We all know the anecdotes about micro managers and other detail minded people. My boss is detail minded, actually several colleagues are detail minded and I have the impression that it's the company culture, or let's say it has worsened because it hadn't struck me when I joined a couple years ago. I am global myself and I usually think of "translating" messages to detail minded people, i.e.: throw in a dozen small, not necessarily relevant items so the message does not fit on one page and their interest is immediately tickled. ;-)
The other day I forgot to do so though. After I sent out a (short!) list of actions resulting from a meeting, my boss replied to all: did you discuss X, Y and Z? I responsed: yes, yes and no, with the idea in the back of my mind that I would bump into him later that day to discuss further. My detail minded co-worker apparently saw an open goal and sent a much more detailed reply to all. My boss replied to all thanking the other guy for his useful response and publicly told me off for having sent a reply "of no interest". Which of course is TRUE... for a DETAIL minded person!
But after that the issue started to haunt me. This is not the first "detail minded company" I work in. The anecdotes about micro managers are so generic it almost seems as though you have to be detail minded to get anywhere higher up the food chain, as contradictory as this may seem. Detail minded often gets confused with "driven", "dedicated", "rigorous"... or is it really the same thing!? I get sooo booored with details, I prefer to work with global people, I actually think many global people have a sense of humor while many detailed people don't (sorry it's not a pleasant thing to say), but are global people really fit for corporate life if they get bored so quickly? Is a global brain simply a lazy brain?? (You can see the existential crisis I'm in today...)
The other day I forgot to do so though. After I sent out a (short!) list of actions resulting from a meeting, my boss replied to all: did you discuss X, Y and Z? I responsed: yes, yes and no, with the idea in the back of my mind that I would bump into him later that day to discuss further. My detail minded co-worker apparently saw an open goal and sent a much more detailed reply to all. My boss replied to all thanking the other guy for his useful response and publicly told me off for having sent a reply "of no interest". Which of course is TRUE... for a DETAIL minded person!
But after that the issue started to haunt me. This is not the first "detail minded company" I work in. The anecdotes about micro managers are so generic it almost seems as though you have to be detail minded to get anywhere higher up the food chain, as contradictory as this may seem. Detail minded often gets confused with "driven", "dedicated", "rigorous"... or is it really the same thing!? I get sooo booored with details, I prefer to work with global people, I actually think many global people have a sense of humor while many detailed people don't (sorry it's not a pleasant thing to say), but are global people really fit for corporate life if they get bored so quickly? Is a global brain simply a lazy brain?? (You can see the existential crisis I'm in today...)