said than done. These are huge,
Speaker 5: sprawling bureaucracies, often quite literally sprawling. You know, there's some famous,
Speaker 5: famous silent film from the nineteen twenties of you know,
Speaker 5: there's a shot that just you know, shows you row
Speaker 5: after row a kind of almost surreal, sort of endless
Speaker 5: sea of desks. You know, that's that's actually something a
Speaker 5: little different than an assembly line, where you know, you
Speaker 5: can line up, line everyone up, and you know, monitor
Speaker 5: what everyone's doing and sort of dictate really precise steps
Speaker 5: and stuff like that. So, you know, in addition to these, uh,
Speaker 5: this sort of advice or kind of expert schemes for
Speaker 5: for managers, there also emerges what we might call a
Speaker 5: sort of self help literature, you know, how to how
Speaker 5: to survive as an employee in these in these settings.
Speaker 5: And you know, reading that literature really showed me how
Speaker 5: many people were sort of navigating with the reality that
Speaker 5: the bosses in some cases they wish that they were
Speaker 5: had more clarity about what they were supposed to be doing.
Speaker 5: And so there's there's really a kind of set of advice.
Speaker 5: You know, this is part of the titular phrase of
Speaker 5: my book Make your Own Job. You know, these people
Speaker 5: sort of cast a drift in these big bureaucratic settings
Speaker 5: where you know, our our image, and often what the
Speaker 5: managers thought they were doing was this high we routinized
Speaker 5: sort of systematic kind of control. But really people kind
Speaker 5: of felt like it was not always obvious what they
Speaker 5: were actually expected to be.
Speaker 3: Doing, and would it be fair to say then that
Speaker 3: kind of this idea of micromanaging in some ways evolved
Speaker 3: from that, where it's like, we don't really have an
Speaker 3: idea what's happening, but maybe we can check in a
Speaker 3: million times a day and try to find some sort
Speaker 3: of structure in this or how do you kind of
Speaker 3: describe that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so in a lot of offices, for you know,
Speaker 5: roughly the nineteen twenties to the nineteen seventies, there's a
Speaker 5: trend of adding layers of what comes to be known
Speaker 5: as middle management. I mean quite literally, they're like in
Speaker 5: managers in between. That's because there's a big communication challenge
Speaker 5: in these workplaces. There's no slack, there's no email. How
Speaker 5: do you get a message? How do you create channels
Speaker 5: of communication between people who are doing some kind of
Speaker 5: like concrete task that's involved in the functioning of one
Speaker 5: of these big firms and executive leadership you have to create,
Speaker 5: I mean almost a kind of like game of telephone,
Speaker 5: you know, a set of managers talking with each other
Speaker 5: all down the hierarchy. And so if you're a middle manager,
Speaker 5: your primary expectation your job is really about communication, you know,
Speaker 5: knowing what's going on beneath you, knowing what people above
Speaker 5: you want, and sort of passing passing messages up and down.
Speaker 5: When we think of the kind of stereotypical bureaucratic office environment,
Speaker 5: you know, it's soft and sort of emergence from this
Speaker 5: fact that it's actually kind of hard for people to
Speaker 5: figure out what their subordinates are up to. This requires
Speaker 5: a lot of checking in.
Speaker 3: That kind of brings me to something we were talking
Speaker 3: about in our intro where and I think this aligns
Speaker 3: with your book and kind of the entrepreneurial work ethic
Speaker 3: where someone will be a you know, regular maybe low
Speaker 3: level employee and then get a promotion and then now
Speaker 3: they're tasked with being a manager without having been trained
Speaker 3: up on how to manage. Or maybe you're balancing like
Speaker 3: Manny was at one point balancing doing his own work
Speaker 3: but then also managing someone kind of.
Speaker 2: On the side.
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about that, like how
Speaker 3: has that own has been put on the employees to
Speaker 3: kind of figure it out as they go along on
Speaker 3: those kind of dual roles.
Speaker 5: One of the big shifts kind of after this period
Speaker 5: that I was just talking about, you know, in the
Speaker 5: nineteen seventies, you start to see a lot of economic
Speaker 5: dysfunction in the United States, a lot of increasing anxieties
Speaker 5: about international competition, slowing rates of productivity and profit. And
Speaker 5: one of those sort of silver bullets that management experts
Speaker 5: arrive on that's often kind of enforced through private equity
Speaker 5: takeover and all this stuff, is to strip out these
Speaker 5: layers in middle management that had been accumulating. You know,
Speaker 5: that a real there's a real sort of shift in opinion.
Speaker 5: You know, the fact that we're employing all these people
Speaker 5: basically the past messages up and down the corporate hierarchy.
Speaker 5: You know, that's that's a huge that's a huge waste.
Speaker 5: And so you know, really the the ideal firm is
Speaker 5: one in which you know, there are people with managerial roles,
Speaker 5: but you know everyone is like doing something productive, everyone
Speaker 5: is uh, you know, creating value. This is the sort
Speaker 5: of uh one of the many kind of neologisms or
Speaker 5: you know whatever buzzwords that gets uh really entrenched in
Speaker 5: this in this period, you know, which which makes a
Speaker 5: lot of sense on paper, you know, but in practice
Speaker 5: again is kind of easier said than done because the
Speaker 5: actual tasks of you know, management, supervision, coordination, communication and
Speaker 5: these are these are non non trivial. They take a
Speaker 5: lot of time. There's there's often you know, a certain
Speaker 5: kind of skill involved. And so you know, if your
Speaker 5: primary task, you know, what you're being evaluated on is
Speaker 5: you know, coming up with the next big product it's
Speaker 5: gonna save the company from its you know, global competitors
Speaker 5: or something like that, you're not necessarily you know, as
Speaker 5: you say, you're not necessarily going to be skilled at
Speaker 5: the sort of communication and coordination side of management. Furthermore,
Speaker 5: there's one problem that sets in is that a lot
Speaker 5: of these shifts stripping down the middle management. This is
Speaker 5: often sort of justified or goes hand in hand with
Speaker 5: the emergence of the sort of cult of the kind
Speaker 5: of charismatic executive. So you know, a lot of these people,
Speaker 5: you know, they're being celebrated. You know, you're the ones
Speaker 5: who are really creating value you know, you're so innovative,
Speaker 5: you're so creative, and then so you know, often you
Speaker 5: you know, wind up with people where, you know, the
Speaker 5: the ideas, they're not supposed to be doing the old
Speaker 5: kind of bureaucratic managing style, but they frankly have such
Speaker 5: a high opinion of themselves. You know, there's this kind
Speaker 5: of heroic culture personality that develops around them. And then
Speaker 5: so it almost like packfires and you get you know,
Speaker 5: people who really see it. This is their you know,
Speaker 5: mission is to be involved, have their hands on, you know,
Speaker 5: hands on managing. This is another sort of buffsword that
Speaker 5: gets celebrated, you know, and so you get these people.
