How to Manage Up Without Brown Nosing

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If you want to get ahead, then you need to manage up.  But how do you do this without brown nosing?

Learn to manage up the right way:

This is important because….

  • Your boss is probably your most important stakeholder
  • Problems often arise from style differences that are easily managed
  • It’s costly in time, effort and credibility if you get it wrong

Figure out what your boss cares about:

  • Ask to see your boss’s goals and ask about his/her top priorities
  • Link them to your own
  • Set up a recurring meeting if one is not currently in place
  • Assess your boss’s world-view

Create and manage two-way expectations:

  • Know what is expected of you – preferably in writing
  • Communicate what your expectations of your boss are
  • Ask your boss about his/her style
  • Never surprise your boss
  • Make your boss look like a star

Ask for feedback:

  • Actively seek out feedback from your boss and others
  • Listen and act on feedback that you get
  • Give feedback generously to your boss and others

Adjust your style:

  • You can only control your own behaviour
  • You are accountable for your relationship with your boss
  • Communicate in a way that is most meaningfulto your boss
    • Media
    • Level of detail
    • Frequency
  • Look to complement how your boss operates

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Time for an Effective Meeting Intervention

If the last meeting you went to sucked badly, you are in good company.  A survey of over 1000 North American managers indicated that on average they spend about 17 hours per week in meetings.  Of that considerable portion of their work-week, they deemed that one-third of that time was wasted.

The economic implications of this are staggering.  If you multiply 6 hours times the hourly rate of those managers times the number of managers in the economy, you begin to see a number with a whole bunch of zeros behind it.  Even in your own organization this calculation could easily total in the millions of dollars every year.

More selfishly, ask yourself what you would do if you had an extra six hours every week.  Could you work more reasonable hours?  Perhaps you could get to those things you know are important but are constantly displaced by the urgent.

This got us to ask the question, “if meetings are systemically bad, and they cost that much what can be done?”

First of all, do not accept that meetings have to be bad.  We all seem resigned that we have to write-off a significant portion of our week to something we know is useless.  Demand more of yourself, and of your organization.

Second – be part of the solution.  This is your problem to solve.  Even if you do not chair the meeting, you can raise questions as to how effective they are.  Your complacency will get you into more pointless meetings.

Third – insist on a structure.  The engineers and accountants always get a bad rap for being anal retentive.  While you may want to avoid such people at cocktail parties, invite them to help fix your meetings.  A bit of discipline will exponentially improve the value of your meetings.

Finally – figure out what meetings are costing you.  What is the cost to the organization by the time they pay a fully burdened labour cost.  What is the cost to you if meetings are causing you to work longer hours and give up your leisure time.  Profit-driven organizations are usually good a containing costs when they have to.  Get them to contain the cost of their meetings.

Then you’ll have more time to read our blog, and download YouTube clips.  Here’s one from John Cleese – for those who love British humour.

How to Get Ahead — Don’t Be an Idiot

Every now and then Jed or I will be sitting across the table from someone who will confide in us that he really wants to be promoted into the next job.  Sometimes, he may not know what that next job is, but he really wants it.  “How do I get ahead?”, he may ask of us.  This got me to thinking:

Boot-licking – Constant, shameless, thorough and quality bootlicking.

Eliminate the competition by quietly and carefully sabotaging their every move.  If you think they might be higher in the standings than you for the next role — take them out.

Sewering Your Boss —  Maybe if you make her look stupid enough, they’ll fire her, and put you in her role.

Constantly Champion Your Own Virtues – If people don’t know how wonderful you are, it’s about time you told them.  Don’t be afraid to repeat, ad nauseam.

Sorry – I seem to have lost my inner-monologue.

It’s frightening how many people think that one or more of the above will work.  We see it time and time again, even if people don’t fully admit to employing some or all of these techniques.

There is no doubt that occasionally a boot-licker will slip between the cracks and have some success for a limited period of time.  Maybe even a year or two.  However, there is always a reckoning.  This is not to say that the most qualified person always gets the job – organizational politics are a fact of life that people need to accept.  I don’t know of any organizations that are pure meritocracies.

But people who attempt to prosper by insincere means most often meet their demise with the same level of intensity as they played the game.  What comes around goes around – even though it may take longer than many of us might like.

So how do you get ahead in your career?  Start by not being an idiot.  If you can’t manage that, you’re not going to get ahead anyway, so you might as well cut your losses now.  (Oops – there’s my inner-monologue again).

If you want some other ideas, download our latest podcast on How to Get Ahead – Wily Manager Style.

In the meantime… let’s be careful out there.

Micro-Managing: A Great Way to Get Fired

OK – we’ve all done it.  Decided to do something ourselves because its easier and faster than holding the appropriate person to account.  Maybe you’ve even done it with your children.  Micro-managing – the gift that keeps on destroying.

Every manager has been warned against this, so let’s look at why it happens, given the most common excuses most managers give for doing so:

It’s faster to do it myself.  It probably is faster… the first time.  But if you look at the amount of time it will take you to teach or correct someone else in the execution of a task, versus the amount of time it will take you to do it on an ongoing basis, the answer is clear.

I can do it better. You probably can… for a while.  However, if you insist on doing every individual task yourself, you will become quickly overwhelmed, and will end up doing some (high) proportion of those tasks poorly.

My people aren’t capable. If this is the case for any amount of time, you are clearly not doing your job as a manager.  It is your job to develop people.  Occasionally you truly don’t have the right talent, in which case you have to make changes to your talent bench.

I need to keep close to the details. Actually, you probably don’t.  As a manager, it is not your job to be expert at everything.  It’s your job to create experts, and be able to ask some semi-intelligent questions of them.

If I don’t do all these tasks, I won’t be useful anymore. Listen to yourself.  If you’re that insecure in your role as a leader, you need to examine whether you should be in a management role at all.

The bottom line is that micro-managers sap the productivity out of organizations by failing to capture the discretionary effort of their employees.  They don’t develop people, which is a primary function of a leader.  They also limit their own career mobility by trying to make themselves indispensible in the role they are in.

Micro-management is a self-destructive behaviour, and a great way to get fired.  Then you’ll have lot’s of time.

STARS – Matching Strategy to the Situation

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Effective leaders strategically change their leadership behaviors depending on the type of business situation they encounter.  They make decisions and take actions differently in different situations.  Here’s how they do it:

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Start-Up‘, then:

  • Degree of Urgency: HIGH
  • More Learning or Doing: DOING
  • Offence or Defence: OFFENCE
  • Tough Calls: MAKE NOW
  • First Action: ASSEMBLE TEAM & RESOURCES

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Turnaround‘, then:

  • Degree of Urgency: VERY HIGH
  • More Learning or Doing: DOING
  • Offence or Defence: DEFENCE
  • Tough Calls: MAKE RIGHT NOW
  • First Action: CUT TO DEFENDABLE CORE THEN REBUILD

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Accelerated Growth‘, then:

  • Degree of Urgency: HIGH
  • More Learning or Doing: DOING
  • Offence or Defence: OFFENCE
  • Tough Calls: LEARN THEN ACT
  • First Action: LEARN QUICKLY, PERMIT MISTAKES

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Realignment‘, then:

  • Degree of Urgency: MODERATE
  • More Learning or Doing: LEARNING
  • Offence or Defence: OFFENCE
  • Tough Calls: LEARN THEN ACT
  • First Action: STUDY THEN REDIRECT RESOURCES

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Sustaining Success‘, then:

  • Degree of Urgency: LOW
  • More Learning or Doing: LEARNING
  • Offence or Defence: DEFENCE
  • Tough Calls: LEARN THEN ACT
  • First Action: STUDY THEN CREATE URGENCY FOR CHANGE

For more information about the STARS Model, see Michael Watkins’ book, The First 90 Days.

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STARS – Matching Strategy to the Situation

Different business situations require different managerial behaviors.  In this podcast, find out how to make decisions and take action in a way that is appropriate for different situations.

Listen to the STARS Podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

STARS Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘STARS‘ Cheat Sheet

Politeness in the Workplace? Go #@$% Yourself!

I’m not really sure when it happened.  Sometime over the last few years it has become socially acceptable to have a potty-mouth at the office.  Most often I am invited into workplaces for short periods of time – usually a few months – so I normally don’t know anyone when I first show up, and have to take some time to get to know people.

I find it incredible that people who don’t know me are quite willing to use exceptionally foul language in our very first meeting.  I should clarify two things:

1)   I’m not there to fire them, or otherwise torture them… which may be construed as just-cause for an expletive or two.

2)   I’m not offended by any of this, and use my own fair-share of foul words in more familiar company.

I just find it curious that people think words your mother always told you she didn’t want to hear are now common-place in work settings.  In my experience, this transcends just about all demographic groups.  It is not just younger people, nor is it just men.  I have witnessed this in large cities, and small ones, in a wide variety of industries.  I think it’s safe to say this has become a societal thing.

So… what is to be done?  Probably nothing.  But I would caution anyone who cares that first impressions are very powerful, and if you litter your first impression with language that would make a lumberjack blush, then you will inevitably come across as insensitive and less intelligent.

As a general rule of thumb, it might be good to know someone’s last name, before asking them (in so many words) if they like sex and travel.  Likewise, don’t assume that you’re not offending anyone, just because everyone else seems to be swearing.  It’s amazing that many offices insist on no fragrances or smelly foods for fear of upsetting someone, but have no similar guidelines for certain forms of noise pollution.

Until you know who you’re talking to, you might want to channel Bill Cosby more so than Eddie Murphy.  In the mean time… check out this clip for how one office handled it.

Help! I’m a Micro-Manager

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What’s Wrong With Being a Micro-Manager?

  • You are creating unnecessary work for yourself and others, and therefore wasting resources
  • You could be negatively affecting turnover
  • You are destroying discretionary effort and thereby reducing productivity
  • You will burn yourself and others out

How People Become Micro-Managers

  • They were great individual contributors, but never transitioned to being a leader
  • They have perfectionist tendencies
  • They are insecure in their role as a leader
  • They are control-freaks

How do I Address This?

1. Clearly Define Expectations

  • Put written performance agreements in place
  • Define the boundaries of people’s jobs and determine what level of authority they can have

2. Experiment With Giving People More Authority

  • Define outcomes; allow people to determine methods
  • Start small if necessary
  • Ask for progress reports

3. Leadership Development

  • Find ways to improve your ability as a leader.
  • Dedicate time to focus on leadership issues as opposed to the detail or the work

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A Bad Boss Can Kill You

A 2009 Swedish study tracking 3,122 men for ten years found that those with bad bosses suffered 20 to 40 percent more heart attacks than those with good bosses.

Wow – glad I’m not Swedish.  I’m actually looking for the complementary study that shows how bad employees shorten a supervisor’s lifespan.  Maybe Hell really is other people.

So – is there any truth to the above study, or is it more silliness cranked out by academics looking to dabble in the real world by grabbing a headline?  I’m sure the research would speak for itself, but what is instructional about its findings?

No one would dispute that stress will kill you, but how does a bad boss equate to stress?  The obvious thing to do here is to list off all the poor qualities of a bad boss, and draw a parallel between their bad behaviour and their employees’ stress.  In reality, stress merely exists, and our reaction to it makes it unhealthy.

So I am willing to believe that a bad boss will kill me, but only if I give him/her enough control over me that I react poorly to the stress they are generating.  I can’t control their behaviour, but I most certainly can control my own behaviour, and my reaction to theirs.

Or I could move to Sweden.  I hear it’s nice.

Business is a Contact Sport — Wear a Cup

At the risk of coming across like The Cranky Middle-Manager, I have a couple of grievances to air on how people interact with each other in the workplace.  It seems that people claiming that they work in a “toxic environment” is all the rage as of late.  In a minimum of cases, this may be truth, but in far more circumstances, it seems as though anytime someone doesn’t smile at you at the water cooler, you’re entitled to claim a horrible work situation.

The truth is that anytime you are in a workplace of more than one person, there are going to be disagreements and compromises.  And contrary to much of the hype you read in the popular media, sometimes work will be a drag.  To quote Jed’s dad, “If it was supposed to be fun, they wouldn’t call it work.”

I believe the root cause of this problem, is most people’s incompetence in dealing with conflict.  Many people believe that conflict is bad, when in fact it is neither good nor bad, but merely exists.  People’s response to conflict can make the situation bad.

Some people respond to conflict by becoming aggressive and overbearing.  Others choose to avoid conflict like it was a toilet seat at the bus station.  Both responses are destructive and will not improve or resolve whatever situation has caused the conflict to emerge.

Interestingly, in my experience I see the most common response to conflict to be one of either avoiding or yielding.  Both are poor responses to conflict in almost all cases.  If you are inclined to respond to conflict in this way, it is time to grow a pair and act like an adult.  Issues need to be confronted and dealt with.

It doesn’t mean you are always going to get your way, but at the very least you will have some confidence that you have attempted to constructively resolve workplace conflict, rather than letting it get pushed underground to fester.

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