MICROMANAGEMENT and what the Fools in WASH DC could learn from Warren Buffett

I have written on the subject of MICROMANAGERS and the poison they are to good work groups, morale and trust - Take a peek at the 2 previous articles here:
http://usnavyjeep.blogspot.com/search/label/micromanagers

Mr. Tom Ricks is a well establish commentator of note and does some good work on issues that concern us all especially politics, military issues and geopolitical relations. I have recieved personal emails from him after commenting on his Blog and that is the sign of a good writer, specifically that he pays attention to his readers.

He has written an exceptional piece on how President " Do As I Say, Not As I Do " could learn something, specifically about how to let people do their jobs instead of micromanaging them, in OBAMA's case, the military. The last President who did that was Lyndon Johnson, and due to his micromanagement of the Vietnam war, missions had to be approved at the White House before they could go forward....sound familiar??

LEADERSHIP is an art, and not all have the requisite skill set. Learning from the success of others is the best method. Hopefully, the Village-Idiot-from-Chicago is listening for once as he needs all the help he can get. Take a good look at the body langauge of the two men in the enclosed picture....

The smarter one on the left is showing the Nobel Prize winner a few things...likely he needed it more than any of us could ever imagine.

Learning from General Buffett: How not to micromanage your subordinates
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Friday, June 10, 2011 - http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/

I did this last year, but we can learn about military affairs from Warren Buffett every year. The military is not a business, and should not be run like one. But still, the defense establishment could learn a lot from a person as wise as Buffett.

If I could, I would ban all those business fad management books I see senior officers reading and instead make them study the annual reports from Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. You may not know Berkshire Hathaway, but if you buy insurance from Geico, drink Coca-Cola, eat See's Candies, read the Buffalo News, use goods transported by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, or wear Fruit of the Loom underwear, then products and services of companies owned in part or whole by Berkshire are touching your life.

For example, the U.S. military, and especially the Army, have been plagued by micromanagement since the mid-1950s, so long that no one now in the Army has much experience in any other way to run it. I see generals constantly scurrying endlessly to meetings where they often sit in the dark while subordinates read aloud to them bedtime stories (AKA Powerpoint briefings).

Well, there is another way, and it is laid out by Buffett in his annual report for 2010:

At Berkshire, managers can focus on running their businesses: They are not subjected to meetings at headquarters nor financing worries nor Wall Street harassment. They simply get a letter from me every two years…and call me when they wish. And their wishes do differ: There are managers to whom I have not talked in the last year, while there is one with whom I talk almost daily. Our trust is in people rather than process. A "hire well, manage little" code suits both them and me.

Berkshire's CEOs come in many forms. Some have MBAs; others never finished college. Some use budgets and are by-the-book types; others operate by the seat of their pants. Our team resembles a baseball squad composed of all-stars having vastly different batting styles. Changes in our line-up are seldom required.

Imagine a military run like that, that trusted people rather than process, a military where the Army chief of staff could boast that XVIII Airborne Corps is run so well that he has kept the commanding general in place for several years, and hasn't seen him in two years or even talked to him in one. But, the chief of staff would continue, he does talk to the Army commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan daily, in part because they need his help, and in part because he isn't distracted by checking on the XVIII Airborne Corps. My view: People who spend most of their days in regularly scheduled meetings too much probably are wasting their time and others'.

Also, because Buffett keeps successful people in place, staffs and subordinate managers are not constantly in turmoil and adjusting. Instead of constantly adapting to new bossses, they can focus on the tasks at hand. And the boss can leave them alone because he knows how to tell when they need help and when they don't.

OBOT Ambassador is a battleaxe of a boss so bad, staff ask for transfers to AFGHANISTAN rather than staying on her staff

We've all had one of THOSE Bosses...A mercurial,hard arse micro-manager who rules the roost like a dictator....I've dealt with a few of these in my time....Even in the Navy where there was a Female Captain who drove Senior Enlisted from the unit by her failure to see that her nastiness was the opposite of what good leaders should do.
Well seems like one of the OBOTS who got rewarded with a plum Ambassadorial position in Luxembourg acted so much like "Cruella DeVille" and was so toxic, her staff voluntarily sought positions in Afghanistan rather than suffer her wrath...what a piece of work.... a real Bitch-on-wheels and a poster child for entitlement...

This is not necessarily a DEM issue or a GOP issue as there have been "winners" like her on both sides but this battle-ax takes the cake for making people "abandon ship" quicker than any other in recent memory.


February 4, 2011 11:31 AM
U.S. Ambassador Cynthia Stroum Called "Bullying, Hostile" in State Department Investigation
Posted by Brian Montopoli AOL News

One way that presidents reward their biggest donors is by offering them plum ambassadorships. Which is why it wasn't surprising when the Obama administration tapped Cynthia Stroum to be U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg.

Stroum, a businesswoman and philanthropist, had been a major bundler for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, raising more than half a million dollars for the then-candidate.

It appears that her fundraising abilities did not translate to diplomatic success, however: According to a scathing State Department probe out Thursday (PDF), Stroum was seen by most employees as "aggressive, bullying, hostile and intimidating."

The probe found that Stroum's "confrontational management style," staffing problems and "the absence of a sense of direction" have brought much of the Luxembourg embassy "to a state of dysfunction."

Things got so bad, the report says, that staffers asked for transfers to Afghanistan and Iraq due in part to "a climate of acute stress" at the embassy.

