This would involve reviewing a high number of work items one month, reviewing only a few the next, an average amount the following month, and so on.

Variable Ratio schedules involve changing activity review frequency on an irregular basis, while not operating on a set schedule. The boss will visit the a client site twice a month, but the specific dates will be apparently random in nature.)

So this means that you might have a few reviews in a row, or large gap between reviews, but it all evens out in the end. Variable Interval schedules involve reviewing activity, on average, one out of every n days.

The boss has a cycle of client rotation visits, so there is not a regular date or other schedule of arrival.) The boss always visits this client on Friday morning.)įixed Ratio schedules involve reviewing every nth piece of work. As you can imagine, in these examples, people come to learn the schedule, and work extra hard on those occasions. There are four basic schedules for selective reinforcement:įixed Interval schedules involve reviewing activity every n days/weeks. You want to check in enough so people know that your eyes are on the team and their work, but not to such a degree that they start punting issues to you rather than taking care of them within the team, nor feeling micro-managed. Let’s take the example of checking in on your team at a job site when you have no daily requirement to be there. I’m going to save you from a deep dive into the industrial psychology topic of operant conditioning, but we are going to take a shallow dive to learn how this concept best applies in the world of management. So how does someone find the happy medium in between? Macro-management makes people less productive, and they stay. Micro-management makes people less productive, and makes them quit. These managers are generally on the opposite end of the spectrum of micro-managers (who don’t give people enough freedom to do their jobs and feel ownership in the results) and function as macro-managers (who give people so much freedom that they don’t do their jobs and don’t feel ownership in the results).ĭifferent method, similar result. – but the root causes behind these reasons are almost always a disconnected owner and/or manager. The restaurants are usually in trouble for a variety of visible reasons (symptoms) – poor food quality, cleanliness issues, service issues, poor money management, uninviting décor, etc. Host and Chef Robert Irvine goes into failing restaurants and rights the sinking ship. There’s a show on the Food Network that is (unintentionally) about macro-managers – Restaurant Impossible. Thinking long-term, working for this type of person will rot your capabilities (and your career), and you’ll seldom be producing the type of results you can feel proud of at the end of the day. The boss who is always gone, never looks over your work, and may vaguely set expectations (but never holds you accountable) is not the worst boss in the world to work for, if you take a short-term view. Why? Because staff who work for macro-managers don’t want to ruin a good thing. Macro-managers are even less successful in terms of business results, but we don’t hear about them as often. There is an opposite end of that spectrum. Here at Jerk Corporation, we only use clockwise motions!”)

“Why are you using a counter-clockwise motion to clean these dishes. Most people do have an issue when that manager is constantly looking over their shoulder, and critiquing methods rather than results. Most people don’t have an issue with a leader periodically checking over their work as a quality control measure. We use it to describe a wide range of behaviors, but the technical definition is someone who manages to too great a level of detail with too great of a frequency. Most of us are more familiar with the term “micro-management”, as it’s one of the more popular labels to attach to ineffective managers.

Micro and macro management definition