Speaker 5: This is like how we wind up with Elon Muskin
Speaker 5: and Nano managing because he's so great, you know, he
Speaker 5: has to have his hand in every pie.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like the actual design of an office
Speaker 1: could be born out of some of these management styles,
Speaker 1: Like we've kind of as a society have been moving
Speaker 1: away from cubicles into these more open office layouts where
Speaker 1: you can literally see what your employees are doing at
Speaker 1: all times. I'm just curious if you feel like that
Speaker 1: that's born out of different management styles evolving over time.
Speaker 1: Or maybe that's just cheaper to do it like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, probably a bit of a bit of calm. B
Speaker 5: There's a great book by the scholar Nikhil Saval who's
Speaker 5: actually now a politician as a state senator in Pennsylvania
Speaker 5: or something, but it's called Cubed. It's a great book
Speaker 5: that's about how the design of the office evolved in
Speaker 5: tandem with these, uh, with with shifting ideas about you
Speaker 5: know what it meant to manage well, you know what
Speaker 5: the office should be because you know, as you say,
Speaker 5: it makes it makes sense. You know, if your if
Speaker 5: your vision is one where you know, these your employees
Speaker 5: are almost kind of like factory hands. You know, it's
Speaker 5: more of an assembly line thing that's going to be
Speaker 5: reflected in the layout of an office, you know. Whereas again,
Speaker 5: if you're trying to instead in vision a workplace where
Speaker 5: it's you know, everyone is like productive and contributing and
Speaker 5: you know, heroic, then you're going to try to have
Speaker 5: a less kind of visibly hierarchical sort of setup. And
Speaker 5: if you want your CEO to you know, be have
Speaker 5: the hands on, you know, facilitate that by literally like
Speaker 5: removing the walls that would separate the boss from the workers,
Speaker 5: stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I guess to kind of just answer the main question
Speaker 3: from our listener about how effective micromanaging is versus a
Speaker 3: free range. I mean, do you have data on this
Speaker 3: like both I guess for the employee and for the
Speaker 3: company as as however they measure of productivity.
Speaker 5: What stands out to me is not so much that
Speaker 5: the studies say one thing or the or the other.
Speaker 5: You know, I have a colleague here in the history
Speaker 5: of Science department at arbody has written a lot about
Speaker 5: like nutrition science, and it almost kind of reminds me
Speaker 5: of how whether or not coffee is good for you
Speaker 5: according to the experts, you know, that like changes every week,
Speaker 5: and so I think there's good right now they say
Speaker 5: yes though, thank God for that. But I think it's
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's it's similar in the you know,
Speaker 5: attempting to sort of evaluate empirically the the efficacy of
Speaker 5: different management styles, and in part because you know, there's
Speaker 5: so many confounding variables, and in the case of management,
Speaker 5: you know, there's the most important variable is the workers themselves.
Speaker 5: And you know, so this there's I mean, going back
Speaker 5: to the nineteen thirties, there's a famous set of studies
Speaker 5: where according to the authors of the studies, and actually
Speaker 5: some retrospectively, there's been some doubt cast on with the
Speaker 5: extent to which they were actually sort of reading the
Speaker 5: data honestly. But what they said was that they tried
Speaker 5: these different kinds of interventions and their work groups. You know,
Speaker 5: often this was sort of physical stuff like you know,
Speaker 5: changing lighting or you know, rest break cadence, things like that.
Speaker 5: But they they found that whenever they did anything, including
Speaker 5: stopping what they had been doing before, that this led
Speaker 5: to an increase in productivity. And their interpretation was that,
Speaker 5: you know, workers just liked feeling like their managers were
Speaker 5: paying attention to them. They liked being, you know, feeling
Speaker 5: like there was a kind of project going on in
Speaker 5: the workplace, and then that you know, ultimately mattered more
Speaker 5: than the details of you know, what they were doing.
Speaker 5: And so that you know, this has again become kind
Speaker 5: of a folk tale and in the management world.
Speaker 6: But you know, I think that there's you know, I
Speaker 6: ironically it's that sense that like what really matters is
Speaker 6: trying to make sure that workers are excited about.
Speaker 5: What's going on in their work. You know, that has
Speaker 5: sort of taken on a life of its own as
Speaker 5: a management philosophy, and so you know, get endless pizza
Speaker 5: parties and whatnot.
Speaker 3: Obviously, in the past few years there's been more remote
Speaker 3: work and hybrid work, which I could see kind of
Speaker 3: going both towards and against micromanaging as far as you're
Speaker 3: not here physically with me, so I might need to
Speaker 3: check in with you if you're my employee. What's your
Speaker 3: read on kind of how management has kind of adapted
Speaker 3: to the kind of new climate of work.
Speaker 5: Initially there was I think some hope in fact the
Speaker 5: range of efforts to you know, come up with new
Speaker 5: technologies that would essentially enhance remote worker surveillance, and that's
Speaker 5: something that you know, people still deal with. But I mean,
Speaker 5: my my read is that return to work is like
Speaker 5: the overwhelming push from the management or the executive class.
