The team is facing an issue. The members are not taking any proactive measures to address it. The manager suggests actions and asks the team member to act on it. Is the manager micro-managing? The team plans the project, taking into account the realistic scenarios. The team still fails to meet their milestones. The manager, during the status meeting, asks the team the reasons for the slip. He gets into the root cause of the slip. Is the manager micro-managing? Scenarios like these set me thinking – Is it wrong for the manager to “micro manage”, when the team is not meeting the expectation?
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines micromanagement as "manage[ment] especially with excessive control or attention to details". The two phrases “excessive control” and “attention to details” requires elaboration.
If the manager wants to exercise more control, even when his leaders are meeting or exceeding the expectation of their jobs, then yes - the manager is culpable of micro-managing. A manager is said to be micro-managing: when he does not allow his leaders to do their job because he feels it is more efficient for him to do it; when he does not allow the team members to learn from their mistakes; when he gets irritated if the team member makes decisions without consulting him; when he does not allow them to take initiative; etc.,
However, if the leaders do not meet the expectation, asking them to act on issues is not micro-management. If deadlines are missed, a manager needs to be more involved in the details and help solve the problem. If a project is not going as planned, a manager needs the details in order to develop contingency plans. If a team member is not willing to perform, a manager needs to monitor their performance closely in order to motivate or discipline them accordingly. If a manager has to report on progress, he needs a detailed understanding of the processes and procedures of the organisation. In all these cases the actions of a manager cannot be termed as micro-management. Sometimes these managerial responsibilities can appear intrusive or controlling to staff – particularly to those who are under-performing and require more supervision. It is only when a manager’s oversight or input is excessive or unnecessary that he/she can be reasonably termed a “micromanager”.
The second part of the definition of micromanagement talks about “attention to details”.The word micro is broadly synonymous to the details. A manager is not expected to get into the details of the day to day activities of his team members. His leaders are expected to work with the team members on the details. If this does not give the expected results, then instead of getting to the micro details, he should put a framework in place that addresses this issue. If he observes lack of details in the management of the projects, then he should work with his leaders and develop a framework that highlights critical milestones. Tracking these milestones gives the necessary details without the need for micromanagement.
To avoid micro management, develop leaders who are proactive and accountable. Empower them. Set clear expectations for leaders and ensure that they do the same for their reportees. Hold everyone accountable for their results. Develop the culture of pro-activeness in the organization. Develop trust with the leaders. This will go a long way to ensure manager does not need to micromanage.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Poorly Made in China
This blog is an excerpt from the book “Poorly Made in China” by Paul Midler. It reveals business and cultural challenges, and exposes the dangerous cat- and-mouse games that take place between Chinese companies and their foreign counterparts.
Chinese manufacturers are aggressive and desperate for business. When importers visited the factory, the manufacturers went to great extents to impress them. Even if they did not have a working product line, they created a mock product line to give importers confidence that they could get their products manufactured by them.
Manufacturers bent over backwards, if only to make it seem, as though doing business with them would be a breeze. For many new to export manufacturing, the factory owner doubled as teacher. Beyond cheap labour, speed and convenience (which are hallmark of Chinese manufacturers), everything about China was setup to get customers in through the door. The importers were treated like kings. While these manufacturing relationships tended to become only more difficult over time, the beginning was almost always promising.
China attempted to appeal more easily to Westerners and also appear more up to date. Factory owners dressed like their foreign business partners and they took English names for themselves. Despite China’s insistence on having a unique culture that stretches for millennia, there is no other country in the world whose citizens have given themselves alternate English names, in such numbers and with so much enthusiasm.
It was too expensive to make a product line before an order actually came in. Manufacturers all suffered from this chicken-and-egg problem: to kick-start their businesses, they had to fool customers into thinking that product samples were already in motion. The easiest way to accomplish this was by throwing samples – anyone’s samples – into a showroom. The Chinese made plenty of counterfeit products, and so it was no great surprise that they also faked entire showrooms. Placing an initial order in China was easy anyway – all that was needed was a sample. They could take any product and move it quickly into production. They also showed incredible willingness and enthusiasm to get a relationship started. Copying was rampant in China and made the manufacturers behave in strange ways. Each manufacturer tried to protect the designs, but there would be spies from other companies, so it was not uncommon to see the same designs being made by multiple manufacturers. To respect the client who gave the design, the manufacturer was cautious enough not to sell the same product to other clients from the same geography. But that did not stop them from selling it to clients in other geographies. Some Chinese manufacturers setup an address in the United States and pretended they were a buyer. They then contacted competitors and requested product samples. They were then shipped back to China and placed in a showroom. Ingenuity at its best …
Once they received orders, Chinese factories often engaged in quality fade – the incremental degradation of a product over time. They quietly reduced the amount of materials or else manipulated the quality of raw inputs. The changes were gradual, almost imperceptible. The importer was neither asked for permission nor told. Quality fade was an economic decision that manufacturers in China made. If the shipment was rejected by the importer then they found agents to sell them in the other growing export markets or even in the domestic market. This was one of the reasons for a rise in the quality problems. Factories did not see an attention to quality as something that would improve their business prospects, but merely as a barrier to increased profitability. Importers learnt quickly that improved quality raised their costs. Manufacturers rarely settled for any loss due to these defects. Importers were not inclined to pursue legal action and they did want to put an entire business on hold, just to settle the matter of a few containers. Manufacturing problems tended to be small, relative to the size of the overall business. Factory owners actually took this into account when they considered whether or not to manipulate the quality levels. Manufacturers sometimes offered discount on future orders as compensation for defective parts. The only way to recoup losses created by a factory was to reward them with more orders.
