
Masking Design Competence - cinquemb
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2015/10/masking-design-competence.html
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arielweisberg
I look at it a bit less negatively. I think there are people who believe in
micro-management. Most micro-managers don't think of themselves as such, but
it isn't really up to them.

IMO you know you are looking at micro-management when negative outcomes are
dominated by decision fatigue on the part of the micro-manager. I call it
decision fatigue because I generally assume my manager is a smart guy.

A micro-manager's first instinct is to find something to change whether it is
needed or not. Don't give it to them. Make them ask questions and work through
the problem themselves. If they are allowed to skip to the end you tend to
find they end up off in the weeds and are dogmatically opposed to retreading
ground where they have made a mistake or an incorrect assumption.

That's your Mad Men style turn a no into a yes sort of situation and you are
going to be fighting against the decision fatigue your manager is feeling
because they micro-manage :-)

This is the same strategy I use when mentoring or managing. If I can't
convince someone who thinks they are subordinate to me then how do I know I am
right? How do I equip them to come to the correct conclusion on their own in
the future? I generally ask people to articulate rather than trying to figure
it out myself because I am usually juggling N other balls and they can do it
faster and better.

I care a lot less about larger organizational issues. Why take on someone
else's responsibility? Employees are free to leave at any time in the current
environment so why borrow trouble? Are you expecting someone to thank you?

~~~
derefr
That's "manager"-style micromanagement. There's also "lead"-style
micromanagement: someone who was in the trenches handling everything, and now
is supposed to delegate and manage others, but doesn't necessarily know _how_
—their first instinct is still to do everything themselves, and when they
don't have enough time, to micromanage whoever is doing it so that the result
will come out _the same as if_ they did it themselves.

I wish there was a single book I could hand to these people, or a training
course I could suggest for them, because they frequently know they have a
problem "letting go" but don't know what to do about it.

If such a book existed, I could imagine it becoming the standard "gift" a VC
gives a founder the day they hire their first salaried employee. ;)

~~~
arielweisberg
I recently read "The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation
Lean Product Development"[1] that was recommended to me.

Some of it was familiar. Some of it was new. The language used and how the
book articulates the reasoning behind various strategies has been invaluable
to me in expressing to others why something is a tractable problem as opposed
to an unavoidable one that is just the cost of doing business.

To date I have not succeeded in getting anyone to read it though.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Principles-Product-Development-
Flo...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Principles-Product-Development-
Flow/dp/1935401009)

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Isamu
I forget the source but I remember a story about an ipod prototype being shown
to Steve Jobs, where they deliberately showed him a flawed early model that he
could evaluate and reject, allowing him to realize what should be fixed. Then
when they showed him their improved solution he would be better able to accept
it, feeling that he was a part of the thinking that improved the design.

Steve Job's name was on a number of patents - I expect however that a
significant amount of those reflect his involvement though this sort of
"handling", where it was important to draw him into a consensus by letting him
think through a design problem that was probably already solved.

~~~
cle
That's called a "duck"

[http://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-
jargon/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/)

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sokoloff
> Can readers think of more examples? If so, I’ll add good ones to this post.

I see what you did there...

