Micromanagement

In my pseudoscientific management course that I took at MATC, among the other questionable principles they threw at prospective leaders was the idea that managers typically have "a high tolerance for ambiguity".

Last week on Monday, my manager explained all of the night lead's duties to me verbally while I took notes. On Tuesday, she emailed me a Word document detailing all of the night lead's duties, and read it aloud to me from her own paper copy. I printed that so I would be able to reference it quickly. On Wednesday, she gave me my own paper copy and emailed me the Word document again, and asked if I had any questions, prior to verbally repeating everything that was in the document. Thursday, nothing happened. But on Friday, she provided me with another printed copy, then an "updated" email copy of that same document (the only thing updated was two words regarding my break time), and a printed copy of that. Then she read it aloud to me again, pointing to where the words that she was reading appeared on my screen.

That means I have about five written copies of the same information if you include my notes, and three electronic copies.

Having reiterated several times that I had no questions on the night lead procedures, she encouraged me to call her at her house once she had gone home to resolve anything that I didn't think was clear. Now to be clear, at no point was she ever even slightly condescending about any of this or even marginally impolite. She was being very nice and exceptionally patient, and explained to me that I have been doing impressively well, and that these aren't remedial courses because I'm doing badly.

The night lead procedures aren't difficult. I have to watch for incoming claim emails and forward them on to get set up. I have to clear up any remaining internet claims. I have to do mail runs every hour on the hour. I have to take calls for assistance from other night employees. My break is at 6:15pm every night. This is as far from rocket science as cliches can get.

But because of all this, it's pretty clear that my manager hasn't got that typical ambiguity tolerance. For whatever reason, valid or invalid, it's psychologically important for her not to ensure that I know these things, but to ensure that she says them enough. It's not a matter of her educating me, but it seems much more as if she's trying to reassure herself. The constant reiteration is really a measure against her own anxiety. As long as everything I do matches what she does to a T, then she will have trained me right.

It's not as if her job is on the line if I don't do well. But for her to know that she's doing well, she has to give me absolutely no wiggle room to do anything wrong, no matter how minimal the consequences of a mistake are. Compliance is as close as she can get to confidence.

The difficulty with that is that by forcing compliance through reiteration of commands to people who know what to do, you lay your own insecurities bare by advertising them, and people don't like insecure leaders; they look weak and dependent. I would know; when word got around that my old supervisor at Best Buy peed sitting down because his wife didn't like the mess, any credibility that he may have had went right out the window. As you might imagine. The point is, the more you give to your own insecurities, the more you take from people's confidence in you. Take enough, and they won't trust you when things get hard.

I think the major thing preventing me from having a micromanaging personality is that it takes so damn much effort. Between that, and the repetitive motion of all that copying and pasting of work instructions, I just don't think I'm cut out for it.