Speaker 5: Bosses in general are dissatisfied with, you know, the degree
Speaker 5: of monitoring and you know, frankly kind of like compliance
Speaker 5: that they've been able to get from workers in a
Speaker 5: in a remote environment, and it's hard to say where
Speaker 5: the empirical evidence stops. And these sort of stories that
Speaker 5: take on a life of their own. Again, you know,
Speaker 5: there's all kinds of other narratives that have emerged in
Speaker 5: the last five years, you know, about sort of you know,
Speaker 5: worker wayziness or you know whatever, quiet quitting, all this stuff.
Speaker 5: And again, you know, the the empirical evidence there was
Speaker 5: was always a little dubious. So there's very much a
Speaker 5: strong perception among you know, people who call the shots
Speaker 5: in a huge range of workplaces that there's something missing.
Speaker 5: You know, they're they're not able to kind of ensure
Speaker 5: the same kind of results and that you know, ultimately
Speaker 5: actually get people back in a physical environment. That's the
Speaker 5: only solution.
Speaker 3: I'm curious, how, you know, work in the US as
Speaker 3: far as management styles, like, how does it compare to
Speaker 3: you know, across Europe or Asia or elsewhere. Is there
Speaker 3: just super wide variance as far as expectations on workers
Speaker 3: or you know, because.
Speaker 5: Definitely, yeah, I can't claim to know what it's like
Speaker 5: to work in China or you know, in France or wherever.
Speaker 5: But I think that there's a tension because on the
Speaker 5: one hand, different cultures and different places their histories will
Speaker 5: have an effect on basic expectations. I mean, so much
Speaker 5: of our culture of work is not just about what's
Speaker 5: happened in the workplace, but it's related to broader you know,
Speaker 5: broader developments, you know, broader facts of American national culture
Speaker 5: and identity and stuff like that. And that's that's true
Speaker 5: anywhere that you're you're going to go. But it's also
Speaker 5: the case that management expertise is increasingly a global market.
Speaker 5: The big consultancies, you know, operate globally. Management training, you know,
Speaker 5: this is really a global market. You know, there are
Speaker 5: people from all around the world who you know, come
Speaker 5: into the top of American business schools and learn the
Speaker 5: same things that American executives are learning. And so there
Speaker 5: is I think a certain degree of homogene to or
Speaker 5: at lease, a certain set of shared touchstones, or you know,
Speaker 5: you can count on people who have heard the same
Speaker 5: stories or the same advice, you know, regardless of whether
Speaker 5: or not they follow it. But yeah, I mean I've
Speaker 5: been you know, since my book came out. You know,
Speaker 5: I did one interview with the Chinese paper and one
Speaker 5: interview of the German paper, and this sort of confirms
Speaker 5: my suspicion that this American culture of work has to
Speaker 5: a significant extent, really gone global.
Speaker 3: So I dug into some studies on micromanaging.
Speaker 2: And here's what I found.
Speaker 3: One report suggested six scenarios where micromanaging might be helpful.
Speaker 3: So here the six count on me. One the strategy
Speaker 3: of the organization is changing.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. That makes sense.
Speaker 4: Hey, we got a pivot. We're doing this thing exactly.
Speaker 4: Now we're doing this other thing. I'm a micromanaged because
Speaker 4: we all gotta be on the same page.
Speaker 3: But what we're doing, similarly to a new endeavor is starting.
Speaker 3: So not the whole organization, but something. You know, you're
Speaker 3: working on a new project. We've all been there, but
Speaker 3: oh have we?
Speaker 2: They love to start a new project.
Speaker 3: Three, there is a new leader, a new employee, or
Speaker 3: a new division or unit. So again, similar some new
Speaker 3: some of the news happening.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Four, an employee or leader fails to execute on an initiative,
Speaker 3: and as a result, the program lingers. So the micromanaging
Speaker 3: program linkers, meaning so, yeah, things are getting messed up.
Speaker 3: We got to figure this out. I'm gonna watch you
Speaker 3: extra hard now. Five, serious complaints or errors have occurred.
Speaker 3: What's going on here?
Speaker 2: All right? That's true.
Speaker 4: You know you have an employee makes a you know,
Speaker 4: it's a huge factual error. And a report that goes
Speaker 4: out video going forward.
Speaker 2: That sources.
Speaker 1: Yeah, give me access.
Speaker 2: Where did you get Where did you get this from them?
Speaker 2: Where did you get this number?
Speaker 3: You got this from business insidery.
Speaker 1: We can accept that X, double check your sources of right.
Speaker 3: The opposite of that, all right?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: And six the division or department has poor results. Again,
Speaker 3: we got to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 2: These either new or things are going poorly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the idea here is these are
Speaker 3: temporary measures and the more stuff we'll talk about. We'll
Speaker 3: get into that. But it's not supposed to be. This
Speaker 3: is just how we work. It's supposed to be we're
Speaker 3: solving a specific thing. There's something new happening or something
Speaker 3: we need to change. Let's focus in and get this
Speaker 3: done and then hopefully we can move on.
Speaker 1: And the study found that micromanaging in these instances, that's
Speaker 1: where it.
Speaker 3: Might be helpful.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So another quote from that report is me quoting. While
Speaker 3: micromanagement is sometimes necessary, doing it for too long could
Speaker 3: be detrimental, and managers should be attuned to the need
Speaker 3: to reevaluate their role and back off at the appropriate time.
Speaker 3: In the words of one management expert, effective micromanagement through
Speaker 3: setting structure, developing strategy and plans, creating reliable systems for others,
Speaker 3: and teaching people how to be independent thinkers can actually
Speaker 3: empower others to do their jobs with little involvement from
Speaker 3: you at all. Managers need to assess how often they
Speaker 3: are practicing in a micromanaging mode. If managers feel they
Speaker 3: are spending too much time in the weeds, they should
Speaker 3: consider whether they are hiring the right team members.
