Micromanagement and the 5 Whys

Just enjoyed reading Joel Spolsky's latest Inc. column: When and How to Micromanage. He makes some interesting points at always:

"Micromanagement I was taught is a bad thing. Isn't today's modern leader supposed to hire brilliant people, give them a little direction, and just let them go to work?" ... "Yes, maybe. But here's my new theory: At the top of every company, there's at least one person who really cares and really wants the product and the customer experience to be great." ... "Below that person, there are layers of people, many of whom are equally dedicated and equally talented." ... "But at some point as you work your way through an organization, you find pockets of people who don't care that much. For them, it's a job. They just want to get through the day..."

Joel also references the 5 Whys question asking method for exploring the cause/effect relationships underlying a particular problem. This is something I hope to put into practice and try to get to the root cause of some of our business problems - all we need then is to solve those root causes!