Once again, from Lt. Gen. Gus Pagonis and his book:
But it's that second clause that I find most telling -- when you tell someone what to do, they're much less to look into the details of what they're doing ('I just did what you told me to.') Far better to allow people the room to make their own decisions and allow them the freedom to innovate and grow.
*perfectly reasonable, I might add.
I never tell a subordinate how to carry out a specific goal. Dictating terms to a subordinate undermines innovation, decreases the subordinate’s willingness to take responsibility for his or her actions, increases the potential for suboptimization of resources, and increases the chances that the command will be dysfunctional if circumstances change dramatically. Our first month in the theater only underscored my sense that our team would have to be incredibly elastic. [emphasis CJ's]The last time I talked about my issues with micromanagement, I got a little pushback* from the academic side, where people are younger and less experienced (and safety issues may exist). So I'll say up front, this applies less to school than to the working world; this also applies less to the relationship between a supervisor and a novice versus the relationship of two similarly experienced people.
But it's that second clause that I find most telling -- when you tell someone what to do, they're much less to look into the details of what they're doing ('I just did what you told me to.') Far better to allow people the room to make their own decisions and allow them the freedom to innovate and grow.
*perfectly reasonable, I might add.
Well this is absolutely the most challenging part of student supervision. Getting the right balance is iterative, sensitive and difficult, but crucial for the student's wellbeing. The expert was of course Nanny McPhee: "When you need me, but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me, but no longer need me, then I have to go"
ReplyDeleteThere was a guy I used to work with that took micro-managing up to what we called the "nano-managing" level. TLC plate checking included.
ReplyDeleteNow that's just humiliating.
ReplyDeleteIt also creates a lot of resentment. Whenever my PI tells me to do something in a way I KNOW from past experience is doomed to failure, I'm often tempted out of spite to just do as I'm told and let things play out, then explain EXACTLY why that happened at the next meeting. The point rarely gets through though...
ReplyDeleteMicro-managing is terrible. It creates an attitude in the student that someone will always be available to check their results and conclusions. Students never get the chance to learn the logic behind mistakes, or successes. It also kills their confidence in developing their own theories and experiments.
ReplyDeleteAlso, why would a lab head want to tell a student what buffers to use for HPLC, or the proportions a reaction mixture? One of the lab head's primary duties is to provide training regarding the really hard stuff in science (like how to identify, propose, get funding for, and execute research projects). If you teach this stuff, students become empowered to overcome technical issues themselves (the lab head would do less micro-managing then).
My boss and I have only interacted for a few months, and already he's come up with some doozies...TLC checking, hovering while I take NMR, telling me how to dry and filter over sodium sulfate, sometimes asking if I know how to browse the internet for chemical suppliers...
ReplyDelete