Speaker 4: I mean, who can disagree every damn day I work
Speaker 4: with you too?
Speaker 2: Consider whether or not.
Speaker 3: We need a new MANI another more critical paper you're
Speaker 3: gonna like this title called the Micromanagement Disease Die Richard J. White,
Speaker 3: or it is the Micromanagement Disease Symptoms, Diagnosis and Cure.
Speaker 3: These guys getting creative with these that if all you're
Speaker 3: writing about is management, all right? The author of that
Speaker 3: said this quote, I'm quoting a lot here, all right.
Speaker 3: That means put some music on the.
Speaker 2: Copy.
Speaker 3: At its more severe level, micromanagement is a compulsive behavioral
Speaker 3: disorder similar to other addictive patterns. People who are micromanaged
Speaker 3: generally do so because they feel unsure and self doubting.
Speaker 3: Micromanagers like many addicts and alcoholics are the last people
Speaker 3: to recognize that they are hooked on controlling others. Extreme
Speaker 3: micromanagers behave pathologically refusing to accept personal responsibility or accountability,
Speaker 3: and create scapegoats to blame for their own mistakes. They
Speaker 3: seldom develop people, but instead exploit them, preferring to control
Speaker 3: results rather than inspiring creativity, fear, and competition. They rarely
Speaker 3: hire people with the talent, experience, and know how to
Speaker 3: challenge them. Micromanagers tend to dumb down their organizations as
Speaker 3: they hire drones. They must work even harder because drones
Speaker 3: take more work to manage than do thinking industrious workers.
Speaker 3: It becomes a visious cycle. Good workers leave, more drones
Speaker 3: are hired, and the organization begins a downward spiral and
Speaker 3: skill morale and productivity. No organization can be truly efficient
Speaker 3: when it is constantly rehiring and training new workers.
Speaker 1: I've worked at a few legacy media outlets, and I
Speaker 1: know a lot of drones.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that much attack.
Speaker 2: Of the drones. There's two things that stood out from
Speaker 2: that paper for me. Okay.
Speaker 4: Number one the idea that micromanagers, despite all the micromanaging
Speaker 4: that they do, despite as annoying as they are, then
Speaker 4: they will still scapegoat if.
Speaker 2: Something goes wrong. Exactly.
Speaker 7: It's like, you are involved in every single step in
Speaker 7: this process. You basically did it, yea, so if it fails,
Speaker 7: you need to be held accountable as well. But they
Speaker 7: love to throw people under the bus. And it's like,
Speaker 7: so what was the point of you micromanaging? Then exactly
Speaker 7: look in the mirror, crazy, Yeah, look at the man
Speaker 7: in the mirror, as Michael Jackson said, yep.
Speaker 4: And then number two this idea of drones, right, like
Speaker 4: micromanagers love a drone. And I think that's where I've
Speaker 4: in my career.
Speaker 2: You know, my younger illustrious.
Speaker 4: I'm a young man, So in the places where I
Speaker 4: felt like, oh it's time for me to leave, it's
Speaker 4: when it's gone from a we need you to be
Speaker 4: creative and come up with new ideas and blah blah
Speaker 4: blah to okay, actually we just need you to be
Speaker 4: a drone. And then it's like, all right, it's time
Speaker 4: for me to drone up.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And now this last report I looked at as
Speaker 3: an actual kind of analysis where they look through different
Speaker 3: studies over decades of micromanagement. So it's called micromanagement. A
Speaker 3: systematic literature review and future research agenda, so they looked
Speaker 3: at tons of studies over the years to report findings.
Speaker 3: They said, there still needs to be more research, but
Speaker 3: here are some top line things they found. So micromanagement
Speaker 3: can generate positive outcomes in the short term, such as
Speaker 3: increasing organizational productivity, initiating organizational changes something that supervisor's close scrutiny,
Speaker 3: excessive guidance and detailed feedback help inexperience people develop their
Speaker 3: competence and improve their performance. It can help subordins avoid
Speaker 3: procrastination and stay focused on their core tasks. So that's
Speaker 3: why micromanagement exists. Again short term and helping build people
Speaker 3: up to the skills they need. As for negative impacts,
Speaker 3: it increases job stress, damp in psychological safety climate in organizations,
Speaker 3: signals distrust and disrespect for subordinates, and on the other hand,
Speaker 3: requests for frequent reports and attention to unnecessary details increase
Speaker 3: subordinates workload, where a strict imposition of rules, directives, and
Speaker 3: arbitrary decision making processes reduce their job autonomy. So again
Speaker 3: just gives people less control of their own work, puts
Speaker 3: more stuff on managers, So they noted it adds stress
Speaker 3: for managers and leads to job or not for all
Speaker 3: due to these perfectionist standards.
Speaker 2: So managers and.
Speaker 3: Employees or subordinates are getting more stressed out. This leads
Speaker 3: to job dissatisfaction and more employee turnover, which means now
Speaker 3: you're spending this time hiring new people, training them, on
Speaker 3: boarding them, doing the whole thing over again instead of
Speaker 3: just giving people the skills they need to work and
Speaker 3: then everyone can you know, rising tides.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Then it reduces employee creativity and operational efficiency. So the
Speaker 3: bottom line, it's worse for the bottom line.
Speaker 1: Damn.
Speaker 3: After the break, many, Devin and I tackle some work
Speaker 3: related questions sent in by the audience. So we are back.
Speaker 3: I'm Noah, I'm Manny Devin.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that was Eric Baker who walked us through management
Speaker 3: styles and more broadly, the history of work. Got into
Speaker 3: a lot, but we did have a few more questions
Speaker 3: from our listeners that we're going to get into now.
Speaker 3: Some are more advicey and then some are a little
Speaker 3: bit more in the weeds, but let's just go through them.
Speaker 3: The first one, how do I handle an incompetent boss.
Speaker 3: Now many and I have both dealt with this. How
Speaker 3: do we make it through common boss? Yeah, Devin, No,
Speaker 3: but in all seriousness, yeah, it's not a not a.
