Does micromanaging actually work?

Hey everyone, Manny here before we get to today's episode, I wanted to bring your attention to the no such thing listener survey. By filling out this survey, you will help us make this show better. You hear from us all the time, but now it's time to hear from you. Is it the case that we talk too much and you want to hear more from experts? Or do you think shockingly that we don't talk enough. Are the episodes

This is Devin and this is no such thing.

The show resettle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research this week. Does micromanaging actually work?

I know there's no no such thing, no such thank.

Such, thank.

Touch, thank touch, thank so. We got a question from a listener on management styles asking about micromanaging versus quote unquote free range, which gets better results. We're going to talk about that and a few other work related topics and questions, but let's start with our own histories. How

Yeah, I guess I did manage you, or attempted to. Let's say, yeah, what.

Is my management style?

I would say, well, I I guess you guys can fact check me on this, but I would like to think that I don't micromanage people. I try to manage people the way I like to be managed, and I really hate being micromanaged. Yeah, in my mind, if you're going to micromanage me, why don't you just do the job, Like I don't need to just be doing extra stuff

Just watched the video notes and I'll just do something else.

So Yeah, my style is like you sure to set someone up, you give them what they need to do to job, and then you check in.

I feel like it's been mostly successful.

There are instances where you get someone who takes advantage of someone who's not micromanaging and then doesn't really do anything. Yeah, but I think those people are few and far between, And I don't think micromanaging a person who doesn't really do their work is helpful either, because you're just taking the time that you would be doing something else to basically do the job as well.

So I feel like.

If you have people on your team who you feel like you need the micro manage, you need to get them off of your team because like you're just wasting your time by doing double the work.

Yeah.

To me, it's always just like we need expectations to be clear, whether that's deadlines or how things should be when it's when a deadline does come or something, Because I think someone who's maybe doesn't have a lot of work experience might just show up and be like, I have no idea what I'm doing, and then if their manager is not telling them, then they're like, well what am I supposed to do?

You know?

So they need that handholding, but hopefully that's only a temporary thing and then they're on their own.

That's a really good point.

If you're not going to micro manage, you got to really set expectations because lines and what's expected of people.

Because then as a freelancer more recently, I've had jobs where I I'm on call or something and then it's like I'm kind of just waiting for stuff and it's like, all right, I know this thing ultimately has to be due on Friday, but like do you want to see something before then, or like you know, and it's just on me to send it, and like I'll get it done and send it just so it's off my plate. But it's like yeah, sometimes a little bit like am

So we should note too that like we've always been working in media, Yeah, there might be some fields where micromanaging might be more required if you're I don't know, a nuclear plant or something, throwing that up as an example. Yeah, we are in media, and Devin had always to me anyway, or both of us, I imagine, been kind of a bigger picture manager, like you know, think about this over the course of these few months, versus being in every edit.

Also, I say bias not only in being friends, but I know Devin can like. So we're editing videos I know Devin has edited, and you can do it. I've had managers who, as far as I know, haven't edited videos, so they're coming to me with notes or feedback, which

And there are some people who are good at managing and some people I just aren't. Like I was in charge of someone at Business Insider once and I realized how bad I was at being a manager.

Yeah, Like they just kept away.

They just kept asking me, like, you know, what should I do today? Or like what do you think about this? What do you think about this? I'm like, just you I don't know, use your brain. Get like I'm busy, Like I've really got other shit to work on, and that's terrible, Like you're not, that's not, that's not. I immediately realize, oh, I should not be managing anyone because yeah, this is not a good dynamic.

Like, but I guess what do you guys think as far as if we're doing micromanaging versus free range? What do you think is more productive? And I guess this could be twofold for you for an employee and as a manager or a company side, what do you think actually would get better results?

I think free range with clear expectations, in clear goals. Because I've been micromanaged, I've been with managers who are more free range. I guess there's no advantages to me of being micromanaged. There are sometimes advantages to the free range thing, but free range with no clear goals or expectations it's also very annoying.

Yeah, you're kind of set up to film, yeah.

