Impulses for organisations – Part 12
In the beautiful wide world of social media platforms, there are many small and large impulses that can be useful for collaboration in companies, open eyes or invite a change of perspective. However, many of these impulses are only visible for a short time before they disappear again in the vastness of the platforms. In part 12 of our series, we would like to publish some inspiring impulses from experts on the t2informatik Blog. This time it’s all about micromanagement, different manifestations of power and planning projects with ChatGPT.
Let’s get started with the new impulses!
Micromanagement is a pretty effective tool
Micromanagement is a pretty effective tool. Especially for managers who want to prevent innovation at all costs. 😉
Because the following consequences are usually guaranteed:
1️⃣ Curbing creativity
Managers who want to control and dictate every decision and every detail, no matter how small, inhibit employees’ ability to think independently and develop creative solutions.
2️⃣ Destruction of motivation
Micromanagement also succeeds in destroying the motivation of the most committed employees in the short or long term. If people are constantly being signalled that they are not trusted, at some point they will no longer be prepared to go the extra mile.
3️⃣ Loss of talent
Those who are not content to resign internally and work to rule are usually looking for new challenges relatively quickly. Unfortunately, these are usually the very talents that companies don’t want to lose.
4️⃣ No more time for real leadership
Managers who are unable to relinquish control and monitor every move in turn have no capacity to concentrate on their actual job.
5️⃣ Higher risk of burnout
Micromanagement also causes demonstrable stress. The constant pressure to meet the often unrealistic expectations of managers can jeopardise the mental health of employees in the long term.
➡️ Long story short: If you can’t and don’t want to give up control, it’s better not to manage people.
Why power is not only found in boardrooms
When I work with clients, the power objection always comes up at some point:
‘We’re just a small cog in the wheel’
‘We can’t do anything in the final instance’
etc.
Power is everywhere, it flows through us, as management researcher Karen Lee Ashcraft writes so beautifully. No one has absolute power, there are always supervisory boards, shareholders, customers.
So we’d better not do anything?
No, because the ability to get people to do something they wouldn’t have done before – that’s how I want to define power here – is distributed throughout the organisation in a highly productive way.
Reading Stefan Kuehl helped me to understand this:
First of all, power is an exchange relationship that is asymmetrical but always mutual: I can only assert myself if someone is willing to enter into a relationship with me. An officer can only give orders if soldiers obey them. If a person withdraws from the relationship, e.g. by resigning, power is lost. Even the refusal to work overtime puts superiors in a difficult position.
Companies use power to manage areas of uncertainty. Here, according to Kühl, it would be wrong to locate power only at the top of the hierarchy.
🔝 Power through hierarchy
It is clear that whoever is at the top has power over the membership (although HR also wants a say in this): They can fire people. They can also roughly define the field of action of their subordinates with strategies. However, studies also show how little managers are even aware of what is happening.
↔ Power through access
But power also exists on the sides of the organisation. At the interfaces to the ‘real’ world, as in sales. There, privileged access to customers, suppliers and other cooperation partners is granted. The people ‘at the top’ are far away from these zones of insecurity, the handling of external contacts is delegated. Nursing staff, according to Kühl, are in charge of important areas of uncertainty for doctors, for example. This means that doctors are dependent on nursing staff because they only spend a short time on the ward.
🎓 Power through expertise
Experts, such as IT specialists, gain their influence from their mastery of subject knowledge, which can often be used as a knockout argument.
🤲 Power through understanding
Then there are those who really know what the company thinks (bosses know this the least). Often beyond official positions, these people have earned the trust of people on the assembly line or the younger generation.
🗝 Power through gatekeeping
A secretary or personal assistant controls internal communication channels. This influence should not be underestimated: so have respect if not fear of personal assistants!
If we understand power in such a diverse way, then organisations are always in dynamic processes of power development. Let’s use that and never imagine a cosy powerlessness. 💪
Can ChatGPT also handle time planning in projects?
AI in project management: ‘Can ChatGPT also handle time planning in projects? That was the red flag for me…
I recently attended a workshop that showed how project managers can use ChatGPT for their work. I’m rather sceptical about the classic project management mindset, but I still wanted to find out more about how AI is used in these circles.
After a general introduction to prompting with ChatGPT, things got more concrete. A project plan was to be drawn up. The first attempt went directly wrong. The detailed budget planning was recommended long before the content-related project planning.
As we know that language models hallucinate or simply cannot put the input into the context we want, this can happen. So once again and the corresponding ISO standard for the project procedure is included in the prompt. The output is a long list of concrete steps to ensure the success of the project.
As a believer in interdisciplinary collaboration with a strong trust in the self-management ability of teams, this was a good reality check for me. The belief that complex development projects can simply be managed is still widespread. Sometimes I forget that.
When, after several attempts, we finally had the ISO standard-compliant project plan, we were given a few tips on how the project manager can delegate a large part of the extensive writing and planning work to ChatGPT. Conveniently, ChatGPT immediately created the GANTT chart and named the critical path.
A management consultant who was present at the workshop asked the logical question: ‘Can chatGPT also handle time planning in projects?’ Now was the time to put an end to the cobwebs. I intervened and emphasised that time estimates should only be made by those who are later responsible for implementation.
This is a core problem of IPMA project management, believing that you can plan/manage the future. Project plans are often created before a project team exists or it is clear what the final framework conditions are. Project managers often draw up these plans without knowing exactly who will be responsible for implementation, when and how. In addition, the content details and challenges are usually not known at this stage and only emerge during the actual course of the project. This is one of the reasons why so many projects fail or take ages to complete.
The very idea that a language model could carry out project planning and take over the scheduling is, in my opinion, negligent. Because if that were really possible, 1. there would be no need for project managers and 2. probably no need for a project team. But I have the same problem with ‘agile’ product owners who let ChatGPT write their user stories…
Impulses and questions
Three topics, three experts, three impulses. How can companies do without unnecessary micromanagement? How does power arise, what does it do to us and how can we deal with it sensibly? And what influence will AI have on project management in the future and in which contexts does it make sense to use or rely on tools?
Questions upon questions. Maybe you have some too; that’s good! Then Part 12 of ‘Impulses for organisations’ has also achieved its goal.
Notes:
If you like this article or would like to discuss it, please feel free to share it in your network.
[1] Annahita Esmailzadeh is a tech leader, bestselling author, speaker and certified systemic business coach. At Microsoft, she is head of Customer Success Account Management for the energy and chemical industries. Information about Annahita Esmailzadeh can be found in her LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.
[2] To achieve a better future, we need to work better today. As a researcher, consultant and keynote speaker, Hans Rusinek wants to help us rethink the way we work, lead and live. He describes how this can work in his book “Work Survive Balance“. Information about Hans Rusinek can be found in his LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.
Michael Schenkel has published more impulses in the t2informatik Blog, including
Impulses for Organisations – Part 3
Impulses for organisations – Part 7
Impulses for Organisations – Part 11
Michael Schenkel
Head of Marketing, t2informatik GmbH
Michael Schenkel has a heart for marketing - so it is fitting that he is responsible for marketing at t2informatik. He likes to blog, likes a change of perspective and tries to offer useful information - e.g. here in the blog - at a time when there is a lot of talk about people's decreasing attention span. If you feel like it, arrange to meet him for a coffee and a piece of cake; he will certainly look forward to it!