You’ve never heard of such a thing before, have you? And why would you, after all? The word “down” after the word “managing” is clearly a pleonasm, which would indicate an inability to use language properly from the part of the speaker / writer.
But are managers really managing down?
Because what typically happens in my experience, is that most managers are managing crises. Not their people. And before you go about saying that this is how things should be (having a hands-off approach, not micromanaging) let me tell you that I too, agree to this.
So what I am trying to say isn’t that managers should micromanage more. But I am certainly advocating for trying to figure out ways of providing early guidance to their people when the ship starts veering off-course.
And the only way to do this is becoming more involved with their peoples’ daily working routine (and why not, try to do their peoples’ work alongside them for a time).
Remember that client you lost because of bad customer service? What if you had visited the customer service department at some point and observed (critical word – what you are told isn’t worth nearly as much as what you observe) that the department is understaffed, the people can’t take any breaks and towards the end of their shift, their judgement is clouded?
Or, what about that penalty you had to pay to the tax authorities because it wasn’t clear to the people in your accounting department whose responsibility it was to track the payment deadline, thus forgetting about it?
Remember that it’s easier to control a ship by making small corrections, than big ones. Not to mention that in the latter case you also risk capsizing…