Speaker 2: Laughing yeah, you know this is it's tough.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think?
Speaker 1: Honestly, sometimes in my previous job, you know, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it was incompetence per se, but it was definitely
Speaker 1: he felt like an obstacle at times. And what I
Speaker 1: would do I would have my own little strategies to
Speaker 1: kind of get what I want, which is like, you know,
Speaker 1: bake whatever I wanted into a verbal package of the
Speaker 1: things that he wanted. I don't know how to articulate
Speaker 1: it really, but.
Speaker 2: It's like you're putting the vegetables in a cake a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, yes, exactly, you're hiding you're hiding peanut butter in
Speaker 1: the dog, or hiding dog the.
Speaker 2: Peanut butter dog menaces.
Speaker 1: I don't have a dog.
Speaker 2: He has a food. They don't want to eat it.
Speaker 1: In the medicine just peanut butter, right, the medicine.
Speaker 4: The things you would want to do is the medicine
Speaker 4: in this case, and you're covering it in peanut butter,
Speaker 4: which is what your boss wanted at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he doesn't even realize that you got your medicine in there, right,
Speaker 4: the stuff that you want to following.
Speaker 1: It, Because the goal ultimately was to have a video
Speaker 1: or TikTok or an Instagram real that would get a
Speaker 1: lot of views. And so if I did this and
Speaker 1: we just skipped to the result where I'm showing him, oh,
Speaker 1: look this kind of went viral or whatever, then he
Speaker 1: wouldn't have minded the process. So that's what I would do,
Speaker 1: is like try to massage what I wanted into our communication.
Speaker 1: It was kind of cheeky, though, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily great advice for anyone who's dealing with this.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, have you ever, either of you had a
Speaker 1: situation where you know, you're frustrated with your manager to
Speaker 1: the point where you're just going to go around them
Speaker 1: and complain to their manager or whoever's above them. Ever
Speaker 1: have you done I don't know if I've ever done that,
Speaker 1: mostly because everyone above them were also stupid.
Speaker 3: Or I guess read with them, or or my problems
Speaker 3: with my manager are probably coming from a person above them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've actually had a few instances knowing like, oh,
Speaker 1: actually you're not the problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the person's doing. That's when I was a manager,
Speaker 3: That's how what I kind of, you know, not to
Speaker 3: just pass the buck along.
Speaker 2: But I was.
Speaker 3: I would always try to be like, hey, I know
Speaker 3: this is an ideal, but like this is kind of
Speaker 3: what we need to do, and try to figure out
Speaker 3: a way to make make it tolerable at least, and
Speaker 3: be like, listen, trust me, I don't I don't want
Speaker 3: to make a video on how Tom Brady makes and
Speaker 3: spences millions. You know, this is not my choice, but
Speaker 3: this is what people need it. Someone needs it.
Speaker 4: So I don't know if I've had I don't think
Speaker 4: I've worked for, let's say, a stupid boss.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I worked for people who are incompetent in that they
Speaker 4: don't want to learn what the team is doing or
Speaker 4: understand what the team is doing, so therefore their suggestions
Speaker 4: aren't helpful or the goals they give are unrealistic. Right,
Speaker 4: And that's in some ways tougher because you know the
Speaker 4: person has the capacity to understand, they just are choosing
Speaker 4: not to.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I feel like like I've had bosses that.
Speaker 4: Are kind of like Donald Trump to some degree, right
Speaker 4: where it's like Trump to me is like, I don't
Speaker 4: think he's a dumb person. I think he just chooses
Speaker 4: not to understand certain things or to learn about certain things. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it's to me, yeah, that's more frustrating than if
Speaker 4: you were just dumb. Yeah the navigate because like you're
Speaker 4: just stupid, so like, let me just work around you.
Speaker 4: I think it's harder when you have somebody who could
Speaker 4: be competent and is smart but chooses not to learn
Speaker 4: and to understand, because it requires more work and a
Speaker 4: lot of your job becomes just educating that person on.
Speaker 2: What you're doing.
Speaker 4: And because they aren't learning each time you're educating them,
Speaker 4: you have to keep re educating them every conversation that
Speaker 4: you're having.
Speaker 2: So it does suck.
Speaker 4: But I guess to Manny's point, I think the way
Speaker 4: you deal with it is you've got to kind of
Speaker 4: learn what they care about. Yeah, and when you communicate
Speaker 4: with them, make sure you emphasize what they care about.
Speaker 2: But you also don't need to tell them the things that.
Speaker 4: They don't know or don't care about, Like, don't waste
Speaker 4: your time over explaining things that they're not going to
Speaker 4: remember and they you know, aren't going to effect valuable. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's like working, it's it's a bit of it sucks,
Speaker 4: but you you start, you have to manage your manager
Speaker 4: a bit and just give them the things that they
Speaker 4: need to leave you alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you've got, like, you know, some strategy you
Speaker 1: want to employ at work for your job, the strategy A,
Speaker 1: which your boss wants to do, and the strategy B,
Speaker 1: which do you want to do. Okay, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: from point A to point B over the course of
Speaker 1: a few months, maybe not so drastically.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you're just kind of slowly pushing
Speaker 1: the needle of just inching close or to what you
Speaker 1: want by like, yeah, doing it.
Speaker 3: Why don't we try this this piece out, try this
Speaker 3: thing out slowly? Yeah, that makes sense. All right, here's
Speaker 3: another one, this one. I don't know, how can I
Speaker 3: politely let my coworker know their body odor is horrendous?
Speaker 3: Something else? And many of you have dealt with this literally.
Speaker 4: Half wow, all three of us thinking of well, now
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 1: We I mean we do we basically didn't handle I
Speaker 1: mean that's never brought it up. I mean you can't
Speaker 1: really you can't, like what are you gonna do complain
Speaker 1: to HR.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess yeah I would. Yeah, HR could say something.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they and like what I mean,
Speaker 3: what are you gonna You can make a general announcement. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that that that's the only way to try to do
Speaker 3: it is going and say like I'm wearing cologne now,
Speaker 3: like don't we all love wearing cologne?
