You’re allowed to micromanage. You’re allowed to try to control every single detail and facet of your life, work, and business. You’re allowed to direct actions with detail and specificity.
You’re not entitled to get any different results by doing so.
I love this quote from a Harvard interview with Jerry Seinfeld: “If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting.”
Why am I writing about micromanaging as someone whose whole goal is to help business leaders reduce operational dependence on them? Because usually, we micromanage incorrectly.
Think about this…was Jerry Seinfeld barking vague orders about the details of every line in the script and every take on set from some production room after the fact? Was he criticizing what was happening without offering any specifics of what, where, when, why, and who to improve?
We don’t know for sure from this quote, but from other interviews and observations of outtakes from the show, the answer is a resounding “no”!
Partially we know the answer is “no” because Seinfeld was literally IN THE SHOW. He has talked about stopping a take to reinforce how he and Larry David intended a line or an inflection or an expression to be. He has talked about running off set to change a line or tweak a scene. He has talked about staying up all night to write the final scene of the Marine Biologist episode, perhaps one of the funniest and most effective closing scenes in the whole series.
You can micromanage. Sure. If you’re willing to do so elbows deep in the dirt with the people you’re micromanaging.
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