full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Chieh Huang: Confessions of a recovering micromanager

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Laughter)

I'm like, "I got this," you know? And so there's actually data to sruppot this. There was a recent study in the UK. They took 100 hospital epyemeols, put an activity tracker on them and then let them go about their next 12-hour shift all alone, just a regaulr 12-hour shift. At the end of the shift, they asked them, "Do you feel fatigued?" And what they found was actually really interesting. It wasn't ncsasielery the people who moved the most that felt the most fueagtid, but it was the folks that didn't have control over their jobs.

So if we know that micromanagement isn't really effective, why do we do it? Is it that the definition is wrong? I posited that micromanagement is just biningrg in gerat, wonderful, imaginative people and then crushing their souls, so is it that we actually want to hire — deep down inside of us — dull and unimaginative people? It's one of those questions you probably don't even need to ask. It's like, "Do you want to get your luggage stolen at the airport?" Probably not, but I've never been asked, right? So has anyone asked you, as a manager, "Do you want to hire dull and unimaginative people?" So, I don't know, this is TED, we better back it up with data. We actually akesd hndduers of people around the country — hundreds of managers across the country — do you want to hire dull and unimaginative people? Alright, it's an interesting question. Well, interesting rsutels as well. So, 94% said no —

Open Cloze


(Laughter)

I'm like, "I got this," you know? And so there's actually data to _______ this. There was a recent study in the UK. They took 100 hospital _________, put an activity tracker on them and then let them go about their next 12-hour shift all alone, just a _______ 12-hour shift. At the end of the shift, they asked them, "Do you feel fatigued?" And what they found was actually really interesting. It wasn't ___________ the people who moved the most that felt the most ________, but it was the folks that didn't have control over their jobs.

So if we know that micromanagement isn't really effective, why do we do it? Is it that the definition is wrong? I posited that micromanagement is just ________ in _____, wonderful, imaginative people and then crushing their souls, so is it that we actually want to hire — deep down inside of us — dull and unimaginative people? It's one of those questions you probably don't even need to ask. It's like, "Do you want to get your luggage stolen at the airport?" Probably not, but I've never been asked, right? So has anyone asked you, as a manager, "Do you want to hire dull and unimaginative people?" So, I don't know, this is TED, we better back it up with data. We actually _____ ________ of people around the country — hundreds of managers across the country — do you want to hire dull and unimaginative people? Alright, it's an interesting question. Well, interesting _______ as well. So, 94% said no —

Solution


  1. employees
  2. results
  3. regular
  4. asked
  5. bringing
  6. fatigued
  7. support
  8. hundreds
  9. necessarily
  10. great

Original Text


(Laughter)

I'm like, "I got this," you know? And so there's actually data to support this. There was a recent study in the UK. They took 100 hospital employees, put an activity tracker on them and then let them go about their next 12-hour shift all alone, just a regular 12-hour shift. At the end of the shift, they asked them, "Do you feel fatigued?" And what they found was actually really interesting. It wasn't necessarily the people who moved the most that felt the most fatigued, but it was the folks that didn't have control over their jobs.

So if we know that micromanagement isn't really effective, why do we do it? Is it that the definition is wrong? I posited that micromanagement is just bringing in great, wonderful, imaginative people and then crushing their souls, so is it that we actually want to hire — deep down inside of us — dull and unimaginative people? It's one of those questions you probably don't even need to ask. It's like, "Do you want to get your luggage stolen at the airport?" Probably not, but I've never been asked, right? So has anyone asked you, as a manager, "Do you want to hire dull and unimaginative people?" So, I don't know, this is TED, we better back it up with data. We actually asked hundreds of people around the country — hundreds of managers across the country — do you want to hire dull and unimaginative people? Alright, it's an interesting question. Well, interesting results as well. So, 94% said no —

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
hire dull 4
big packs 4
imaginative people 3
luxury goods 3
unimaginative people 2
oreo cookies 2
people picking 2
people started 2
conveyor belt 2


Important Words


  1. activity
  2. airport
  3. alright
  4. asked
  5. bringing
  6. control
  7. country
  8. crushing
  9. data
  10. deep
  11. definition
  12. dull
  13. effective
  14. employees
  15. fatigued
  16. feel
  17. felt
  18. folks
  19. great
  20. hire
  21. hospital
  22. hundreds
  23. imaginative
  24. interesting
  25. jobs
  26. laughter
  27. luggage
  28. manager
  29. managers
  30. micromanagement
  31. moved
  32. necessarily
  33. people
  34. posited
  35. put
  36. question
  37. questions
  38. regular
  39. results
  40. shift
  41. souls
  42. stolen
  43. study
  44. support
  45. ted
  46. tracker
  47. uk
  48. unimaginative
  49. wonderful
  50. wrong