Speaker 2: Like hey, what do you?
Speaker 3: Hey you, what do you wear?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Plus, there's no way to do.
Speaker 2: It, yeah with the odor and we all use yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Plus sometimes you detect someone's odor and it's not clear
Speaker 1: that it's because they're not hygienic or something like. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm like that is something else and.
Speaker 2: That might be that may be medical.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just can't there's a medical great issue.
Speaker 4: This is a military grade doctor needs to go into
Speaker 4: the hazmat.
Speaker 1: Suits and a syndrome style. No, there's nothing you can
Speaker 1: really do in that situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like in general, I think you could make
Speaker 4: a general announcement around hey, guys, let's all make sure
Speaker 4: you know, when we're coming to work, we're presentable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, make sure that we're taking care of ourselves.
Speaker 4: It's we've gotten general complaints in the office about smells.
Speaker 2: But you can't. You can't.
Speaker 3: Because I'm even thinking, like, let's say it was one
Speaker 3: of us, like right here, right now. It would take
Speaker 3: a lot for me to be like, hey, Devin, let
Speaker 3: me pull your like to pull you out and just
Speaker 3: be like hey, like, I can't even imagine doing that
Speaker 3: in the nicest way.
Speaker 4: Let me say this everybody, because if we smelled, it
Speaker 4: would be a one off.
Speaker 2: Oh ship, well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my boy, my boy, jog over here, West forgot
Speaker 4: it's the owner into We've all had days where it's
Speaker 4: like eleven o'clock.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh, I'm one one armed right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: You may need help.
Speaker 4: A hit, you know, so one off. Yeah that was
Speaker 4: excuse if you were shown here a week after week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what you do?
Speaker 1: We might have to just because we know you so well,
Speaker 1: you have to be like a man. Different if it's
Speaker 1: a coworker, Yeah, exactly, And.
Speaker 4: We had to make a man I don't know what's
Speaker 4: going on, but like you kind of stick, how would you.
Speaker 3: Let's let's let's let's play so someone you presumably like,
Speaker 3: and yeah me if it was you, So let's say
Speaker 3: we come. We recorded for an hour we're taking a
Speaker 3: break and now we're going to do another session right now.
Speaker 2: And this is like, this is about three or four
Speaker 2: sessions in a road.
Speaker 3: That yeah, yeah, so let's say it's not my first off.
Speaker 3: Something is going on.
Speaker 1: We would probably couch it in a joke like no,
Speaker 1: you know, just we're gonna be real with you for
Speaker 1: a second.
Speaker 3: Would you take me out of this room or would
Speaker 3: you do it in front of.
Speaker 1: Right here on the camera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, recording, we'll get.
Speaker 1: We'll get Connor to do it. Yeah, that'd probably be
Speaker 1: Connor comes in like we we have a new policy, give.
Speaker 3: Him a script.
Speaker 2: Everyone coming into the studio must wear theodor.
Speaker 1: We will be I'd be like, have you been coming
Speaker 1: here straight from the gym or something like kind of
Speaker 1: ship joke about it and then maybe get to it.
Speaker 1: That's actually thankfully we have never had to do this.
Speaker 2: I think my would be go through Julia, you're.
Speaker 4: Gonna offensive no, because if we have so explain, okay,
Speaker 4: so we're coming. If I'm hanging out with you week
Speaker 4: after week and you just start to stink, I would.
Speaker 2: Hit Julia up and like hey, I don't know if
Speaker 2: you notice.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he has, but Noah's been smelling lately.
Speaker 1: But what if Noah found out that that's how you
Speaker 1: did it, He might be like, why didn't you just
Speaker 1: talk to me about it?
Speaker 2: Why do see I'm going through her?
Speaker 1: She oh, in case there's something bad happen all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, getting I'm going through it, and then you
Speaker 1: then clear that it's not something medical.
Speaker 2: And then that happened at home, Then yeah, I bring
Speaker 2: it up. But she's like, oh, actually that's good sense.
Speaker 4: What happened is he can't shower because she's taking X,
Speaker 4: Y and Z medicine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna shut my mouth.
Speaker 3: That makes sense.
Speaker 2: Slash.
Speaker 3: Then you can tell her and then she could easily
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, say something. Yeah, like I'm married to her.
Speaker 2: So yeah, do we think that you got to put on?
Speaker 3: But yeah, but in a normal workplace, you're not going
Speaker 3: to be able to reach out to their spouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can't talk, So this is not that helpful.
Speaker 1: Do we think that you know, the people were talking
Speaker 1: about what is the likelihood that they know and they
Speaker 1: don't care.
Speaker 2: No, people get noseline to it.
Speaker 3: It's your own thing.
Speaker 2: Wow. You basically can't say anything.
Speaker 4: You can ask hr to make a general announcement about
Speaker 4: making sure people are coming in.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Otherwise, the only thing you can possibly do is
Speaker 3: have a vague conversation about deodorant and colognes and hope
Speaker 3: that they're.
Speaker 2: Hope they overhear it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, here's what I looked into a little bit.
Speaker 3: I'm curious what your guesses would be. How much of
Speaker 3: the day do people with office jobs actually spend working?
Speaker 4: So the total amount of hours let's say, out of
Speaker 4: an eight hour work day that people are actually working.
Speaker 1: We're talking about in the office.
Speaker 3: Let's say in office.
Speaker 2: So if I'm being generous, I would say four and
Speaker 2: a half to five.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm lower than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, would your guess be?
Speaker 1: It also depends on where I think. I've only worked
Speaker 1: in places that are super social. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was like probably my favorite thing to do in the
Speaker 1: office is like leave my desk and go people, go
Speaker 1: to the other floor, see what's up with this guy?
