How Micro Is Your Tasking?

"What are you doing now?"—when you hear this question from your boss, be aware: you're dealing with a micromanager. Keeping us busy is the key objective of these creatures and this is what makes them so annoying. To the contrary, effective managers make sure we are productive, meaning that our results satisfy their expectations. They are not interested in knowing what we are doing to deliver them—they manage the project, instead of managing us. And the first step to...