Does micromanaging actually work?
NO SUCH THING
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.6 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s topic came from a listener who asked if micromanaging is a more productive work-style than a more “free range” approach. We talk about our own work experiences, and answer a few other miscellaneous work questions about performance improvement plans (“PIPs”), handling an incompetent boss, office odors, and more.
Our guest this week is Erik Baker, historian at Harvard, editor at The Drift, and author of Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, who walks us through the history of the corporate work structure and evolution of management styles.
Check out our newsletter for links to research and more.
Fill out our NST listener survey here.
Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at mannynoahdevan@gmail.com or leave a voicemail at (860) 325-0286
EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ http://www.nordvpn.com/nst
Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, Manny here. Before we get to today's episode, I wanted to bring your attention to the |
| 0:05.2 | No Such Thing listener survey. By filling out this survey, you will help us make this show better. |
| 0:11.9 | You hear from us all the time, but now it's time to hear from you. Is it the case that we talk too much |
| 0:17.4 | and you want to hear more from experts? do you think shockingly that we don't talk |
| 0:22.3 | enough? Are the episodes too short or are they too long? Please consider filling out this survey and |
| 0:28.4 | helping us make this show just a little bit better even though that's a little hard to do because |
| 0:33.2 | the show is already fantastic. You can find the listener survey in the show notes for this episode |
| 0:38.8 | and in our newsletter at no such thing. Show. Enjoy today's episode. |
| 0:48.1 | I'm Annie. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And this is No such thing, the show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. This week, does micromanaging actually work? |
| 1:10.3 | There's no such thing. |
| 1:12.2 | No such thing. |
| 1:15.2 | No such thing. |
| 1:16.9 | No such thing. |
| 1:18.2 | No such thing. |
| 1:21.1 | No such thing. |
| 1:25.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 1:28.1 | Guaranteed human. |
| 1:31.4 | So we got a question from a listener on management styles asking about micromanaging versus |
| 1:38.6 | quote unquote free range, which gets better results. |
| 1:42.0 | We're going to talk about that and a few other work-related topics and questions. |
| 1:45.5 | But let's start with our own histories. |
| 1:48.0 | How do you boys feel about micromanaging slash management styles? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.