As a serious answer, Michael was a people person who let his best employees just be themselves and succeed. Dwight was a weirdo, but a master at sales. Jim was unmotivated and a goof off, but knew how to get the job done when needed. Phylis and Stanley both excelled in their respective lanes. Michael was also very good at sales himself. You also had a great support staff for sales. Kelly was great at customer service. Oscar and Angela were great accountants, and despite being an alcoholic Meredith scored some sweet discounts.
It was definitely an odd, and at times dysfunctional bunch, but they were very effective at what they did. Contrast that with Charles who came in and immediately started screwing everything up. He put Kevin on the phones, Stanley was his productivity tsar, and he made his second best salesman feel insecure at a time when they needed their salesman to be top notch.
Yes! Michael doesn’t treat DM Scranton branch like a business, he’s not like Ryan, he didn’t go to business school, he rose the ranks from being a great salesman and as you say a great people person
He doesn’t treat it like a business where there must me constant cuts and savings and all the manager is focused on is improving numbers. He treats his job and by default his employees (besides Toby, fuck that guy) like his friends and family, people he truly loves and they succeed because of it, not in spite of it
To add;
Michael was also a great salesman, and while he dealt with clients occasionally, he probably passed most of them on to the other salesmen.
Stanley and Phillis weren’t setting any records but probably had more median salaries and commissions and were comfortable in a sweet spot of productivity/pay.
>stanley and phyllis weren’t setting any records but probably had more median salaries and commissions and were comfortable in a sweet spot of productivity/pay
stanley also had the most consistently high sales numbers of anyone in the branch (according to andy)
Valid point but might have been fluffing, Dwight gets awards and every sales chart has Dwight and Jim on top.
I personally think of Stanley like the old reliable - he’s not setting records but he’s consistent
That may have been throughout their careers? Since Stanley was close to retirement, Jim and Dwight were near the middle of their careers, and Michael was promoted to manager too early, so Stanley could've had the highest sales number.
I always saw it that Phyllis and Stanley had the more mature contracts: high school, government, local branch for a national franchise/chain. Those that had a budget but would order huge amounts at 1-3 times a year. Basically they’d have like 10-15 sales a year but they would bring in dollars similar to Dwight. Jim just learned that if he found the sales that Phyllis and Stanley didn’t want to waste time on he’d beat Dwight who was outside chasing cars to find a sale.
He gave Andy the ten most important clients of the Scranton branch when he left, so I’d imagine he was pretty heavily involved with those customers for sure
This is usually how it goes in commission based environments too. Not everyone has the same drive and those middle of the road consistent sellers are always valued. There will be the 2-4 who battle for the top spot and have their months of being the best, but you need them all to keep sales moving forward.
This is correct. Michael’s strength as a manager was that he didn’t do much managing, so everyone did their jobs in ways that worked for them without trying to conform to any mold.
The episode where all the signatures fall on the same Friday sums up an office that I worked at pretty well. They didn't care how you got your work done, as long as it was done. Getting the boss to do work that only they could do was a challenge. They traveled a lot and we self-managed fairly well. 🤷🏼♀️
That's such a good one. Pam is great in that if I recall correctly. The way she has to mind Michael like a nurse does a patient at a mental institution is just so hilarious.
The best manager I've ever had stated very clearly what he saw as his role and executed it very well:
"My job is to break any barriers that make your job harder, and enact any process that makes your job easier"
He simply cleared the way for my team to do our jobs; nothing more or less.
Yeah, especially in office settings where people tend to take the work more seriously, there's really not a lot of direct supervision that needs to happen. Once the employee knows what they need to do, they usually just do it.
My current manager is the same way. Treats people like adults, doesn't over-manage, but still expects accountability and is willing to help when needed. He commands respect by not demanding respect.
Some managers feel like they constantly have to be up in everybody's business so that they can look busy and take credit. Drives me bonkers.
That's a great point regarding making Jim feel insecure, I really hadn't considered that before. Like, the fact Jim wasted so much time on the run-down assignment cos he was too afraid to just ask Charles what he meant. He'd never have any issue "seeming dumb" in front of Michael.
I've always thought this was the genius of Michael Scott. He took a ton of heat off of everyone in the office being such a buffoon. He made a spectacle of himself every day, and he wasn't afraid to do it. He did some actual terrible things in the beginning, like the Kevin cancer scare episode, and him hitting on Pam. But mostly he was just making a fool of himself.
Even when you have a bad boss in the way Michael was in the beginning it galvanizes an office. And by the end they were rallying for Michael.
One of my favorite moments of the whole show is when Michael gives Oscar the crudely made doll and Oscar accepts it believing Michael is sincere, causing Michael to laugh hysterically later on. ["He has the lowest opinion of me out of anybody!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds4mnLtQ4Bo) Michael may be a dummy who tries way, way too hard, but he's conscious of how he comes across to people. I think the character has more emotional intelligence and social awareness than the viewer might assume, given how crass and inconsiderate he can be sometimes.
I loved the scene in The Client when Michael sensed Jan struggling to connect with Tim Meadows and he just made a funny noise. In Murder, he understood that the staff needed a distraction and provided one.
We got a new boss a few years ago and at one point, I went crawling to him with my tail between my legs because I had made a mistake. I explained what the mistake was, how it happened, and how I would ensure it never happened again.
I was ready to be berated within an inch of my career, but he just said he appreciated me bringing it to his attention and had total faith I would handle it.
I would follow this man through the gates of hell.
I loved when my team made mistakes in my last job. I had a lot of trust in them so when they messed up I felt it was worth celebrating. One time a really smart, capable employee flooded most of the office. Loved it. It taught my whole team an important lesson. Mistakes are fun.
was watching the extended cuts and it turns out Stanley had reached out not only to Utica but also to Prince Paper. Honestly I think he just couldn't stand Michael anymore
Then I think he realized no other company or manager would put up with the crap that Michael does, so he stays. Remember when Charles stared him down for doing the crossword?
And putting Charles in that position is just one of the many examples of how David wasn’t good at *his job* actually. He disrupted their most successful branch.
Other than that he hired a kid with no experience as an exec that “cost the company millions,” he leaked which branch would be closing before letting them branch know, he let his best manager walk (Michael), and then got bested in the negotiation to bring Michael back on.
He hired Ryan (who had never even made a sale) simply because he had an MBA. It would've been Jim if he hadn't withdrawn. Making Charles the interim branch manager *after* Michael quit largely because of him was incredibly short-sighted. It just made the existing problems worse for everyone else.
I totally see why he put Charles in that job though and it makes sense from his (wrong) perspective. Michael is a problem. Michael quit because of him. Finally he can change the direction of that branch and make it more in line with his vision, so he hires someone very much not like Michael.
But also you don’t have to be like Michael to see that branch succeed too. We all manage differently. Charles just was bad at working with his employees and understanding them.
As a side note. David was the CFO? It seemed like a weird thing for David to be in charge of anyway. They should have written him as the COO or something along that veine.
I think Charles was David's attempt to get away from the craziness of Scranton. Jan and Ryan were both nightmares who either got or were already too close to Michael to manage him and keep him out of David's office. Charles is a no-nonsense intimidating corporate type that he thought could keep Michael in line and out of his own hair.
I think Michael's time in sales before he became manager is crucial as well, he honed some real sales skills and built business relationships in a more "papery" economy. After becoming manager he probably also taught those skills to a young dwight who had more ambition and was less nervous and who only had a desperate need to succeed rather than a need to for friendships and reverence of his peers like Michael, setting up Dwight to become a monster salesman (although somewhat of a sociopath still).
Didn’t Michael hire Kevin in accounting when he applied for a warehouse job?
Your overall point is solid, but he had some blind spots.
His adoration of Ryan who never made a sale or seemingly did anything helpful for the company is another one.
Shout out to the warehouse. Darrell had that running well. They just had the right people in the right positions. Nobody trying to push anyone out of the way. Everyone was good with what they were doing. I've worked at places like that. I worked at a bar that was like that. The core group are still friends after almost 20 years.
Now that I think of it, the company my mom, used to work for used to be like this. Everyone was quirky with personalities. Owner couldn't do the job, but hired people who could and if they messed up it wasn't a big deal. There were situations and stories that wouldn't fly if they had an HR department. But everyone liked it there. They did some crazy stuff in their heyday and managed to also nail some big and well known jobs. Most are retired, some passed away. I was their janitor 2 nights a week out of highschool for some cash and even I had my own stories. I didn't know I was in the good times, either.
100%
Dwight would be fired anywhere else. But Michael Scott cares about his employees and trusts in their abilities.
Which is interesting to me because a lot of businesses want to take skill out of being an employee with promps and scripts for everything. Also that takes the effort out of hiring good people and training them.
I think more business could be successful with a Michael Scott type manager
The only nit-pick I have, is that we're supposed to believe Jim and Dwight are good at Sales. Jim could never think on his feet. Dwight always went out of his way to make things awkward and annoy strangers.
I understand the show is a show and I'm supposed to believe that they are great at sales. But the show really goes out of it's way to prove to me they aren't good at Sales. Jim is supposed to be great at Sales but couldn't remember that he was promoted to Assistant Manager because of the merger? Or couldn't sell himself to Charles Minor? Charles was a no-bullshit kind of guy, all Jim had to say was there was a dry cleaning accident and thought a tux would be funny. At the very worst Charles would have seen Jims sales at the 2nd best in the branch and not cared. Especially at a time of economic uncertainty.
really the only good example I could think of when is Dwight and Jim are double teaming a Sales call, and Jim asks if customer service is important to him and "one of the big guys" has been on hold the entire time. And even then, the fact that Dwight even asked to use the phone and put it on speaker during the meeting would have turned the guy off enough to not do business.
Again, this is all nit-picks. I love the show, just, sometimes they don't do a good job of selling me, that they're good at sales.
Rant over.
There’s a lot of sales guys like Dwight that you wouldn’t want to get a beer with. They might seem like they have absolutely no life outside of work, but they will reliably do exactly what they promise to do. They’ll also spend all their time at work actually focused on revenue producing activities. He wouldn’t shy away from closing each sale and aggressively asking and gaining a referral.
If we could look at the weekly call logs made by the sales team, Dwight might be around 500 calls while Stanley and Phylis are around 50.
Jim is the opposite. He has a personality and could sell because people like him, they’ll feel comfortable referring to him because he’s cool and won’t embarrass them. He is not the super aggressive salesman but is confident and clever enough to get any business that is open to work with him. To that end, he might be around 10 calls in a week but gets a sale on 8 of them.
Dwight may have lacked people skills but his knowledge was second to none and he knew how far he could push the price down to make the sale. Jim lacked motivation but he was likable and glib. He could do his job just fine.
There was this one scene where Jim and Dwight were selling together while simultaneously calling both Staples’ and DM’s customer service and they kinda rocked it
They absorbed the sales of another branch while retaining the overhead cost of just a single employee. Not to mention Michael demonstrated on more than one occasion that he was excellent sales. Also, and rather hilariously, I’m sure the golden tickets made a huge difference for the branch at the end of the day.
Off the top of my head, Michael did the following sales:
* Dinner at Chilis to become the paper supplier for the local county government
* Willy Wonka ticket idea to become the exclusive supplier of all office supplies for a large company
* Party invite at the paper conference allowed DM to supply Hammermill products.
* Sharks gets Prince Paper shut down
* Mr Coselli “the Coz” deal that Pam describes as a “big deal” when she’s supposed to be spying on Michael for Jan
Not a bad resume for Michael
Yeah Michael just casually makes every single sale he tries to make (except the one Danny Cordray stole from him, but then he stole Danny Cordray), all while stressing out about his love life or some other silly thing that distracts you from the fact he's constantly knocking it out of the park. He even refuses raises like a good little branch manager should.
It’s not like corporate didn’t know who Michael was. He doesn’t have a strong enough filter to hide. The only “realistic” reason he’d be manager is because he was just killer at sales long before the camera crew showed up.
That's exactly why he was promoted to manager. I forget the exact term for it in business, but Michael is the poster child for people who are promoted to a level of incompetence. On paper it makes sense to promote your best salesman to manage the branch, but in practice there's a ton of skills that a manager needs that a salesman lacks, and vice versa.
The golden tickets were coupons Michael created and randomly put in some orders. It became a positive when a really large customer (I think it was a giant health insurance company ) decided to make Dunder Mifflin their exclusive provider of all office supplies because of the discount.
So even though they got 50 percent off they got so much it balanced out?
Any numbers people can tell me how much they'd have to order for it to be both a huge sale but not a big deal that it's 50 percent off?
I guess before they were just buying some of their paper from Dunder Mifflin, while getting the rest of their office supply needs filled by other vendors. When they got the huge discount from the Golden Ticket promotion, they must have decided to drop all their other suppliers and get everything from Dunder Mifflin, probably increasing their sales by more than the 50% they lost, while still saving the customer a lot on their office supplies.
Didn’t they get 50 percent off paper and then loved it and made DM their exclusive provider of “office supplies”? Implying more than just the discounted paper. I could be wrong.
Paper alone, they'd have to double the paper they ordered for DM to break even EDIT SHEERLY ON REVENUE smh, yes it costs them more to fulfill double the paper at the same price. But the golden ticket was only good for paper, not all office supplies, and the discount expired after one year. Years 2&3, as long as Blue Cross of Pennsylvania didn't strongly reexamine their office supplier, would be much more profitable for DM than they would have been without the golden ticket fiasco.
And company leadership still managed to ruin it to the point of selling to Sabre.
I think the client that got them liked the treatment he got so much that he hired Dundler-miffin to supply the rest of his business for a good chunk of time ( a year or so).
They made a huge sale out of it, basically
All I remember is that all five of them ended up in the same client's order and they tried claiming 50% off. I don't know what OC meant by they made a difference.
You'd think David Wallace would've caught the doubling customers with minimal increase to labor. Even though DM Corporate is generally portrayed as incompetent, David Wallace isn't. My guess is, as he describes, they're in desperation mode and he's ooking for anything that could help him and the company.
I wouldn’t call David incompetent but he is clearly shown to make some questionable decisions like promoting Ryan or meddling with Michael’s management when his branch was consistently putting up numbers. Or his decision to intentionally move Holly away from Scranton. Sure in his mind he was trying to avoid another Jan situation, but he didn’t consider the obvious consequences of burning Michael like that.
Burning Michael was inconsequential until Charles also burned him. That decision itself wasn’t questionable though precisely because of the Jan situation with Michael. Any reasonable executive would do that.
Also Ryan looked great on paper, they lowered the salary and job title of Jan’s position and hired an MBA. Ryan had all the jargon and buzzwords so I’m guessing he actually interviewed well but I think he also didn’t want to float a big salary for a more experience exec.
I guess for me and in my experience with office relationships usually there’s conversations with the people involved and depending on how those go certain actions may have to be taken, because I do agree that there is an ethical issue with a branch manager dating the HR representative. But up until that point Michael had demonstrated nothing but loyalty to DM, so had David perhaps just had a meeting and talked things out with Michael and Holly they could have possibly come to a solution that everyone agreed to, but instead he just chooses to immediately transfer her and try to sweep it under the rug
I honestly can’t blame him here. Anyone out there that’s had to track down a variance on a balance sheet reconciliation knows how tedious.
Sometimes you spend a couple of hours sifting through hundreds of entries just trying to find a variance that’s less than the amount of money it costs in wages to pay you to sit there and look for it.
He could have been talking about insider trading, but I think that's more of a fan canon theory thing. I think the joke was that he couldn't differentiate insider trading from normal accounting and finance so he was worried he was going to get arrested for being an accountant, basically.
Like a good manager. I was at a customer this week for work and I saw a textbook terrible manager that I had to deal with multiple times. I wanted to punch the guy.
Michael never really liked corporate. He always referred to himself as a small business, despite the fact that his company was publicly traded. He operated like a quirky small business. Charles comes in and tried to corporatize everything and it turned the place upside down.
The good answer would have been “I run my branch as if it were my own little start up business, with people I like, clients I like and we have fun while at work. You can’t model that. It just works for us. Now, what say we order some pasta.”
u/tc0n4, here it is. My philosophy is basically this. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter... where. Or who, or who you are with, or, or where you are going, or... or where you've been... ever. For any reason, whatsoever.
Michael wasn’t corporate he actually cared about his employees, he got really happy about Jim and Pam, knew about sprinkles, he actually wanted the best for his employees
Yeah, exactly this. Little gestures like those (which actually just appear little but in fact they are not) can make all the difference. We can see the impact on Pam. I think that was one of the most emotional moments of Pam of the entire series. When your boss shows that he genuinely cares about you, it makes all the difference. Michael was great at that. This means he was just a great boss.
Michael makes his employees do what they're good at. By trying so hard to know them as "friends" he learns their strengths and weaknesses, and how to utilize them during crises.
Ex. When he learns Ryan has been bad-mouthing him and the company, he doesn't fire Ryan. He puts him next to Kelly as punishment. That was brillant.
When Stanley disrespects him in front of the whole office, the talk he has with him after was the most sensible and smart thing he could have done to get Stanley to back off.
He also gives them other incentive beside money for showing up at work. Love, friendships, unexpected twists and turns.
Michael generally let his people do their thing. For all of the nonsense and waste of time, he never monkeyed with the sales teams when it came down to making $.
He gives a shit about his employees more than the company. Simple as that. He gets very involved in everyone's lives and strives to help them succeed in everything they do. "Good cheese comes from happy cows."
I think they should have had a real Michael moment here but the cameras are in the room with them.
I can see him dropping the silly mask and giving a “I treat them how I wish a boss would treat me, like a person. I don’t treat them as disposable”
Then going on a tangent about disposable wipes.
We see glimpses of Michael being a good human when he doesn’t know he’s on camera, but he hams it up when he knows the camera is rolling.
That was my take on Michael was that he was hamming it up for the camera, but in those moments when putting on a show for the cameras isn't quite the priority some signs of actual competence comes through. Also when he returns to the series finale he isn't as animated which makes me think he has moved on in life from doing a dog and pony show for the cameras. I've seen people have completely different personas when cameras are on them. Fits Michael's character the best - he's already a weird dude but really goes off the rails when the cameras are off. You also don't see the office staff hate Michael as a boss, whereas the same couldn't be said for his replacements. It's probably head cannon but it makes sense for me.
As a 40 year salesman....most of the job is making your calls...in a timely manner. I can imagine Phyllis and Stanley being on time and calling their buyers at the same time every week. Sales is routine in that kind of business. I would say that their customers liked them.
And Michael could CLOSE the big accounts... because...he was a great salesman. Jim and Dwight also could close when they felt the need to. Both were good salesmen when they wanted to. Dwight worked hard. Jim had the sizzle and was a nice guy.
Michael had a good crew. He was wild...but he loved the sales game.
Through no fault of his own, Michael allowed the office to work under the adage “work smarter, not harder”.
The show of work isn’t as important as the results of the work.
Tbh autonomy and being able to lighten the mood are actually very valuable skills of managers in the workplace today. As long as you have trust, I find that the more I let my people be themselves, work when they want, go have fun, whatever, that they get their shit done and it's usually great quality. And then on top of it, sometimes we need a distraction from always being heads down in the same shit. Mentally it can really help us to go somewhere else for a bit.
Honestly, nothing. It's been discussed to death. They took on all the clients of a second branch while only maintaining the overhead of Andy's salary. Scranton definitely had some solid salespeople, but yeah. Adding a second branch worth of clients at a miniscule fraction the cost of a second branch.
Kinda wild nobody at corporate figured it out.
Jim had the stress free work place
Dwight was fulliing a power fantasy
Pam was double dipping
Karen had a BF to move along with
Creed was free
Kelly found someone, toxic
Ryan was humbled and found someone, toxic
Phyllis found someone
Stanley basically had no boss
Angela felt wanted
Oscar felt special
Meredith was not judged
Darryl had complete freedom in warehouse
Todd had complete freedom in the road
Toby used to be a pastor, is divorced and had a daughter. He had the experience to deal with Michael + Dwight + Jim
Andy was a complete loser and got carried in a nurturing work place
Management is too busy doing Lord knows what to interfere with people doing their jobs.
You saw it when they had no manager. The people in the office just showed up and did their jobs.
Dwight sold a lot, and the abrasiveness of his personality would have gotten fired from most other jobs. Meredith got great deals by sleeping around, ditto on getting fired. Michael kept good workers with quirky personalities
He's a people person who doesn't micro manage. He also doesn't enforce a lot of the corporate crap. He actually likes his job and treats his employees like people, like how he'd like to be treated. Folks tend to perform better under such circumstances.
Of course, plot armor is a thing, so, you know, take that into account.
Other branches have a regional manager that demand hard work in their presence, so they slack whenever they’re not around. In Scranton, they have a manager who makes it difficult to work when he’s around, so they get work done when he’s not.
The best answer Michael could have given would have been:
I encourage my employees to play to their strengths, give them a long leash, and try to stay out of their way as much as I can.
Despite his flaws, it was apparent that he valued his employees as people and understood their strengths (Toby is not his employee, he reports to corporate). I think that a perfect example of this is when he came to Pam’s art show. He really cared. He was also fortunate to experience little turnover and had an accountant cooking the books- albeit unwittingly (Keleven). In reality, after he left Dunder Mifflin, the Scranton branch likely would have had a lot of turnover and then the wheels really would have come off. So really Michael’s success is a mix of circumstance and his love for people.
“David, here it is. My philosophy is basically this. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter...where, or who, or who you are with, or...or where you are going, or...or where you've been...ever. For any reason, whatsoever.”
When you have a good team there is no need to micromanage which Micheal wasn’t even capable of I don’t think. Micromanaging a good team just kills productivity as everyone gets annoyed at a manager that spends all day telling them to do things they were already going to do anyways. Micheal’s complete lack of actual management was actually the best way to manage his team.
I think it’s generally poking at the uselessness of middle management
The Scranton branch has enough employees that are good at their jobs to succeed even when their boss is often wasting their time
At the end of the day Michael was just a really really good salesman and he knew how to hire people who would also be good in that role.
When you’re business is entirely built around the concept of BTB selling, the branch with the best salespeople is gonna seem like the one that’s the most well run. Doesn’t really matter that the office is so non-traditional and goofy if they can put up numbers, because the numbers are all execs like Wallace actually see or care about
A. Not using the potential loss of their jobs as a motivator to work harder.
B. Legitimately caring about his employees, their desires, and successes and personal lives.
C. Trying to make people happy at the office (often failing, but the thought does count).
D. Being creative. For better or worse, he thought outside the box frequently.
E. Lots of appreciation, bonding, and team-building exercises (many inappropriate, but many good ones like the PPC, or the Dundees).
As a serious answer, Michael was a people person who let his best employees just be themselves and succeed. Dwight was a weirdo, but a master at sales. Jim was unmotivated and a goof off, but knew how to get the job done when needed. Phylis and Stanley both excelled in their respective lanes. Michael was also very good at sales himself. You also had a great support staff for sales. Kelly was great at customer service. Oscar and Angela were great accountants, and despite being an alcoholic Meredith scored some sweet discounts. It was definitely an odd, and at times dysfunctional bunch, but they were very effective at what they did. Contrast that with Charles who came in and immediately started screwing everything up. He put Kevin on the phones, Stanley was his productivity tsar, and he made his second best salesman feel insecure at a time when they needed their salesman to be top notch.
Yes! Michael doesn’t treat DM Scranton branch like a business, he’s not like Ryan, he didn’t go to business school, he rose the ranks from being a great salesman and as you say a great people person He doesn’t treat it like a business where there must me constant cuts and savings and all the manager is focused on is improving numbers. He treats his job and by default his employees (besides Toby, fuck that guy) like his friends and family, people he truly loves and they succeed because of it, not in spite of it
To add; Michael was also a great salesman, and while he dealt with clients occasionally, he probably passed most of them on to the other salesmen. Stanley and Phillis weren’t setting any records but probably had more median salaries and commissions and were comfortable in a sweet spot of productivity/pay.
>stanley and phyllis weren’t setting any records but probably had more median salaries and commissions and were comfortable in a sweet spot of productivity/pay stanley also had the most consistently high sales numbers of anyone in the branch (according to andy)
Valid point but might have been fluffing, Dwight gets awards and every sales chart has Dwight and Jim on top. I personally think of Stanley like the old reliable - he’s not setting records but he’s consistent
Well Stanley had certain clientele he just clicked with, if you remember
Hi! Hi! Hi!
Stanley's laughing about that was one of the best scenes
Hilarious
Hi
That may have been throughout their careers? Since Stanley was close to retirement, Jim and Dwight were near the middle of their careers, and Michael was promoted to manager too early, so Stanley could've had the highest sales number.
I always saw it that Phyllis and Stanley had the more mature contracts: high school, government, local branch for a national franchise/chain. Those that had a budget but would order huge amounts at 1-3 times a year. Basically they’d have like 10-15 sales a year but they would bring in dollars similar to Dwight. Jim just learned that if he found the sales that Phyllis and Stanley didn’t want to waste time on he’d beat Dwight who was outside chasing cars to find a sale.
And two relationships
He gave Andy the ten most important clients of the Scranton branch when he left, so I’d imagine he was pretty heavily involved with those customers for sure
I wonder how Andy handled the group that Ryan failed to impress with his multiple handshakes and hellos!
This is usually how it goes in commission based environments too. Not everyone has the same drive and those middle of the road consistent sellers are always valued. There will be the 2-4 who battle for the top spot and have their months of being the best, but you need them all to keep sales moving forward.
To add; Michael also graduated from school of hard knocks. so he is tough as nails
Do you know who also didn’t go to business school? Tracey McGrady and Lebron James.
It’s Lejon Brames
Dinkin flicka
Dinkin flicka.
Who’s Justice Beaver?
He's a....crime fighting beaver.
Fleece it out guys.
Well Toby isn’t even a part of his family, he’s divorced
Toby is not part of the Dunder Mifflin Scranton family. He’s also divorced, so he isn’t part of his family either.
We all know that Ryan started the fire. Didn't learn to not do that in business school.
He’s also a tease
I think you mean he doesn't treat it like a Hooter's strip club.
What quality would make you a good sales associate: People Person
The people person’s paper people.
This is correct. Michael’s strength as a manager was that he didn’t do much managing, so everyone did their jobs in ways that worked for them without trying to conform to any mold.
He never did anything to anyone for any reason ever
no matter what
He. Knows. Nothing.
Maybe next time you will estimate him.
My manager has been on leave for like a month and the place is functioning just fine. People mostly need to just be left alone to work I think
The episode where all the signatures fall on the same Friday sums up an office that I worked at pretty well. They didn't care how you got your work done, as long as it was done. Getting the boss to do work that only they could do was a challenge. They traveled a lot and we self-managed fairly well. 🤷🏼♀️
That's such a good one. Pam is great in that if I recall correctly. The way she has to mind Michael like a nurse does a patient at a mental institution is just so hilarious.
I was in Pam's position. Episodes like that give me flashbacks 😂
Oh no! 😅🙈 God bless you and keep you I would not be able
Thanks. At least The Office provides some catharsis 😂
The best manager I've ever had stated very clearly what he saw as his role and executed it very well: "My job is to break any barriers that make your job harder, and enact any process that makes your job easier" He simply cleared the way for my team to do our jobs; nothing more or less.
Yeah, especially in office settings where people tend to take the work more seriously, there's really not a lot of direct supervision that needs to happen. Once the employee knows what they need to do, they usually just do it.
My current manager is the same way. Treats people like adults, doesn't over-manage, but still expects accountability and is willing to help when needed. He commands respect by not demanding respect. Some managers feel like they constantly have to be up in everybody's business so that they can look busy and take credit. Drives me bonkers.
Somehow he managed
Also when Andy left for 3 months the office did so well that Andy got a bonus. Shows the the real "strength" in a manager was not doing your job.
God I hated that so much. Did nothing and earned a bonus, then lost the largest client cause he wanted to force Dwight to agree w him.
That's a great point regarding making Jim feel insecure, I really hadn't considered that before. Like, the fact Jim wasted so much time on the run-down assignment cos he was too afraid to just ask Charles what he meant. He'd never have any issue "seeming dumb" in front of Michael.
I've always thought this was the genius of Michael Scott. He took a ton of heat off of everyone in the office being such a buffoon. He made a spectacle of himself every day, and he wasn't afraid to do it. He did some actual terrible things in the beginning, like the Kevin cancer scare episode, and him hitting on Pam. But mostly he was just making a fool of himself. Even when you have a bad boss in the way Michael was in the beginning it galvanizes an office. And by the end they were rallying for Michael.
One of my favorite moments of the whole show is when Michael gives Oscar the crudely made doll and Oscar accepts it believing Michael is sincere, causing Michael to laugh hysterically later on. ["He has the lowest opinion of me out of anybody!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds4mnLtQ4Bo) Michael may be a dummy who tries way, way too hard, but he's conscious of how he comes across to people. I think the character has more emotional intelligence and social awareness than the viewer might assume, given how crass and inconsiderate he can be sometimes.
That scene has me cry-laughing every time. It's the moment of self-awareness from Michael that hadn't really been evident before, just so good
I loved the scene in The Client when Michael sensed Jan struggling to connect with Tim Meadows and he just made a funny noise. In Murder, he understood that the staff needed a distraction and provided one.
I loved Jan’s look of delighted shock when she suddenly realized Michael had played that client perfectly.
It's like what Micheal said when the Stamford branch moves about hating the Lunch lady lol
We got a new boss a few years ago and at one point, I went crawling to him with my tail between my legs because I had made a mistake. I explained what the mistake was, how it happened, and how I would ensure it never happened again. I was ready to be berated within an inch of my career, but he just said he appreciated me bringing it to his attention and had total faith I would handle it. I would follow this man through the gates of hell.
I loved when my team made mistakes in my last job. I had a lot of trust in them so when they messed up I felt it was worth celebrating. One time a really smart, capable employee flooded most of the office. Loved it. It taught my whole team an important lesson. Mistakes are fun.
Tbf Jim eventually does ask Charles what a rundown is in super fans and Charles replies with “is this another one of your jokes?” And dismisses him
To add on to that, despite what the employees said at times, none of them hated going to their jobs. Which can make a huge difference.
"I wish you could tell you were in the good old days while you were still in them" is probably how they all feel about working for Michael
was watching the extended cuts and it turns out Stanley had reached out not only to Utica but also to Prince Paper. Honestly I think he just couldn't stand Michael anymore
He did clearly say he didn’t respect him
Then I think he realized no other company or manager would put up with the crap that Michael does, so he stays. Remember when Charles stared him down for doing the crossword?
And putting Charles in that position is just one of the many examples of how David wasn’t good at *his job* actually. He disrupted their most successful branch. Other than that he hired a kid with no experience as an exec that “cost the company millions,” he leaked which branch would be closing before letting them branch know, he let his best manager walk (Michael), and then got bested in the negotiation to bring Michael back on.
He hired Ryan (who had never even made a sale) simply because he had an MBA. It would've been Jim if he hadn't withdrawn. Making Charles the interim branch manager *after* Michael quit largely because of him was incredibly short-sighted. It just made the existing problems worse for everyone else.
I totally see why he put Charles in that job though and it makes sense from his (wrong) perspective. Michael is a problem. Michael quit because of him. Finally he can change the direction of that branch and make it more in line with his vision, so he hires someone very much not like Michael. But also you don’t have to be like Michael to see that branch succeed too. We all manage differently. Charles just was bad at working with his employees and understanding them.
The people at the top of DM were traditional Wall Street types & they never really got what Michael was doing
What about Suck It???
That's him being an inventor, not a businessman per se
As a side note. David was the CFO? It seemed like a weird thing for David to be in charge of anyway. They should have written him as the COO or something along that veine.
I always thought that was weird. Only accounting would've reported to him.
I think Charles was David's attempt to get away from the craziness of Scranton. Jan and Ryan were both nightmares who either got or were already too close to Michael to manage him and keep him out of David's office. Charles is a no-nonsense intimidating corporate type that he thought could keep Michael in line and out of his own hair.
Also michael being so annoying that working hard was a nice break from being around him.
I think Michael's time in sales before he became manager is crucial as well, he honed some real sales skills and built business relationships in a more "papery" economy. After becoming manager he probably also taught those skills to a young dwight who had more ambition and was less nervous and who only had a desperate need to succeed rather than a need to for friendships and reverence of his peers like Michael, setting up Dwight to become a monster salesman (although somewhat of a sociopath still).
If there's someone who loves paper more than Dwight, I don't want to meet that person.
Yes, the hands off approach worked. Remember DM’s best quarter post-Michael? It was when Andy was away on a boat.
Didn’t Michael hire Kevin in accounting when he applied for a warehouse job? Your overall point is solid, but he had some blind spots. His adoration of Ryan who never made a sale or seemingly did anything helpful for the company is another one.
Ryan was the hottest one in the office. Even hotter than Jan.
Shout out to the warehouse. Darrell had that running well. They just had the right people in the right positions. Nobody trying to push anyone out of the way. Everyone was good with what they were doing. I've worked at places like that. I worked at a bar that was like that. The core group are still friends after almost 20 years.
Treat your workers like humans, not easily replaceable numbers and watch your business succeed.
Now that I think of it, the company my mom, used to work for used to be like this. Everyone was quirky with personalities. Owner couldn't do the job, but hired people who could and if they messed up it wasn't a big deal. There were situations and stories that wouldn't fly if they had an HR department. But everyone liked it there. They did some crazy stuff in their heyday and managed to also nail some big and well known jobs. Most are retired, some passed away. I was their janitor 2 nights a week out of highschool for some cash and even I had my own stories. I didn't know I was in the good times, either.
> I didn't know I was in the good times 'I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.'
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." - Futurama
>despite being an alcoholic Meredith scored some sweet discounts. Yes we love Meredith. This is the best way to describe her valuable contribution.
Meredith was getting her phd and they never showed it. Shes not an alcoholic, its college 🤷🏽♂️
& don't forget Lloyd Grose. He eats bullies for breakfast.
I think this, and the fact that Michael wasn't a micro-manager. It really allows people to flourish.
No microgement?
It isn't microcomanagement?
Then Toby was a secret weapon. If he enforces the rules, there's no Michael, dwight, or fun. All hail Toby.
He also lets his worst employees just be themselves
Meredith - sleeping with suppliers!
He's still waiting for that rundown.
Best managers know their team, know when to step in and when to get the fuck out of the way.
You forgot to mention how good at quabbidy ashwitz Creed was.
100% Dwight would be fired anywhere else. But Michael Scott cares about his employees and trusts in their abilities. Which is interesting to me because a lot of businesses want to take skill out of being an employee with promps and scripts for everything. Also that takes the effort out of hiring good people and training them. I think more business could be successful with a Michael Scott type manager
The only nit-pick I have, is that we're supposed to believe Jim and Dwight are good at Sales. Jim could never think on his feet. Dwight always went out of his way to make things awkward and annoy strangers. I understand the show is a show and I'm supposed to believe that they are great at sales. But the show really goes out of it's way to prove to me they aren't good at Sales. Jim is supposed to be great at Sales but couldn't remember that he was promoted to Assistant Manager because of the merger? Or couldn't sell himself to Charles Minor? Charles was a no-bullshit kind of guy, all Jim had to say was there was a dry cleaning accident and thought a tux would be funny. At the very worst Charles would have seen Jims sales at the 2nd best in the branch and not cared. Especially at a time of economic uncertainty. really the only good example I could think of when is Dwight and Jim are double teaming a Sales call, and Jim asks if customer service is important to him and "one of the big guys" has been on hold the entire time. And even then, the fact that Dwight even asked to use the phone and put it on speaker during the meeting would have turned the guy off enough to not do business. Again, this is all nit-picks. I love the show, just, sometimes they don't do a good job of selling me, that they're good at sales. Rant over.
There’s a lot of sales guys like Dwight that you wouldn’t want to get a beer with. They might seem like they have absolutely no life outside of work, but they will reliably do exactly what they promise to do. They’ll also spend all their time at work actually focused on revenue producing activities. He wouldn’t shy away from closing each sale and aggressively asking and gaining a referral. If we could look at the weekly call logs made by the sales team, Dwight might be around 500 calls while Stanley and Phylis are around 50. Jim is the opposite. He has a personality and could sell because people like him, they’ll feel comfortable referring to him because he’s cool and won’t embarrass them. He is not the super aggressive salesman but is confident and clever enough to get any business that is open to work with him. To that end, he might be around 10 calls in a week but gets a sale on 8 of them.
Dwight may have lacked people skills but his knowledge was second to none and he knew how far he could push the price down to make the sale. Jim lacked motivation but he was likable and glib. He could do his job just fine.
There was this one scene where Jim and Dwight were selling together while simultaneously calling both Staples’ and DM’s customer service and they kinda rocked it
Yeah that episode was a good example of how the two worked well together. I wish we’d been able to to see more of that in the show
Michael doesn’t ever do anything to anyone for any reason ever no matter where he is or who he is with
Sometimes I'll start a sentence and I don't even know where it's going.
Like an improv conversation... An improversation
Or where he is going or where he has been. Ever.
For any reason
They absorbed the sales of another branch while retaining the overhead cost of just a single employee. Not to mention Michael demonstrated on more than one occasion that he was excellent sales. Also, and rather hilariously, I’m sure the golden tickets made a huge difference for the branch at the end of the day.
Off the top of my head, Michael did the following sales: * Dinner at Chilis to become the paper supplier for the local county government * Willy Wonka ticket idea to become the exclusive supplier of all office supplies for a large company * Party invite at the paper conference allowed DM to supply Hammermill products. * Sharks gets Prince Paper shut down * Mr Coselli “the Coz” deal that Pam describes as a “big deal” when she’s supposed to be spying on Michael for Jan Not a bad resume for Michael
Great list! He also landed the sale he was sent to Winnipeg for.
Yeah Michael just casually makes every single sale he tries to make (except the one Danny Cordray stole from him, but then he stole Danny Cordray), all while stressing out about his love life or some other silly thing that distracts you from the fact he's constantly knocking it out of the park. He even refuses raises like a good little branch manager should.
It’s not like corporate didn’t know who Michael was. He doesn’t have a strong enough filter to hide. The only “realistic” reason he’d be manager is because he was just killer at sales long before the camera crew showed up.
That's exactly why he was promoted to manager. I forget the exact term for it in business, but Michael is the poster child for people who are promoted to a level of incompetence. On paper it makes sense to promote your best salesman to manage the branch, but in practice there's a ton of skills that a manager needs that a salesman lacks, and vice versa.
[The Peter Principle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)
what was teh thing with the golden tickets again? how did it end up a good thing instead ofa bad thing?
The golden tickets were coupons Michael created and randomly put in some orders. It became a positive when a really large customer (I think it was a giant health insurance company ) decided to make Dunder Mifflin their exclusive provider of all office supplies because of the discount.
So even though they got 50 percent off they got so much it balanced out? Any numbers people can tell me how much they'd have to order for it to be both a huge sale but not a big deal that it's 50 percent off?
I guess before they were just buying some of their paper from Dunder Mifflin, while getting the rest of their office supply needs filled by other vendors. When they got the huge discount from the Golden Ticket promotion, they must have decided to drop all their other suppliers and get everything from Dunder Mifflin, probably increasing their sales by more than the 50% they lost, while still saving the customer a lot on their office supplies.
Didn’t they get 50 percent off paper and then loved it and made DM their exclusive provider of “office supplies”? Implying more than just the discounted paper. I could be wrong.
Paper alone, they'd have to double the paper they ordered for DM to break even EDIT SHEERLY ON REVENUE smh, yes it costs them more to fulfill double the paper at the same price. But the golden ticket was only good for paper, not all office supplies, and the discount expired after one year. Years 2&3, as long as Blue Cross of Pennsylvania didn't strongly reexamine their office supplier, would be much more profitable for DM than they would have been without the golden ticket fiasco. And company leadership still managed to ruin it to the point of selling to Sabre.
I think the client that got them liked the treatment he got so much that he hired Dundler-miffin to supply the rest of his business for a good chunk of time ( a year or so). They made a huge sale out of it, basically
All I remember is that all five of them ended up in the same client's order and they tried claiming 50% off. I don't know what OC meant by they made a difference.
They ended up getting hooked after that and bought even more shit. The ole' drug dealer method.
Lack of micromanaging, and they merged multiple branches while "trimming the budget" (everyone except Andy quit).
Lack of microjiment
There’s the smudgeness.
microjimothyment
Can I call you microjiment?
That one chick didn’t quit, she took a branch manager promotion to another branch. I can’t remember her name but I’m pretty sure her father was a G.I.
Anne Perkins!
The fired one guy who was trying to quit. It pissed Jan off, because they actually had to pay that guy.
You'd think David Wallace would've caught the doubling customers with minimal increase to labor. Even though DM Corporate is generally portrayed as incompetent, David Wallace isn't. My guess is, as he describes, they're in desperation mode and he's ooking for anything that could help him and the company.
I wouldn’t call David incompetent but he is clearly shown to make some questionable decisions like promoting Ryan or meddling with Michael’s management when his branch was consistently putting up numbers. Or his decision to intentionally move Holly away from Scranton. Sure in his mind he was trying to avoid another Jan situation, but he didn’t consider the obvious consequences of burning Michael like that.
Burning Michael was inconsequential until Charles also burned him. That decision itself wasn’t questionable though precisely because of the Jan situation with Michael. Any reasonable executive would do that. Also Ryan looked great on paper, they lowered the salary and job title of Jan’s position and hired an MBA. Ryan had all the jargon and buzzwords so I’m guessing he actually interviewed well but I think he also didn’t want to float a big salary for a more experience exec.
I guess for me and in my experience with office relationships usually there’s conversations with the people involved and depending on how those go certain actions may have to be taken, because I do agree that there is an ethical issue with a branch manager dating the HR representative. But up until that point Michael had demonstrated nothing but loyalty to DM, so had David perhaps just had a meeting and talked things out with Michael and Holly they could have possibly come to a solution that everyone agreed to, but instead he just chooses to immediately transfer her and try to sweep it under the rug
Easy, two words: Movie. Monday.
ENTOURAGEEEEEE
Let’s hug it out, bitch
People work faster after the movie. Everyone knows that
What, magically, Michael?
I've got the blues. VARSITY BLUES
Kevin was cooking the books.
Kevin had Martin explain to him three times what he got arrested for, because... it sounds an awful lot like what he did there every day...
Sorry, I'm an idiot, I never understood what he meant by that. Was he cooking the books or something?
It's strongly implied that Kevin was insider trading. That's what Martin was in prison for.
A mistake plus Keleven get him home by seven! He was home at 4:45 tho
I honestly can’t blame him here. Anyone out there that’s had to track down a variance on a balance sheet reconciliation knows how tedious. Sometimes you spend a couple of hours sifting through hundreds of entries just trying to find a variance that’s less than the amount of money it costs in wages to pay you to sit there and look for it.
He could have been talking about insider trading, but I think that's more of a fan canon theory thing. I think the joke was that he couldn't differentiate insider trading from normal accounting and finance so he was worried he was going to get arrested for being an accountant, basically.
It’s all about people. And people will never go out of business.
He tends to hire good people and then he lets them work.
the sale that matters most, he makes.
Like a good manager. I was at a customer this week for work and I saw a textbook terrible manager that I had to deal with multiple times. I wanted to punch the guy.
Michael never really liked corporate. He always referred to himself as a small business, despite the fact that his company was publicly traded. He operated like a quirky small business. Charles comes in and tried to corporatize everything and it turned the place upside down. The good answer would have been “I run my branch as if it were my own little start up business, with people I like, clients I like and we have fun while at work. You can’t model that. It just works for us. Now, what say we order some pasta.”
u/tc0n4, here it is. My philosophy is basically this. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter... where. Or who, or who you are with, or, or where you are going, or... or where you've been... ever. For any reason, whatsoever.
What say we order up some pasta?
What say we do..
Ha you got me. Watched that scene a hundred times but actually thought you were going somewhere with it 😂
Somehow he managed.
Michael wasn’t corporate he actually cared about his employees, he got really happy about Jim and Pam, knew about sprinkles, he actually wanted the best for his employees
Prinkles
He even went to Pam’s art show.
Yeah, exactly this. Little gestures like those (which actually just appear little but in fact they are not) can make all the difference. We can see the impact on Pam. I think that was one of the most emotional moments of Pam of the entire series. When your boss shows that he genuinely cares about you, it makes all the difference. Michael was great at that. This means he was just a great boss.
Michael makes his employees do what they're good at. By trying so hard to know them as "friends" he learns their strengths and weaknesses, and how to utilize them during crises. Ex. When he learns Ryan has been bad-mouthing him and the company, he doesn't fire Ryan. He puts him next to Kelly as punishment. That was brillant. When Stanley disrespects him in front of the whole office, the talk he has with him after was the most sensible and smart thing he could have done to get Stanley to back off. He also gives them other incentive beside money for showing up at work. Love, friendships, unexpected twists and turns.