Because then you're just doing stuff in a bubble and then you're manager who hasn't been around for a month shows up and it's like, this is not what I wanted you to do, and it's like, well, you gave me no goals expectations.

Yeah, yeah at all, So like here's just what we've been doing.

But yeah, you know, I also hate managers that are just micromanaging and looking over your shoulder because it's like you put me in this position for a reason. Yeah, like let me do the job, give me some room to sort of figure it this out. So yeah, I would prefer free range with clear expectations and clear goals and like regular check ins. Yeah you know once a week. Yeah that's enough.

It's kind of a happy medium between yeah, the two styles.

Yeah, if I'm going you know, if I'm not doing what you expect in that week, let's talk about it then. But like every like you're saying these hourly daily check ins, it's just like it's unnecessary. It doesn't give people enough time to like figure stuff out, and like you got to break some stuff and like do some things that don't work to figure out what does work.

Well said spoken like a true middle manager, I guess before we give artics to it, Like Devin, it's interesting thinking, as you know, because even middle managers say they have I mean, I manage a team too at BI, and it's really frustrating because when you're the middle manager, you don't have the power to do anything. So all you're

It's like, so much of middle management is like like kind of being like a like a hostage negotiator to some degree, right of like, all right, nobody wants to be doing this, all right, the people in charge, here's what they want. How do I communicate this to the people who are actually doing the work in a way that makes them not want to kill themselves? Yeah, exactly, short of do to work in a way, and then how do I communicate their concerns to upper management in a way.

That they're going to be receptive.

Yeah, So it's a lot of Yeah, a lot of middle management is just like playing politics, and I think people deal with that in different ways. Like you were saying, Man, I think some people, when they get that pressure from upper management, they the way they deal with it is like by micromanaging and being super in the weeds.

Yeah.

Many Where do you fall on the micromanaging to free range continuum?

Yeah?

My, I guess you know. My only kind of intrude to this conversation is that one time I managed someone and I was in favor of a kind of a hands.

Off like I'm not doing this, I'm not really managing figure it out.

You're technically under me, but you just go do your own thing.

Well, I guess you know obviously without getting into details, you feel like that hurt your employees though, oh yeah, yeah, like I so you think, I mean you think really probably a medium happy.

Medium would be good. A medium would be good. And at the time I was like, I then told my manager at the time, like, I'm not this isn't for me and it's actually bad for the intern.

Yeah.

So then we fixed that situation yet.

Eliminated that position. We got a solution, You're gone. I think we basically all like.

Can I provide a counterpoint? And I just thought of just in this moment case a real one.

I do wonder at times if younger or more entry level people suffer from the more free.

Range form of management.

In a lot of places that I've been at, the people who, like you know, younger people who are just have more of that quote unquote entrepreneurial spirit of just like I'll figure it out, I'll look it up myself, like I'll just get yeah exactly, who just need sort of less handholding tend to perform well because managers often don't have time to like sit down with someone and

Yeah, so we'll hear all about this and hopefully get some answers when we talk to Eric Baker, a Harvard lecturer who specialized in the history of labor and management after the break.

All right, fellas, I need you to help me with a problem that I got. You know, usually we're the ones helping other people with their problems. But I'm about to go abroad and I'm going to watch met games. Noah, how can I watch them?

That's a tough one.

Maybe get a really large telescope.

I don't think that's the best way to do it, Manny, Do you have any solutions on how I can watch Mets games abroad?

I think I've got a slightly more practical solution for you, Devin. If you use Nord VPN, you'll be able to change the location of your laptop's IP address and watch the content with no problem.

What about my privacy online? I'm worried someone's watching me. First of all, no one is watching you, Noah.

But in case someone was watching you, NordVPN provides you with privacy online, leaving no digital footprint by hiding your IP address. It's like wearing an invisibility cloak while you're surfing the web.

Sounds comfy, So, Manny, I've heard about these VPNs and how they're super slipt.

How do I make sure my internet is not throttling.

If you want to use a VPN without slowing down your Internet, Devin, You're going to want to use NordVPN because whenever I use it, I don't see any buffering or lagging while I'm streaming my favorite content.

