As a human, we build so many relations in our life. The base of all relationships is trust. To trust means to bank on another person because you feel safe with him/her and have confidence that they will not hurt or mess up with you. Trust is the foundation of relationships because it allows you to be vulnerable and open to the person without having to defensively protect yourself. We build relationships with our teachers, our colleagues, doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, spouse, siblings, children, parents, in-laws, neighbours, vendors, domestics, and other service providers. 

But we see many people around us those who have trust issues. It is difficult to build relations with such people. It can be your boss, partner, children, or anyone else. Trust issues are often connected with negative experiences in the past. Someone who is let down or betrayed by people whom he trusted or someone who had a troubled childhood. It could be his friend, partner, parent, or other trusted figure or institution. The previous experience interferes this person’s ability to believe others.

Many talented and intelligent people’s flair and capacity is wasted because of distrust. One biggest example is of Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar former Minister of Law & Justice of India. On 10^th October 1951 Dr. Ambedkar through his speech in Parliament exposed point by point, the real reason for his resignation as India’s Law Minister. It is a highly informative and well interpreted speech which strips Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s mask as a democrat who believed in debate and disagreement. Dr. Ambedkar clinically exposes Nehru as a liar and a habitual breaker of his word, a Prime Minister with zero integrity, ability, and competence but one who was endowed with extraordinary manipulative skills and was skilful backstabber of his own colleagues and friends. After reading this, one would be left with no doubt that Nehru was a Machiavellian like Stalin and Lenin.

Nehru had difficulty trusting others including his relatives which perhaps stemmed from a fear and insecurity and loneliness in his childhood. His two sisters were much younger than Jawaharlal Nehru. And so, he grew up and spent his early year as a lonely child with no companion for his age. M.K.Gandhi supported Nehru in spite of Nehru not being elected unanimously as PM.

Chronic distrust can come from a traumatic incident, an unloving childhood, or experienced betrayal in other relationships. Overcoming trust challenges often involves understanding where these feelings come from. It’s a mental problem that can be corrected by mental health professionals.

The 84-year-old Vijaypath Singhania transformed a small textile business since 1944, into a household name in India, and the Raymond Group today claims to be the world’s biggest producer of high-quality worsted wool suits. For keeping his billion-dollar textile empire in the family, he gifted his 37% equity control of the Raymond Group to his son Gautam Singhania. But their relationship fell apart dramatically.  Gautam threw out Vijaypath from his palatial home. Mr Vijaypat now bitterly regrets his decision, which he claims was made because of emotional weakness as father. The incident shows a ruthless and cruel Gautam Singhania who has trust issues.

Trust and law

The best relationship between people is an ethical challenge at the heart of legal practice. How much can we trust each other? How much law do we need? Do unnecessary legal rules replace trust to the damage of a truly civil society? Does increasing legalization help turning every problem, no matter what it is to the court? Has law damaged the fabric of our community? In the case of Singhanias legal battle between the father and son is misapply of law. When a relationship lacks trust, it allows for the potential development of harmful thoughts, actions, or emotions, such as negative attributions, suspicion, and jealousy. Law is not based upon trust, love, belonging. It worsens relationships.

In a hierarchy, it is natural for people with less power to be extremely cautious about disclosing weaknesses, mistakes, and failings especially when the more powerful party is also able to evaluate and punish. Trust flees authority, and, above all, trust flees a judge. Managers are inescapably positioned to judge subordinates. Good managers may be able to confine evaluation to formal occasions, to avoid all trace of judgmental style in other settings, even to communicate criticism in a positive, constructive way. It takes guts to be a “Good” manager.

It can be difficult for love to persist long without trust. It is difficult because one of our most fundamental needs for survival is trust. Without trust, we don’t know who the other person is anymore. The moment trust vanishes, siblings can’t remain siblings; parents and children loose love; friends don’t remain friends. People often just don’t leave relationships if they are attached by trust or invested in them.

It’s a big ‘No-No’ to get associated with people who are micromanaging things in their personal and professional lives. It is certainly not a productive measure. I have only seen it as a disaster. While it is obvious that managers and decision makers need to know what’s going on; who is doing what; why something is taking longer time; details of expenses; important projects and timeline etc. But, when managers start micromanaging, it poses more problems than it solves. It creates a vicious circle of blame game, anxiety and half truths.  Even the most sincere and well wishing micromanagers unintentionally induce wrong ideas and nervousness among their peers and subordinates.

Micromanagement is a common style of direction whereby a manager closely observes and controls the work of employees. If you are always micromanaging, it means you hired the wrong person or you are not clear of what you want. Even in our personal relationships with siblings, spouse, children and friends when someone is keeping a close watch on us, it is damn irritating.  Indeed, if you have ever worked for a boss who’s always hovering over you, monitoring your progress, obsessing over minor details, providing you with detailed instructions, and having a talk with you about every mistake you make, you will start finding ways and means to evade such a moron. He/she can really get on your nerves.

Usually people micro-manage when they feel disconnected. When someone rises through the ranks, the person often feels concerned that he/she has lost touch with the actual work of the organization. Such a person tries to connect through various means to connect with the employees with whom he/she has dealt with. It is true that people at top feel isolated. One way of reducing this anxiety is to seek information in as many ways as possible. But, it appears like micromanagement because the actions are unplanned and driven by eccentric anxiety, the result is that managers at different levels and functions end up looking at the same basic data in many different ways.

Many managers are unable to let go of their old job or their old ways of doing their work. Many managers get promotions based on their ability to achieve operational goals, manage budgets, control their numbers, and solve problems. However, at higher levels, managers usually need to dial down their operational focus and learn how to be more strategic. To do so, managers have to trust their people to manage day-to-day operations and coach them as needed, rather than trying to do it for them. For many managers this is a difficult changeover and they unconsciously continue to spend time in the more comfortable operational realm of their subordinates.

Some people in their personal life habitually micro manage. They probably don’t even know that they are doing it. They are never quite satisfied with anything. They often feel frustrated because they want a task to be performed in a different way. They have an eye for details. A friend of mine after getting her clothes ironed from the laundry irons her clothes once again. After the gardener water the plants, she still likes to sprinkle some water, I see her painstakingly doing each job again and again, she is hardly satisfied with anything.  Her grownup children avoid talking about their any problems with her. Her spouse does not leave a single chance of travelling; in fact he prefers going outstation under some or other pretext.

It’s a plain truth; paying attention to details and making sure the work is getting done is important. It’s always better to chalk all of the plan and steps of doing a job in advance. Once you discuss it with your team, there is no need to hover around and keep a watch on them. The problem with micromanagers is that they apply a lot of passion, scrutiny and in-your-face approach to every task, even if it’s not warranted. The bottom line is: if you are a micromanager, you need to stop because it is harming you, your team and everyone around you.

The best movies on micromanaging in office culture are ‘Office Space’, ‘Up in the Air’ and ‘All the President’s Men’. Office Space (1999) is an offbeat comedy from Mike Judge, which provides pinching funny commentary on the most ridiculous parts of corporate life, from mandatory birthday cake to TPS reports. It follows Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), an underwhelmed IT programmer who barely tolerates his commute, his bosses, and their endless memos and TPS reports. That is, until he’s hypnotized into not caring at all. What follows is pure comedy. Office Space works on multiple levels. It’s highly effective as a satirical look at corporate culture, because it so closely mirrors so much of what those who work there experience. It showcases how those obsessed bosses micro manage their subordinate’s work life making them anxious and ruining their personal lives.

If you are a micromanager, it might initially be difficult to stop your micromanaging impulses; but pull back slowly. Start building trust in your people. You will live peacefully and longer.