A New Employee
Take for instance a new employee who is joining your team on his/her first job; there are fears, uncertainties and inexperience that stalls this person from doing his/her best at work; it is time to step and act as a coach and also micromanage as a manager. When doing so in an efficient way, it would be good to convey to this person that during a certain time period you would be going through all process and project tasks in deep details. Your expectations would be to regularly inform on the task progress and request feedback on the short-term goals set by you. Also not a bad idea to inform this person that he/she can expect you to pop in any time in the cubicle of office to see if all is going well. When the employees expects continued intervention and has been informed that it is to assist him/her do better at the job, micromanagement is not what would be this employee’s mind. In most cases he/she feels reassured that there is someone to double check his/her work and the first job jitters are not as strong as before.

Poor Performer
And in other cases you can do the same for an employee who is not performing well and has received poor performance reports. Perhaps this person needs some help and if it could come from you or some other co-worker then again some micromanagement is worth getting this employee back on track or even finding out that perhaps he can be best suited for another job.
As you see in certain cases, micromanagement helps. But remember when treading this tricky path, tact and a goal must be in mind all the time.

Also remember that we have micromanaged our kids somewhere along the way .. and it is has been beneficial for them because we wanted to see what is in their backpack, to whom they are emailing and where they are on the internet. We block out some programs that are not appropriate for their age and ask them again and again where they are going with whom and where; and we double check if they were true to their words.. all this does fall in the micromanaging category and let me tell you – this is very good for them! So all in all, this term although most often seen in the negative light has some positives to it.