Besides engaging in quality fade to increase the profit margins, the manufacturer also resorted to short term price increase that caught the importers by surprise.The manufacturer would increase the price at the last moment, well after the orders were confirmed. Chinese are good in negotiation despite the language barriers. They relied more on emotion and on their instincts. They made the customer believe that progress was being made in the negotiation, and then at the critical point in the talks, they took the entire deal off the table. These manufacturers went out of their way to make the importer lose his cool. As cash flows for the importers were tight, they preferred to get some revenue, rather than lose business. They yielded to the price increase.
Chinese manufacturers understood the benefits of offering enticements to get a business relationship going, but after some interval, the factory jeopardized goodwill in order to fund its returns. Supplier relationships were almost never better than they were at the beginning. The importers were left with no choice. They could not change the supplier because of the time it would take to get an alternate supplier up to speed. Even if this was possible, the new supplier might be just as bad as the current one.
Be wary. Going to China for low cost need not always end up being low cost. Add to that the woes of quality problems. Look before you (Leap) Invest.
Happy Reading,
Ram
Chinese manufacturers are aggressive and desperate for business. When importers visited the factory, the manufacturers went to great extents to impress them. Even if they did not have a working product line, they created a mock product line to give importers confidence that they could get their products manufactured by them.
Manufacturers bent over backwards, if only to make it seem, as though doing business with them would be a breeze. For many new to export manufacturing, the factory owner doubled as teacher. Beyond cheap labour, speed and convenience (which are hallmark of Chinese manufacturers), everything about China was setup to get customers in through the door. The importers were treated like kings. While these manufacturing relationships tended to become only more difficult over time, the beginning was almost always promising.
China attempted to appeal more easily to Westerners and also appear more up to date. Factory owners dressed like their foreign business partners and they took English names for themselves. Despite China’s insistence on having a unique culture that stretches for millennia, there is no other country in the world whose citizens have given themselves alternate English names, in such numbers and with so much enthusiasm.
It was too expensive to make a product line before an order actually came in. Manufacturers all suffered from this chicken-and-egg problem: to kick-start their businesses, they had to fool customers into thinking that product samples were already in motion. The easiest way to accomplish this was by throwing samples – anyone’s samples – into a showroom. The Chinese made plenty of counterfeit products, and so it was no great surprise that they also faked entire showrooms. Placing an initial order in China was easy anyway – all that was needed was a sample. They could take any product and move it quickly into production. They also showed incredible willingness and enthusiasm to get a relationship started. Copying was rampant in China and made the manufacturers behave in strange ways. Each manufacturer tried to protect the designs, but there would be spies from other companies, so it was not uncommon to see the same designs being made by multiple manufacturers. To respect the client who gave the design, the manufacturer was cautious enough not to sell the same product to other clients from the same geography. But that did not stop them from selling it to clients in other geographies. Some Chinese manufacturers setup an address in the United States and pretended they were a buyer. They then contacted competitors and requested product samples. They were then shipped back to China and placed in a showroom. Ingenuity at its best …
Once they received orders, Chinese factories often engaged in quality fade – the incremental degradation of a product over time. They quietly reduced the amount of materials or else manipulated the quality of raw inputs. The changes were gradual, almost imperceptible. The importer was neither asked for permission nor told. Quality fade was an economic decision that manufacturers in China made. If the shipment was rejected by the importer then they found agents to sell them in the other growing export markets or even in the domestic market. This was one of the reasons for a rise in the quality problems. Factories did not see an attention to quality as something that would improve their business prospects, but merely as a barrier to increased profitability. Importers learnt quickly that improved quality raised their costs. Manufacturers rarely settled for any loss due to these defects. Importers were not inclined to pursue legal action and they did want to put an entire business on hold, just to settle the matter of a few containers. Manufacturing problems tended to be small, relative to the size of the overall business. Factory owners actually took this into account when they considered whether or not to manipulate the quality levels. Manufacturers sometimes offered discount on future orders as compensation for defective parts. The only way to recoup losses created by a factory was to reward them with more orders.
Besides engaging in quality fade to increase the profit margins, the manufacturer also resorted to short term price increase that caught the importers by surprise.The manufacturer would increase the price at the last moment, well after the orders were confirmed. Chinese are good in negotiation despite the language barriers. They relied more on emotion and on their instincts. They made the customer believe that progress was being made in the negotiation, and then at the critical point in the talks, they took the entire deal off the table. These manufacturers went out of their way to make the importer lose his cool. As cash flows for the importers were tight, they preferred to get some revenue, rather than lose business. They yielded to the price increase.
Chinese manufacturers understood the benefits of offering enticements to get a business relationship going, but after some interval, the factory jeopardized goodwill in order to fund its returns. Supplier relationships were almost never better than they were at the beginning. The importers were left with no choice. They could not change the supplier because of the time it would take to get an alternate supplier up to speed. Even if this was possible, the new supplier might be just as bad as the current one.
Be wary. Going to China for low cost need not always end up being low cost. Add to that the woes of quality problems. Look before you (Leap) Invest.
Happy Reading,
Ram
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