Speaker 1: I would I mean depends on the day obviously, like
Speaker 1: if you're on a deadline or something, but probably like
Speaker 1: three hours three out of the eight hours I'm like
Speaker 1: actually working on something. Yeah, but it's true that like
Speaker 1: the other hours, like they are kind of like necessarily
Speaker 1: like you are in a meeting. Does that count as
Speaker 1: working on something.
Speaker 2: Work related stuff?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was talking about.
Speaker 3: I don't know how the survey was done, so I'm
Speaker 3: curious how that would factor in. I would guess no.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm sorry. This is from i'd say.
Speaker 2: Foe or four. Let me be clear, this is not me.
Speaker 3: You work eight hours.
Speaker 2: I work more. I'm doing because I'm doing like.
Speaker 1: He works ten hours in an eight hour shift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm doing. I'm doing three four jobs simultaneously.
Speaker 8: Yes, so it compounds, Yeah, example a multiplier on your
Speaker 8: all right, with that in mind, this is a survey
Speaker 8: done in the of UK office workers by vouchercloud dot com.
Speaker 8: But every basically this is one of those things someplace
Speaker 8: does some survey and then for now almost ten.
Speaker 3: Years, every article is citing this. Yeah, and who knows
Speaker 3: how good it is. So with that grain of salt, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the average worker is only productive for two hours and
Speaker 3: fifty three minutes. That sounds right to me, Which sounds
Speaker 3: right to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to be honest, that's so especially on these computers.
Speaker 1: Like if you have a computer you're on with access
Speaker 1: to everything, you remember when we were working right next
Speaker 1: to each other, like we would be bullshitting for hours.
Speaker 1: I remember when that fucking Popeyes chicken sandwich came out,
Speaker 1: we left the office.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we lost three hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is not good because I was during this time.
Speaker 3: So this is not funny too, because we could have
Speaker 3: easily done a video.
Speaker 1: That Yeah, I know, that could have been work for sure.
Speaker 3: So then there's a work life survey. They did a survey.
Speaker 3: It says in twenty twenty three, forty five percent of
Speaker 3: workers said they work four hours or less to day. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's including like that's talking about Amazon, Microsoft, Google Meta employees.
Speaker 3: So those are all in kind of the thirty three yeah,
Speaker 3: thirty three to kind of forty percent range saying they
Speaker 3: work four hours or less per day. So how effective
Speaker 3: our pips? A PIP is a performance improvement plan which
Speaker 3: a manager gives to an employee if they're maybe not
Speaker 3: doing so hot. It's kind of a little usually kind
Speaker 3: of milestones and things to check in on to, you know,
Speaker 3: and usually it's kind of like, Okay, we have three
Speaker 3: months or six months to meet these measures. You're basically
Speaker 3: kind of on thin ice essentially, Yeah, meet these expectations yeah,
Speaker 3: or going to be we can get ready. Yeah, here's
Speaker 3: what our guest Eric had to say.
Speaker 5: That's a great question. I mean, the idea that the
Speaker 5: most effective way to manage somebody was by clearly communicating
Speaker 5: a set of expectations and then kind of leaving them
Speaker 5: to figure out how to how to meet them. You know,
Speaker 5: that's an idea that really goes back to the nineteen forties,
Speaker 5: nineteen fifties in a management by objecting in self control
Speaker 5: was the neologism when that became a tool for discipline.
Speaker 5: I'm not exactly sure it's so clear that when you're
Speaker 5: put on a PIP the message is like, if you
Speaker 5: get fired, you know, it's your own fault. I mean,
Speaker 5: people aren't fooled. You know. That's one of the biggest
Speaker 5: lessons that I've learned and diving into this history, is
Speaker 5: that losses can come up with all kinds of ideas
Speaker 5: for trying to get their employees to imagine that something
Speaker 5: else is going on in the workplace and what really is.
Speaker 5: But you know, at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 5: people understand when they're being manipulated or taken for a ride,
Speaker 5: and rather than sort of Mitt Romney style I enjoy
Speaker 5: firing people kind of culture. We have this sense of no,
Speaker 5: you know, we did everything to help and you know again.
Speaker 5: I think that's a response to an increasing sense of
Speaker 5: like empowerment or self assertion among my cold workers.
Speaker 3: Have you guys been on the ips?
Speaker 4: I have not been on a PITH. I have managed
Speaker 4: people who have been put on pips. So I would
Speaker 4: have their manager complaining to me that this person is
Speaker 4: not performing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would talk with them.
Speaker 4: I would talk with the manager, I talk with HR,
Speaker 4: and a certain point we'd say, okay, well this person,
Speaker 4: if they don't improve, needs to be put on a PIP.
Speaker 4: So I would be part of the conversation, but I
Speaker 4: was never the person initiating it.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 4: My experience with it is it's mostly a way for
Speaker 4: HR to make sure that you have paperwork so that
Speaker 4: the person can't say that they were fired unfairly right.
Speaker 2: Part of it is in regards to unions.
Speaker 4: Part of it is just like companies being afraid of
Speaker 4: being sued, so it is like it forces you to
Speaker 4: document feedback.
Speaker 3: There's a Wall Street Journal report from twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: by Lauren Weber and Chip Cutter about the rise of pips,
Speaker 3: and they're increasing and they have you know, they have
Speaker 3: an example of one. I'll put in the show notes
Speaker 3: for people to look at so you can kind of
Speaker 3: see what they look like. But there's some data in
Speaker 3: this story that in twenty twenty thirty three point four
Speaker 3: people for every thousand workers had documented performance issues according
Speaker 3: to a software firm, and in twenty twenty three that
Speaker 3: number went up to forty three point six, So that's
Speaker 3: a pretty high rise in just three years. Then there's
Speaker 3: a bunch of executives saying these are basically made to
Speaker 3: get people out and have a paper trail and just
Speaker 3: be safe on that way. This one guy, Larry, he
Speaker 3: works out a software company. He estimated that ten to
Speaker 3: twenty five percent of employees who get put on PIP
Speaker 3: survive the process.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, And it seems like from reading this article to
Speaker 3: mix of even if people get through, then a lot
Speaker 3: of times they'll just decide they want to leave anyway.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like, you know, you're not wanted basically,
Speaker 3: so whether you're a good worker or a bad worker,
Speaker 3: however you wanted to find that it's like, yeah, probably
Speaker 3: time to go. Like you can read the writing on
Speaker 3: the wall.