How do I get NordVPN, Devin?

If you or our listeners want to get the best discount off of your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN dot com slash nst. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan, and there's no risk because Nord has a thirty day money back guarantee. The link is in the show notes. That's NordVPN dot com slash nst.

We're back. I'm Manny, I'm Noah Devon, and we are joined by Eric Baker. Eric, why don't you introduce yourself?

Hi all, I'm Eric Kammer, raider and historian and an editor at The Drift magazine. A book called Make Your Own Job, How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which is about how our culture work came to be so toxic.

Our main question that we're talking about is how efficient various management styles are talking about micromanaging versus free range, that.

Sort of thing.

But first, can you explain kind of how the basic kind of standard corporate office structure came to be as we know it.

Yeah, and this is a big question and a process that takes a long time, so I'll try to try to stick to the highlights. In general, the large corporations come to start to dominate the American economy in the late nineteenth century, and by the early twentieth century, you could walk into the downtown of a city like New York and you would start to see some office buildings that are familiar to us today, cubicles, things like that. Because these big corporations they need a ton of white

I mean, it's.

Important to remember that before all this happened, before this turned to corporate consolidation in the late nineteenth century, the fraction of the people who were doing what we today called white collar work was very very small. You know, it was a predominantly agrarian society. You know, they increasingly start to get people working in manufacturing industry. But you know, the office kind of emerges in tandem with the emergence of this new workforce who are working primarily with pander

So now we have all these kind of you know, pencil pushers set up. How were kind of the management stuf aisles first developed and then also shared, Like how do they become so widespread?

Well, there are a range of ideas, and you know, one of the important things to remember about this history is there's what people thought they were doing or what experts advised managers to do, and then kind of what the reality was actually on the office floor. So you know, initially there was the kind of natural school of thought is to just say, you know, oh, well, we should we have these strategies and schemes that we've developed to

Doing, and would it be fair to say then that kind of this idea of micromanaging in some ways evolved from that, where it's like, we don't really have an idea what's happening, but maybe we can check in a million times a day and try to find some sort of structure in this or how do you kind of describe that?

Yeah, so in a lot of offices, for you know, roughly the nineteen twenties to the nineteen seventies, there's a trend of adding layers of what comes to be known as middle management. I mean quite literally, they're like in managers in between. That's because there's a big communication challenge in these workplaces. There's no slack, there's no email. How

That kind of brings me to something we were talking about in our intro where and I think this aligns with your book and kind of the entrepreneurial work ethic where someone will be a you know, regular maybe low level employee and then get a promotion and then now they're tasked with being a manager without having been trained up on how to manage. Or maybe you're balancing like Manny was at one point balancing doing his own work but then also managing someone kind of.

On the side.

Can you talk a little bit about that, like how has that own has been put on the employees to kind of figure it out as they go along on those kind of dual roles.

One of the big shifts kind of after this period that I was just talking about, you know, in the nineteen seventies, you start to see a lot of economic dysfunction in the United States, a lot of increasing anxieties about international competition, slowing rates of productivity and profit. And one of those sort of silver bullets that management experts arrive on that's often kind of enforced through private equity takeover and all this stuff, is to strip out these

Do you feel like the actual design of an office could be born out of some of these management styles, Like we've kind of as a society have been moving away from cubicles into these more open office layouts where you can literally see what your employees are doing at all times. I'm just curious if you feel like that that's born out of different management styles evolving over time. Or maybe that's just cheaper to do it like that.

Yeah, probably a bit of a bit of calm. B There's a great book by the scholar Nikhil Saval who's actually now a politician as a state senator in Pennsylvania or something, but it's called Cubed. It's a great book that's about how the design of the office evolved in tandem with these, uh, with with shifting ideas about you know what it meant to manage well, you know what the office should be because you know, as you say,

I guess to kind of just answer the main question from our listener about how effective micromanaging is versus a free range. I mean, do you have data on this like both I guess for the employee and for the company as as however they measure of productivity.

