Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Council leadership should define micromanaging

In August 2007 I suggested the Council direct staff to begin adding Council video and Council meeting minutes to the town website. But my calls for enhanced transparency in Town Hall were quashed by the majority. (You can see the nine minute video clip here.)

And not to leave their public repudiation alone, a week later the Council Vice Chairman suggested I was micromanaging:

Which begs the question, what is micromanaging?

For instance, is it appropriate for the Chairman of a Board of Directors to have daily contact with his/her Chief Executive? Or is that micromanaging?

When voting on the TMs annual review in August 2008, Chairman Hall said that he has spoken with the TM on a near daily basis for seven years: Personally, I don't necessarily have a problem with a Chairman speaking with a Chief Executive on a daily basis.

I wonder though how Councilman Ecke feels about Chairman Hall taking so much of the Town Manager's time? Also, if a Chairman speaks with a Chief Executive on a nearly daily basis for seven years, isn't it likely that the Chairman would have a fairly good
"understanding of what the daily pressures of the office entail?"

Tim White

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

attend to small details in management: to control a person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details

yes Tim, causing the TM to respond to every whim of every TC person would fall under this category.
The remainder of that message was innocuous, in that giving the TM clear guidelines moving forward would seem more reasonable.

From your own words: Control the information