Speaker 4: I would say most of the pips that I've seen,
Speaker 4: it's very clear that the person does not have skill
Speaker 4: sets or drive to do the thing that they're being
Speaker 4: tasked with doing. So you're giving them goals knowing they're
Speaker 4: basically they're not going to hit it. But to to
Speaker 4: this point, yeah, it's providing a paper trail. It's getting
Speaker 4: rid of some of the ambiguity around oh, my manager
Speaker 4: didn't give me this feedback Because a lot of pips
Speaker 4: I've been involved with, HR is involved in the check
Speaker 4: ins from week to week, so it's like there's a
Speaker 4: third person involved to be like, oh no, this per
Speaker 4: your manager did say X, Y and Z. But it
Speaker 4: does to Eric's point, it puts a lot of the
Speaker 4: onus on the employee to improve their performance. Right, It's
Speaker 4: seen as like, hey, we as a company has done
Speaker 4: all that we can do. It is now on you
Speaker 4: to you know, basically pull up, you know, for.
Speaker 2: Your your boots buttter, what is the foot, pull up
Speaker 2: your bootstraps.
Speaker 4: And get your shit done, because we're giving you all
Speaker 4: the two and we're being very clear about what your
Speaker 4: goals are and if you don't hit it, now, there's
Speaker 4: nothing more that we could do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this guy, Yeah, there's a guy in this article
Speaker 3: who worked at Cisco and is like an HR guy.
Speaker 3: He said they did a five year look back at
Speaker 3: all the pips and found that ninety percent of people
Speaker 3: who were placed on them, whether or not they survived
Speaker 3: that plan, left within a year. Anyway. He said that
Speaker 3: he now gives two envelopes. One is a PIP and
Speaker 3: the other is just a generous severance offer with a
Speaker 3: you know, separation insurance or a separation agreement and COBRA
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. And seventy five percent of the
Speaker 3: time people take that second option and just leave to
Speaker 3: get out of the whole process.
Speaker 4: That's really smart, and it's such a better way to
Speaker 4: do it, because it just waste every time. Everyone knows
Speaker 4: what's happening. And Eric is saying, no one is fooled
Speaker 4: by the process.
Speaker 3: I like that option. I like the idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like, hey, we know we were going to sort
Speaker 4: of like do this stupid process for three months and
Speaker 4: fire you anyway, Hello, we just give you six months
Speaker 4: or nine months severance yep, and like just go find
Speaker 4: something else that's better for you, and like we could
Speaker 4: just move on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, it's like forget it, and then yeah, then
Speaker 3: they talk to another guy who worked at a law
Speaker 3: firm who was an employee who was placed on a PIP,
Speaker 3: and he's he created a document kind of point by
Speaker 3: point in response and shared it with the HR people
Speaker 3: and the manager, not disputing anything, but just outlining kind
Speaker 3: of specific things he planned to do to actually meet
Speaker 3: what they asked for. So that way, I think it
Speaker 3: led to a little bit more clarity to like, Okay,
Speaker 3: is this actually viable? How can we actually do it?
Speaker 3: And was a little bit more proactive beyond just like
Speaker 3: trying to do these vague tasks. So that's if you
Speaker 3: want to if you do get one of these plans
Speaker 3: and want to try to say this seems like a
Speaker 3: good way to do it, where like be vocal and
Speaker 3: try to actually argue back as much as you can.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's tough.
Speaker 1: Tough, it seems to be, and it's not going to work.
Speaker 1: A couple of warnings at least before the p IP comes.
Speaker 1: It's not like it comes out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: I've seen people take that approach of trying to be
Speaker 4: like really specific about Okay, I'm going to.
Speaker 2: Do these things at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: If you don't hit the goals, it doesn't matter if
Speaker 4: you wrote out how you were going to into if
Speaker 4: you don't do them, because then it just becomes the
Speaker 4: conversation and becomes, oh, you need your handheld to hit
Speaker 4: these goals.
Speaker 3: And somebody who can just do it.
Speaker 4: And you're taking too much of our time and effort,
Speaker 4: whereas the rest of the team doesn't need this much. Yeah,
Speaker 4: my advice to you would be, if you are being
Speaker 4: put on a PIP to start looking for another job. Also,
Speaker 4: you know, try try to you know, hit your goals
Speaker 4: so that you could stay a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: But all to say, they're effective in a sense effective
Speaker 1: and they're not effective in getting you better at your job.
Speaker 2: They're effective at removing from the Hello performers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, good looks he hess. No such Thing as
Speaker 3: a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our executive producers are Kate
Speaker 3: Osborne and mangesh ho to Cadur. The show is created
Speaker 3: by Manny Fideo, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph Themen. Credit
Speaker 3: song by Manny, mixing by Steve Bone. Our guest this
Speaker 3: week is Eric Baker visit No Such Thing Dot show
Speaker 3: to subscribe to our newsletter, where you can find links
Speaker 3: to some of the studies mentioned in the episode and more.
Speaker 3: If you have feedback for us or a question, our
Speaker 3: email is Manny no Adevin at gmail dot com, or
Speaker 3: leave us a voicemail by calling the number on our
Speaker 3: show notes. And please take the NST Listeners survey so
Speaker 3: we can find out more about what's working and what's
Speaker 3: not working according to you, the listener. And if you
Speaker 3: do like the show, please leave us a five star
Speaker 3: review wherever you listen to and share with a friend
Speaker 3: or family number so we can grow. All right, that's it.
Speaker 3: We will be back next week with a new episode.
Speaker 1: Bye such thing.