What stands out to me is not so much that the studies say one thing or the or the other. You know, I have a colleague here in the history of Science department at arbody has written a lot about like nutrition science, and it almost kind of reminds me of how whether or not coffee is good for you according to the experts, you know, that like changes every week, and so I think there's good right now they say

But you know, I think that there's you know, I ironically it's that sense that like what really matters is trying to make sure that workers are excited about.

What's going on in their work. You know, that has sort of taken on a life of its own as a management philosophy, and so you know, get endless pizza parties and whatnot.

Obviously, in the past few years there's been more remote work and hybrid work, which I could see kind of going both towards and against micromanaging as far as you're not here physically with me, so I might need to check in with you if you're my employee. What's your read on kind of how management has kind of adapted to the kind of new climate of work.

Initially there was I think some hope in fact the range of efforts to you know, come up with new technologies that would essentially enhance remote worker surveillance, and that's something that you know, people still deal with. But I mean, my my read is that return to work is like the overwhelming push from the management or the executive class.

I'm curious, how, you know, work in the US as far as management styles, like, how does it compare to you know, across Europe or Asia or elsewhere. Is there just super wide variance as far as expectations on workers or you know, because.

Definitely, yeah, I can't claim to know what it's like to work in China or you know, in France or wherever. But I think that there's a tension because on the one hand, different cultures and different places their histories will have an effect on basic expectations. I mean, so much of our culture of work is not just about what's happened in the workplace, but it's related to broader you know, broader developments, you know, broader facts of American national culture

So I dug into some studies on micromanaging.

And here's what I found.

One report suggested six scenarios where micromanaging might be helpful. So here the six count on me. One the strategy of the organization is changing.

That makes sense. That makes sense.

Hey, we got a pivot. We're doing this thing exactly. Now we're doing this other thing. I'm a micromanaged because we all gotta be on the same page.

But what we're doing, similarly to a new endeavor is starting. So not the whole organization, but something. You know, you're working on a new project. We've all been there, but oh have we?

They love to start a new project.

Three, there is a new leader, a new employee, or a new division or unit. So again, similar some new some of the news happening.

Okay.

Four, an employee or leader fails to execute on an initiative, and as a result, the program lingers. So the micromanaging program linkers, meaning so, yeah, things are getting messed up. We got to figure this out. I'm gonna watch you extra hard now. Five, serious complaints or errors have occurred. What's going on here?

All right? That's true.

You know you have an employee makes a you know, it's a huge factual error. And a report that goes out video going forward.

That sources.

Yeah, give me access.

Where did you get Where did you get this from them? Where did you get this number?

You got this from business insidery.

We can accept that X, double check your sources of right.

The opposite of that, all right?

Uh?

And six the division or department has poor results. Again, we got to figure out what's going on.

These either new or things are going poorly.

Yeah, And I think the idea here is these are temporary measures and the more stuff we'll talk about. We'll get into that. But it's not supposed to be. This is just how we work. It's supposed to be we're solving a specific thing. There's something new happening or something we need to change. Let's focus in and get this done and then hopefully we can move on.

And the study found that micromanaging in these instances, that's where it.

Might be helpful.

Yeah.

So another quote from that report is me quoting. While micromanagement is sometimes necessary, doing it for too long could be detrimental, and managers should be attuned to the need to reevaluate their role and back off at the appropriate time.

I mean, who can disagree every damn day I work with you too?

Consider whether or not.

We need a new MANI another more critical paper you're gonna like this title called the Micromanagement Disease Die Richard J. White, or it is the Micromanagement Disease Symptoms, Diagnosis and Cure. These guys getting creative with these that if all you're writing about is management, all right? The author of that said this quote, I'm quoting a lot here, all right. That means put some music on the.

Copy.

At its more severe level, micromanagement is a compulsive behavioral disorder similar to other addictive patterns. People who are micromanaged generally do so because they feel unsure and self doubting. Micromanagers like many addicts and alcoholics are the last people to recognize that they are hooked on controlling others. Extreme micromanagers behave pathologically refusing to accept personal responsibility or accountability,

I've worked at a few legacy media outlets, and I know a lot of drones.

I'll tell you that much attack.

Of the drones. There's two things that stood out from that paper for me. Okay.

Number one the idea that micromanagers, despite all the micromanaging that they do, despite as annoying as they are, then they will still scapegoat if.

Something goes wrong. Exactly.

It's like, you are involved in every single step in this process. You basically did it, yea, so if it fails, you need to be held accountable as well. But they love to throw people under the bus. And it's like, so what was the point of you micromanaging? Then exactly look in the mirror, crazy, Yeah, look at the man in the mirror, as Michael Jackson said, yep.

And then number two this idea of drones, right, like micromanagers love a drone. And I think that's where I've in my career.

You know, my younger illustrious.

I'm a young man, So in the places where I felt like, oh it's time for me to leave, it's when it's gone from a we need you to be creative and come up with new ideas and blah blah blah to okay, actually we just need you to be a drone. And then it's like, all right, it's time for me to drone up.

Yeah. And now this last report I looked at as an actual kind of analysis where they look through different studies over decades of micromanagement. So it's called micromanagement. A systematic literature review and future research agenda, so they looked at tons of studies over the years to report findings. They said, there still needs to be more research, but

So managers and.

Employees or subordinates are getting more stressed out. This leads to job dissatisfaction and more employee turnover, which means now you're spending this time hiring new people, training them, on boarding them, doing the whole thing over again instead of just giving people the skills they need to work and then everyone can you know, rising tides.

Exactly.

Then it reduces employee creativity and operational efficiency. So the bottom line, it's worse for the bottom line.

Damn.

After the break, many, Devin and I tackle some work related questions sent in by the audience. So we are back. I'm Noah, I'm Manny Devin.

Yeah.

So that was Eric Baker who walked us through management styles and more broadly, the history of work. Got into a lot, but we did have a few more questions from our listeners that we're going to get into now. Some are more advicey and then some are a little bit more in the weeds, but let's just go through them. The first one, how do I handle an incompetent boss. Now many and I have both dealt with this. How

Laughing yeah, you know this is it's tough.

What do you guys think?

Honestly, sometimes in my previous job, you know, I wouldn't say it was incompetence per se, but it was definitely he felt like an obstacle at times. And what I would do I would have my own little strategies to kind of get what I want, which is like, you know, bake whatever I wanted into a verbal package of the things that he wanted. I don't know how to articulate it really, but.

It's like you're putting the vegetables in a cake a little.

Bit, yes, exactly, you're hiding you're hiding peanut butter in the dog, or hiding dog the.

Peanut butter dog menaces.

I don't have a dog.

He has a food. They don't want to eat it.

In the medicine just peanut butter, right, the medicine.

The things you would want to do is the medicine in this case, and you're covering it in peanut butter, which is what your boss wanted at the time. Yeah, he doesn't even realize that you got your medicine in there, right, the stuff that you want to following.

It, Because the goal ultimately was to have a video or TikTok or an Instagram real that would get a lot of views. And so if I did this and we just skipped to the result where I'm showing him, oh, look this kind of went viral or whatever, then he wouldn't have minded the process. So that's what I would do, is like try to massage what I wanted into our communication. It was kind of cheeky, though, so you know, it's not necessarily great advice for anyone who's dealing with this.

Or I guess read with them, or or my problems with my manager are probably coming from a person above them.

Yeah, I've actually had a few instances knowing like, oh, actually you're not the problem.

Yeah, the person's doing. That's when I was a manager, That's how what I kind of, you know, not to just pass the buck along.

But I was.

I would always try to be like, hey, I know this is an ideal, but like this is kind of what we need to do, and try to figure out a way to make make it tolerable at least, and be like, listen, trust me, I don't I don't want to make a video on how Tom Brady makes and spences millions. You know, this is not my choice, but this is what people need it. Someone needs it.

So I don't know if I've had I don't think I've worked for, let's say, a stupid boss.

Yeah.

I worked for people who are incompetent in that they don't want to learn what the team is doing or understand what the team is doing, so therefore their suggestions aren't helpful or the goals they give are unrealistic. Right, And that's in some ways tougher because you know the person has the capacity to understand, they just are choosing not to.

Right.

I feel like like I've had bosses that.

Are kind of like Donald Trump to some degree, right where it's like Trump to me is like, I don't think he's a dumb person. I think he just chooses not to understand certain things or to learn about certain things. Yeah, and it's to me, yeah, that's more frustrating than if you were just dumb. Yeah the navigate because like you're just stupid, so like, let me just work around you.

What you're doing.

And because they aren't learning each time you're educating them, you have to keep re educating them every conversation that you're having.

So it does suck.

But I guess to Manny's point, I think the way you deal with it is you've got to kind of learn what they care about. Yeah, and when you communicate with them, make sure you emphasize what they care about.

But you also don't need to tell them the things that.

They don't know or don't care about, Like, don't waste your time over explaining things that they're not going to remember and they you know, aren't going to effect valuable. Yeah, it's it's like working, it's it's a bit of it sucks, but you you start, you have to manage your manager a bit and just give them the things that they need to leave you alone.

Yeah.

Yeah, if you've got, like, you know, some strategy you want to employ at work for your job, the strategy A, which your boss wants to do, and the strategy B, which do you want to do. Okay, we're gonna go from point A to point B over the course of a few months, maybe not so drastically.

Uh.

And then you know, you're just kind of slowly pushing the needle of just inching close or to what you want by like, yeah, doing it.

Why don't we try this this piece out, try this thing out slowly? Yeah, that makes sense. All right, here's another one, this one. I don't know, how can I politely let my coworker know their body odor is horrendous? Something else? And many of you have dealt with this literally.

Half wow, all three of us thinking of well, now I am.

We I mean we do we basically didn't handle I mean that's never brought it up. I mean you can't really you can't, like what are you gonna do complain to HR.

Yeah, I guess yeah I would. Yeah, HR could say something.

I don't know if they and like what I mean, what are you gonna You can make a general announcement. Yeah, that that that's the only way to try to do it is going and say like I'm wearing cologne now, like don't we all love wearing cologne?

Like hey, what do you?

Hey you, what do you wear?

Like?

Plus, there's no way to do.

It, yeah with the odor and we all use yeah. Uh.

Plus sometimes you detect someone's odor and it's not clear that it's because they're not hygienic or something like. Sometimes I'm like that is something else and.

That might be that may be medical.

I don't know.

I just can't there's a medical great issue.

This is a military grade doctor needs to go into the hazmat.

Suits and a syndrome style. No, there's nothing you can really do in that situation.

Yeah, it's like in general, I think you could make a general announcement around hey, guys, let's all make sure you know, when we're coming to work, we're presentable.

Yeah, you know, make sure that we're taking care of ourselves.

It's we've gotten general complaints in the office about smells.

But you can't. You can't.

Because I'm even thinking, like, let's say it was one of us, like right here, right now. It would take a lot for me to be like, hey, Devin, let me pull your like to pull you out and just be like hey, like, I can't even imagine doing that in the nicest way.

Let me say this everybody, because if we smelled, it would be a one off.

Oh ship, well.

Yeah, my boy, my boy, jog over here, West forgot it's the owner into We've all had days where it's like eleven o'clock.

You know, Oh, I'm one one armed right now?

Yeah, you know.

You may need help.

A hit, you know, so one off. Yeah that was excuse if you were shown here a week after week.

Yeah, what you do?

We might have to just because we know you so well, you have to be like a man. Different if it's a coworker, Yeah, exactly, And.

We had to make a man I don't know what's going on, but like you kind of stick, how would you.

Let's let's let's let's play so someone you presumably like, and yeah me if it was you, So let's say we come. We recorded for an hour we're taking a break and now we're going to do another session right now.

And this is like, this is about three or four sessions in a road.

That yeah, yeah, so let's say it's not my first off. Something is going on.

We would probably couch it in a joke like no, you know, just we're gonna be real with you for a second.