"Since the Ambassador's confirmation, most of the senior staff, including two deputy chiefs of mission (DCM) and two section chiefs, has either curtailed or volunteered for service in Kabul and Baghdad," the report says. "Other U.S. staff members have also departed early. At the time of the inspection, additional members of staff were contemplating curtailing. The OIG team believes and in some cases knows for certain that these early departures are because of the Ambassador's management style."

The report found that Stroum "has followed a pattern of public criticism of colleagues...who have not performed to her satisfaction."

And it says that, counter to regulations, "At the end of FY 2010, the mission scrambled to use up its representational funding by bulk purchasing $3,400 in wine and liquor."

Stroum left the embassy last month, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family in Seattle; as Politico notes, she acknowledged that her time had been "challenging" but said she "loved the work and am tremendously proud of what we have accomplished during my tenure.

Micromanagers - The Cancer of good morale and poison to exceptional effort

In my humble opinion, there is a disease loose in the world of business that is a Cancer to good morale and exceptional efforts - That poison is " Micromangement "

Defined as " a manager who rather than giving general instructions on smaller tasks and then devoting his time to supervising larger concerns, the micromanager monitors and assesses every step of a business process and avoids delegation of decisions.

Micromanagers are usually irritated when a subordinate makes decisions without consulting them, even if the decisions are totally within the subordinate's level of authority."

I worked for a couple of these and they were able to suck the oxygen right out of any room they entered.....Enclosed is a good Leadership lesson on how to avoid being one of these curmudgeons....Don't be that guy.

THEORY & PRACTICE
Micromanagers Miss Bull's-Eye
Dealing With Every Detail Robs Subordinates of the Freedom to Solve Problems.
By CARI TUNA - WSJ.com

Two years ago, Greg Cushard was leading eight or nine meetings a week at Rubicon Oil Co., the truck-refueling company he founded and runs. He would interrupt conversations among subordinates, identify mistakes and make even mundane decisions, he says.

"I acted like a quarterback ... more than a coach," Mr. Cushard says. He had little time to think about the business. Employees "stopped making suggestions because they were afraid they'd get shot down."

Prompted by advice from his top lieutenants and executive coach, Mr. Cushard resolved to stop micromanaging. Leadership experts say micromanagers -- from small-business owners to managers in large organizations -- share an unwillingness to trust subordinates; still, many can be successful, to a point.

Former President Jimmy Carter was known to personally review requests for White House tennis courts. Martha Stewart once described herself as a "maniacal micromanager" who had to "understand every part of the business to be able to maximize those businesses." Former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner ordered stronger bulbs put in reading lights in Disney hotels.

The best managers help employees learn to work independently by giving them meaningful responsibilities, organizational coach Diane Foster says. "Who wants to be in a company where you are not allowed to think?"

Michael Hakkert, vice president of corporate marketing for Blue Coat Systems Inc., says he struggled with the urge to micromanage in his first supervisory job at Cisco Systems Inc. 10 years ago. Mr. Hakkert says he would act as an intermediary between subordinates and other Cisco employees instead of letting employees own their projects.

"It was very difficult to understand when to continue to roll up my sleeves and when to actually delegate," he recalls. A leadership-development class and mentor at Cisco helped Mr. Hakkert realize that good managers facilitate the work of their subordinates, whether or not they help create the final products.

Frontline workers often are best suited to identify problems and suggest creative solutions, says Ira Bryck, director of University of Massachusetts's Family Business Center in Hadley, Mass. But when conditioned to rely on a heavy-handed manager for guidance, employees become complacent, he says.

Managers should give employees goals and leave them to work out the details, Mr. Bryck says. They should resist the temptation to take control when subordinates make minor mistakes.

Some micromanagers need a push from others to break the habit. Mr. Bryck recalls the CEO of a small software company who asked him why employees didn't follow instructions. After interviewing employees, Mr. Bryck determined they resented the boss's heavy hand. He asked the employees to rewrite the CEO's job description to help him understand where his guidance wasn't necessary.

At Rubicon, the truck-refueling company, Mr. Cushard started leaving meetings after briefly setting the tone and agenda. He soon stopped attending some altogether, appointing others to lead in his place. Rubicon, Sacramento, Calif., has about 40 employees.

"When the CEO became a member of the meeting and not the center of the meeting, so much more got accomplished," says Tim Johnson, Rubicon's head of sales.

For example, Rubicon's accountants thrived when left to decide how to tackle the department's goals, Mr. Cushard says. They trimmed the average time to collect a payment to about 23 days, from 31 days.

"They did not want me there," Mr. Cushard says. "My presence hindered thinking."

But Rubicon's operations department initially "failed miserably because I had the wrong person" running the department, he says. The operations head purchased three more refueling trucks than the company needed -- for $175,000 each -- at a time when business was slowing. The trucks sat idle for months before they could be rotated into use.

Mr. Cushard ultimately fired the manager and split the operations department into two smaller groups that are easier to manage. "You instantly find out who's good and who's not by ... putting the ball in their court," he says.

Today, Rubicon employees take turns running meetings. Leaders periodically follow up with co-workers, creating more accountability within departments, Mr. Cushard says.

Mark Goulston, a Los Angeles-based management consultant, likes that approach. "It gives everyone the opportunity ... to feel what it's like to try to keep people on track," he says.

Mr. Cushard now attends three or four meetings a week; subordinates send updates from the rest. In his newfound spare time, Mr. Cushard launched a second company, a fuel clearinghouse that tracks oil prices.

As owners, "we think we know best, but we don't, not all of the time," he says. "I realized that it's not all about me."

Write to Cari Tuna at cari.tuna@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal