Steve Carell's portrayal of Michael Scott was so incredibly cringe-worthy and jaw-dropping that it's hard for The Office fans to look away. As an employee of Dunder Mifflin for over 14 years, Michael started off as a salesman before being promoted to regional manager. For as silly and whacky as Michael is, his branch is one of the more successful branches within the company. This makes viewers wonder if Michael is some kind of secret genius or just gets away with murder because of how naive he can be.
Throughout The Office's nine seasons, let's take a look back to see five moments Michael Scott's managing techniques were pure genius and five of them that were anything but...
GENIUS: HIRING DANNY CORDRAY
In the seventh season (Michael's last season on the show), we meet Danny Cordray. Cordray was a salesman on behalf of Osprey Paper who was clearly better at his job than Jim and Dwight. He was attractive, charming, and knew how to sell paper.
To find out how Cordray sells so well, Michael sets up a fake sting operation. But when his operation goes wrong, Michael (somehow) convinces Cordray to work for Dunder Mifflin. Say what you will about Michael and his quirks but he knows how to sell (even himself).
EPIC FAIL: TURNING INTO PRISON MIKE AS A LEARNING TOOL
With the merger between Stamford and Scranton, we see a few new faces at Scranton's office. One of them was Martin. Martin was a very nice man but it was revealed he spent some time in prison. After the office finds this out, Martin reveals that prison wasn't all that bad and that he wasn't a bad guy. But when members of the office start saying jail was better than the office, Michael uses this opportunity to show his employees just how good they have it at Dunder Mifflin Scranton.
He then transforms himself into Prison Mike and does a strange performance to scare them straight... The office saw his theatrical performance as confusing and odd than inspiring.
GENIUS: PINNING RYAN AGAINST A HARD PLACE
Ryan started off as a temp but eventually climbed the corporate ladder (before coming back to Scranton again). Throughout his time working under Michael, Ryan always knew Michael had some kind of weird obsession over him, which he took advantage of sometimes. In the seventh season, we learn that he created a technology that sends a person all their notifications to one space. He called it WUPHF.
Sadly, WUPHF was going nowhere fast and everyone agreed that Ryan should sell the naming right while he could. This was a big moment for Michael as a manager because it was one of the first times he stood up to Ryan. He told Ryan to see WUPHF so that everyone in the office who gave Ryan money to start his business would get it back. Without Michael, who knows if the gang would ever see their money again.
EPIC FAIL: HIS GOLDEN TICKET INITIATIVE
Michael's golden ticket initiative at work was brilliant. Similar to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Michael hid five golden tickets in five different boxes of paper. If a company had a golden ticket in their box, they received a 10% discount for the year.
It was fun, smart, and a great way to have fun with their clients. Unfortunately, Michael accidentally sent all five golden ticket boxes to the same company and they did not state "one ticket per company." As you can imagine, Dunder Mifflin lost a lot of money and corporate was pissed.
GENIUS: HE GOT DAVID TO BUY THE MICHAEL SCOTT PAPER COMPANY
Michael Scott is a delusional regional manager but he sure can sell. He's a people-person and knows how to sell paper products like he actually cares. So, when he quits Dunder Mifflin and creates his own company (The Michael Scott Paper Company), he ends up taking business away from Dunder Mifflin.
Eventually, corporate gave in and said they'd buy the company from Michael. But that's not all Michael did. He also got all their jobs back, with Pam starting a new position. Pure genius.
EPIC FAIL: HIS SPIN ON DIVERSITY DAY
Due to Michael's inappropriateness at work, corporate thought it was appropriate to send Mr. Brown down to Scranton to do a few exercises regarding diversity in the workplace. Always one for a show, Michael did not appreciate how Mr. Brown relayed the information and took it upon himself to talk about diversity in the workplace.
What ensued were racist remarks, stereotypes, insults, and one slap in the face. If Michael just went along with what Mr. Brown was teaching, this day would have been far more productive.
GENIUS: HE KEPT STANLEY AWAY FROM UTICA
In the episode "Branch Wars," Karen (the new manager at Utica) tried her best to poach Stanley from Scranton. She was giving him more money and quite frankly, more respect.
Now, at this point, no one really knew how much Stanley meant to Michael but he drove to Utica to prank Karen into not taking Stanely. Michael's plan completely backfired but at the end of the episode, Stanley decided to stay with Michael. Does this make Michael an evil genius?
EPIC FAIL: THE BOOZE CRUISE TO TEACH LEADERSHIP
The episode "Booze Cruise" was instrumental to Jim and Pam's story. We see Jim almost telling Pam how he feels but he tells Michael instead. And later in the night, Jim's heart is crushed after Jim and Roy set a date for their wedding. However, the entire point of the booze cruise was for Michael to do an interactive lesson on leadership.
Corporate even sent one of their own to keep an eye on this booze cruise and to make sure Michael stays on topic. As we know though, Michael's leadership speech gets interrupted and he caused a major security disruption.
GENIUS: HIS INDEX CARDS
Michael references his note cards a few times in the series. As a manager (but more so as a salesman), he created notecards for all of his clients. They would be assigned colores and a few random words that only made sense to Michael.
His notecards may have been low-key racist and inapt but they helped him remember who was who and what was important to him. Dwight tried stealing one of his notecards and it ended up losing him the sale.
EPIC FAIL: ALLOWING TRANSPARENT EMAIL SURVEILLANCE
After working with a man from IT, Michael learns he and corporate are able to keep tabs on the emails workers send and receive. This kind of information went right to Michael's head. He was able to keep tabs on his "friends" and see what they were really doing on their computers.
Sadly, he learns that Jim was throwing a party and literally invited everyone but Michael. This, of course, offended Michael and didn't end well for Jim's party. What was meant to be used for safety and transparency, ended with Michael being nosey and jealous.