Would you take me out of this room or would you do it in front of.

Right here on the camera.

Yeah, recording, we'll get.

We'll get Connor to do it. Yeah, that'd probably be Connor comes in like we we have a new policy, give.

Him a script.

Everyone coming into the studio must wear theodor.

We will be I'd be like, have you been coming here straight from the gym or something like kind of ship joke about it and then maybe get to it. That's actually thankfully we have never had to do this.

I think my would be go through Julia, you're.

Gonna offensive no, because if we have so explain, okay, so we're coming. If I'm hanging out with you week after week and you just start to stink, I would.

Hit Julia up and like hey, I don't know if you notice.

I don't know if he has, but Noah's been smelling lately.

But what if Noah found out that that's how you did it, He might be like, why didn't you just talk to me about it?

Why do see I'm going through her?

She oh, in case there's something bad happen all of a sudden, getting I'm going through it, and then you then clear that it's not something medical.

And then that happened at home, Then yeah, I bring it up. But she's like, oh, actually that's good sense.

What happened is he can't shower because she's taking X, Y and Z medicine.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm gonna shut my mouth.

That makes sense.

Slash.

Then you can tell her and then she could easily be like, yeah, say something. Yeah, like I'm married to her.

So yeah, do we think that you got to put on?

But yeah, but in a normal workplace, you're not going to be able to reach out to their spouse.

Yeah, we can't talk, So this is not that helpful.

Do we think that you know, the people were talking about what is the likelihood that they know and they don't care.

No, people get noseline to it.

It's your own thing.

Wow. You basically can't say anything.

You can ask hr to make a general announcement about making sure people are coming in.

Yeah. Otherwise, the only thing you can possibly do is have a vague conversation about deodorant and colognes and hope that they're.

Hope they overhear it.

Yeah, all right, here's what I looked into a little bit. I'm curious what your guesses would be. How much of the day do people with office jobs actually spend working?

So the total amount of hours let's say, out of an eight hour work day that people are actually working.

We're talking about in the office.

Let's say in office.

So if I'm being generous, I would say four and a half to five.

Wow, I'm lower than that.

Yeah, would your guess be?

It also depends on where I think. I've only worked in places that are super social. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was like probably my favorite thing to do in the office is like leave my desk and go people, go to the other floor, see what's up with this guy? I would I mean depends on the day obviously, like if you're on a deadline or something, but probably like three hours three out of the eight hours I'm like

Work related stuff?

No?

Yeah, I was talking about.

I don't know how the survey was done, so I'm curious how that would factor in. I would guess no. But yeah, I'm sorry. This is from i'd say.

Foe or four. Let me be clear, this is not me.

You work eight hours.

I work more. I'm doing because I'm doing like.

He works ten hours in an eight hour shift.

Yeah, I'm doing. I'm doing three four jobs simultaneously.

Yes, so it compounds, Yeah, example a multiplier on your all right, with that in mind, this is a survey done in the of UK office workers by vouchercloud dot com. But every basically this is one of those things someplace does some survey and then for now almost ten.

Years, every article is citing this. Yeah, and who knows how good it is. So with that grain of salt, Yeah, the average worker is only productive for two hours and fifty three minutes. That sounds right to me, Which sounds right to me.

Yeah, And to be honest, that's so especially on these computers. Like if you have a computer you're on with access to everything, you remember when we were working right next to each other, like we would be bullshitting for hours. I remember when that fucking Popeyes chicken sandwich came out, we left the office.

Yeah, we lost three hours.

Yeah, this is not good because I was during this time.

So this is not funny too, because we could have easily done a video.

That Yeah, I know, that could have been work for sure.

So then there's a work life survey. They did a survey. It says in twenty twenty three, forty five percent of workers said they work four hours or less to day. Yeah, that's including like that's talking about Amazon, Microsoft, Google Meta employees. So those are all in kind of the thirty three yeah, thirty three to kind of forty percent range saying they work four hours or less per day. So how effective

That's a great question. I mean, the idea that the most effective way to manage somebody was by clearly communicating a set of expectations and then kind of leaving them to figure out how to how to meet them. You know, that's an idea that really goes back to the nineteen forties, nineteen fifties in a management by objecting in self control was the neologism when that became a tool for discipline. I'm not exactly sure it's so clear that when you're put on a PIP the message is like, if you

Have you guys been on the ips?

I have not been on a PITH. I have managed people who have been put on pips. So I would have their manager complaining to me that this person is not performing.

Yeah, yeah, I would talk with them.

I would talk with the manager, I talk with HR, and a certain point we'd say, okay, well this person, if they don't improve, needs to be put on a PIP. So I would be part of the conversation, but I was never the person initiating it.

Got it.

My experience with it is it's mostly a way for HR to make sure that you have paperwork so that the person can't say that they were fired unfairly right.

Part of it is in regards to unions.

Part of it is just like companies being afraid of being sued, so it is like it forces you to document feedback.

There's a Wall Street Journal report from twenty twenty four by Lauren Weber and Chip Cutter about the rise of pips, and they're increasing and they have you know, they have an example of one. I'll put in the show notes for people to look at so you can kind of

Yeah.

Wow, And it seems like from reading this article to mix of even if people get through, then a lot of times they'll just decide they want to leave anyway. So it's kind of like, you know, you're not wanted basically, so whether you're a good worker or a bad worker, however you wanted to find that it's like, yeah, probably time to go. Like you can read the writing on the wall.

I would say most of the pips that I've seen, it's very clear that the person does not have skill sets or drive to do the thing that they're being tasked with doing. So you're giving them goals knowing they're basically they're not going to hit it. But to to

Your your boots buttter, what is the foot, pull up your bootstraps.

And get your shit done, because we're giving you all the two and we're being very clear about what your goals are and if you don't hit it, now, there's nothing more that we could do.

Yeah, this guy, Yeah, there's a guy in this article who worked at Cisco and is like an HR guy. He said they did a five year look back at all the pips and found that ninety percent of people who were placed on them, whether or not they survived that plan, left within a year. Anyway. He said that he now gives two envelopes. One is a PIP and the other is just a generous severance offer with a you know, separation insurance or a separation agreement and COBRA

That's really smart, and it's such a better way to do it, because it just waste every time. Everyone knows what's happening. And Eric is saying, no one is fooled by the process.

I like that option. I like the idea.

Yeah, like, hey, we know we were going to sort of like do this stupid process for three months and fire you anyway, Hello, we just give you six months or nine months severance yep, and like just go find something else that's better for you, and like we could just move on.

Yeah, exactly, it's like forget it, and then yeah, then they talk to another guy who worked at a law firm who was an employee who was placed on a PIP, and he's he created a document kind of point by point in response and shared it with the HR people and the manager, not disputing anything, but just outlining kind of specific things he planned to do to actually meet what they asked for. So that way, I think it led to a little bit more clarity to like, Okay,

Tough, it seems to be, and it's not going to work. A couple of warnings at least before the p IP comes. It's not like it comes out of nowhere.

I've seen people take that approach of trying to be like really specific about Okay, I'm going to.

Do these things at the end of the day.

If you don't hit the goals, it doesn't matter if you wrote out how you were going to into if you don't do them, because then it just becomes the conversation and becomes, oh, you need your handheld to hit these goals.

And somebody who can just do it.

And you're taking too much of our time and effort, whereas the rest of the team doesn't need this much. Yeah, my advice to you would be, if you are being put on a PIP to start looking for another job. Also, you know, try try to you know, hit your goals so that you could stay a little bit longer.

But all to say, they're effective in a sense effective and they're not effective in getting you better at your job.

They're effective at removing from the Hello performers.

Yeah, yeah, good looks he hess. No such Thing as a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and mangesh ho to Cadur. The show is created by Manny Fideo, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph Themen. Credit song by Manny, mixing by Steve Bone. Our guest this week is Eric Baker visit No Such Thing Dot show to subscribe to our newsletter, where you can find links to some of the studies mentioned in the episode and more.

Bye such thing.