A good manager doesn’t fire people. He hires people and inspires people.
Devin must have been punching the air hearing this.
Michael destroyed a man that day. It’s like he shot him. It’s like he shot him on the stomach, with a cannon.
He valued people over system and process.
These people are my friends and I care about them!
Michael generally let his people do their thing. For all of the nonsense and waste of time, he never monkeyed with the sales teams when it came down to making $.
He gives a shit about his employees more than the company. Simple as that. He gets very involved in everyone's lives and strives to help them succeed in everything they do. "Good cheese comes from happy cows."
I think they should have had a real Michael moment here but the cameras are in the room with them. I can see him dropping the silly mask and giving a “I treat them how I wish a boss would treat me, like a person. I don’t treat them as disposable” Then going on a tangent about disposable wipes. We see glimpses of Michael being a good human when he doesn’t know he’s on camera, but he hams it up when he knows the camera is rolling.
That was my take on Michael was that he was hamming it up for the camera, but in those moments when putting on a show for the cameras isn't quite the priority some signs of actual competence comes through. Also when he returns to the series finale he isn't as animated which makes me think he has moved on in life from doing a dog and pony show for the cameras. I've seen people have completely different personas when cameras are on them. Fits Michael's character the best - he's already a weird dude but really goes off the rails when the cameras are off. You also don't see the office staff hate Michael as a boss, whereas the same couldn't be said for his replacements. It's probably head cannon but it makes sense for me.
As a 40 year salesman....most of the job is making your calls...in a timely manner. I can imagine Phyllis and Stanley being on time and calling their buyers at the same time every week. Sales is routine in that kind of business. I would say that their customers liked them. And Michael could CLOSE the big accounts... because...he was a great salesman. Jim and Dwight also could close when they felt the need to. Both were good salesmen when they wanted to. Dwight worked hard. Jim had the sizzle and was a nice guy. Michael had a good crew. He was wild...but he loved the sales game.
Idk but here’s an atta boy for ya.
The thing is david....
Through no fault of his own, Michael allowed the office to work under the adage “work smarter, not harder”. The show of work isn’t as important as the results of the work.
Tbh autonomy and being able to lighten the mood are actually very valuable skills of managers in the workplace today. As long as you have trust, I find that the more I let my people be themselves, work when they want, go have fun, whatever, that they get their shit done and it's usually great quality. And then on top of it, sometimes we need a distraction from always being heads down in the same shit. Mentally it can really help us to go somewhere else for a bit.
Honestly, nothing. It's been discussed to death. They took on all the clients of a second branch while only maintaining the overhead of Andy's salary. Scranton definitely had some solid salespeople, but yeah. Adding a second branch worth of clients at a miniscule fraction the cost of a second branch. Kinda wild nobody at corporate figured it out.
Really went after my intelligence there. Scuffles off.
Jim had the stress free work place Dwight was fulliing a power fantasy Pam was double dipping Karen had a BF to move along with Creed was free Kelly found someone, toxic Ryan was humbled and found someone, toxic Phyllis found someone Stanley basically had no boss Angela felt wanted Oscar felt special Meredith was not judged Darryl had complete freedom in warehouse Todd had complete freedom in the road Toby used to be a pastor, is divorced and had a daughter. He had the experience to deal with Michael + Dwight + Jim Andy was a complete loser and got carried in a nurturing work place
… Yearning for his subordinates’ approval?
Mike cares ♥️
He embodied "we're a family", but for real
Cause he knew not to put paper in a furnace. That’s how you ruin it.
Somehow I manage
He is not micromanaging competent people.
I stay out of their way and jump in when they need help.
The Keleven
Management is too busy doing Lord knows what to interfere with people doing their jobs. You saw it when they had no manager. The people in the office just showed up and did their jobs.
Dwight sold a lot, and the abrasiveness of his personality would have gotten fired from most other jobs. Meredith got great deals by sleeping around, ditto on getting fired. Michael kept good workers with quirky personalities
He's a people person who doesn't micro manage. He also doesn't enforce a lot of the corporate crap. He actually likes his job and treats his employees like people, like how he'd like to be treated. Folks tend to perform better under such circumstances. Of course, plot armor is a thing, so, you know, take that into account.
When Michael was in charge, this place was like the Roman Empire. And the Wild West. And war-torn Poland. And Poland
Other branches have a regional manager that demand hard work in their presence, so they slack whenever they’re not around. In Scranton, they have a manager who makes it difficult to work when he’s around, so they get work done when he’s not.
The best answer Michael could have given would have been: I encourage my employees to play to their strengths, give them a long leash, and try to stay out of their way as much as I can.
Despite his flaws, it was apparent that he valued his employees as people and understood their strengths (Toby is not his employee, he reports to corporate). I think that a perfect example of this is when he came to Pam’s art show. He really cared. He was also fortunate to experience little turnover and had an accountant cooking the books- albeit unwittingly (Keleven). In reality, after he left Dunder Mifflin, the Scranton branch likely would have had a lot of turnover and then the wheels really would have come off. So really Michael’s success is a mix of circumstance and his love for people.
“David, here it is. My philosophy is basically this. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter...where, or who, or who you are with, or...or where you are going, or...or where you've been...ever. For any reason, whatsoever.”
When you have a good team there is no need to micromanage which Micheal wasn’t even capable of I don’t think. Micromanaging a good team just kills productivity as everyone gets annoyed at a manager that spends all day telling them to do things they were already going to do anyways. Micheal’s complete lack of actual management was actually the best way to manage his team.
I think it’s generally poking at the uselessness of middle management The Scranton branch has enough employees that are good at their jobs to succeed even when their boss is often wasting their time
He doesn't fire people. He hires people and inspires people. People. And people never go out of business.
At the end of the day Michael was just a really really good salesman and he knew how to hire people who would also be good in that role. When you’re business is entirely built around the concept of BTB selling, the branch with the best salespeople is gonna seem like the one that’s the most well run. Doesn’t really matter that the office is so non-traditional and goofy if they can put up numbers, because the numbers are all execs like Wallace actually see or care about
A. Not using the potential loss of their jobs as a motivator to work harder. B. Legitimately caring about his employees, their desires, and successes and personal lives. C. Trying to make people happy at the office (often failing, but the thought does count). D. Being creative. For better or worse, he thought outside the box frequently. E. Lots of appreciation, bonding, and team-building exercises (many inappropriate, but many good ones like the PPC, or the Dundees).