9 Great Habits in Boss Management

Woe to the person that fails to properly manage his or her boss.  And don’t confuse the concept of managing the boss with anything that resembles shameless sucking-up or its close cousin, brown-nosing.

While some bosses are more challenging than others, you are well served to give it your best shot to understand as much about your boss’s working style, priorities, expectations and aspirations as possible.

Learning to work with and yes manage the person that you work for is a critical issue in ensuring your short-term success and long-term professional sanity.  Those interested in digging in to some of the formative work on “boss management” are encouraged to check out the work of John Kotter and John Gabarro, including their formative article, “Managing Your Boss.” in the Harvard Business Review.

For now, here’s a quick checklist to help remind you of some best practices that you can apply immediately.

9 Great Habits in Boss Management:

1. Keep the boss appropriately informed. You should gauge his/her need for information volume and frequency and adapt to it.  Also, remember that some bosses are “readers” and some are “listeners.”  Don’t overwhelm a “listener” with reports and don’t expect verbal updates to cut it with “readers.”

2. Prove your credibility daily. Honesty is the only policy.  Never give a boss a reason to doubt your word.

3. Your boss’s priorities are yours. Learn them, live them, work them.

4. Know the boss’s pet programs. See also the priority note. Find ways to support and extend those programs across the organization.

5. Learn your boss’s aspirations. Help a great boss achieve his/her aspirations and you’ll benefit in the process.  Help a lousy boss do the same and you’ve solved a problem.

6. Know your boss’s organizational heroes. Seek opportunities to help bring them and you together.

7. Outside interests? Make them yours if you can be genuine. While it might be hard for you to fake interest in WWF Wrestling or Tractor Pulling or whatever slightly off-the-beaten path interest your boss has, you are well served to show interest if he does.  The best case is finding an opportunity that interests both of you and genuinely finding ways to share information and even time.  In my household, I grew up riding motorcyles and skiing  with my Dad and his boss and coworkers.

8. Resist the urge to publicly disagree with your boss. Speak up respectfully in private if you have to, but, don’t light a boss-bridge on fire in a public setting.  The quick combustion might consume you.

9. Negative Boss Talk. It’s easy to fall into this trap and cathartic for some. Never, ever, ever engage in negative boss talk.  Run, don’t walk in the other direction.

Don’t Expect Easy-My Top 15 Suggestions for Coping as a Professional

“Easy” is not a term that should be on your mind, except when it comes to improving the experience for your customers. Outside of making life easier for your customers, there are few circumstances where “easy” shows up or where you are justified in expecting things to go that way.

If you’re at the early stage of your career, the transition from home to school to job is an interesting one.  If you are a recent graduate, chance are that you’ve already discovered that things aren’t so easy in this economy as you pound the pavement looking for a job.  While this awkward phase will pass in time, your immersion in the workforce will underscore why “easy” is a foreign term.

And of course, if you’ve been around the block a few times, you’ve already discovered that “easy” is rare indeed.

Things That Are Most Definitely Not Easy in Business:

• Working for a difficult boss
• Becoming a boss
• Becoming a good boss
• Finding great people
• Hiring the right people
• Undoing the process of hiring the wrong people
• Competing in the market
• Competing internally
• Leading without authority
• Creating a new strategy
• Implementing a new strategy
• Getting others to follow
• Following
• Making mistakes
• Learning from mistakes
• Developing as a senior contributor
• Switching jobs
• Switching careers
• Continuing your education
• Reinventing yourself
• Balancing life and work

Guidance-My Top 15 Suggestions for Coping with “Not Easy”

1. I’ve known a few people that seemed to have a free-pass through life’s difficulties, but for the rest of us, here are my suggestions and words of encouragement:
2. Attitude is everything.  Make certain that yours stays positive about the challenges in front of you.
3. There is no substitute for hard work.  Keep pushing the rock.
4. Success is in the details.  Don’t be a 70-percenter.  Learn to finish.
5. It’s all about learning.  Mistakes are your best teachers, just don’t make the same ones over and over again.
6. As my former boss would say, “Man plans and god laughs.”  Interpret that to mean that things mostly don’t go as you expect them to.
7. Hope is a crappy strategy.  See also the note on hard work.
8. You’ll make mistakes.  Don’t wallow for more than a few minutes.  Then shrug your shoulders and move on to your next challenge.
9. There are no guarantees.  There are no guarantees of how long any of us will be here, much less guarantees of employment and advancement.
10. You’ll have to work for everything you get.  Get over it.
11. Fear is the mind-killer. I love that quote from Frank Herbert.  Don’t let fear rule your life.
12. Measure-twice and cut once.  An extra emphasis on quality will serve you well.
13. Compensation is nice.  Ultimately enough is enough.  It’s a hollow goal to just chase the money.
14. The joy is in the journey, not the destination.
15. Touch people in the right way during your journey.  You go through this once.  Make it count.

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Notes from Art:

-Don’t miss the latest issue of the Management Excellence Newsletter.  Register at Building Better Leaders or Management Excellence (far right column)

-Just announced: The Management Excellence Book Series, with episode #1 featuring an interview with Bob Sutton, author of Good Boss, Bad Boss.

Beware the Pull of “Us Versus Them”

It’s easy to get caught up in departmental or team squabbles inside of organizations.  My advice: stay clear, stay out of it and learn to think and act for yourself.

Some functional squabbles are legendary.  Sales versus Marketing.  Marketing versus Development. Marketing and the rest of the organization.  Hey, maybe Marketing is the problem here! Perhaps if we put that group in their place… . (Just testing you.)

Stay clear!

Us versus Them squabbles are commonplace and destructive. “They don’t understand what we do.”  “They’re not in front of customers like we are.”  “They think that we just sit down at our computers and magically, new software code spews forth.”

It’s not about they or them, it’s about us and we.

People that view departmental walls and boundaries as fixed and even as important are misguided.  The focus is and must be on creating value for customers, on differentiating versus competitors and on finding as many ways as possible to improve efficiency and effectiveness.  While people might have a home base and a vocational orientation (marketing, sales, engineering etc.), there is no one group more important than the other.

You are all dependent upon each other.

The challenge to innovate often breeds dedicated “innovation” teams where a new form of “Us versus Them” develops.  One group, the innovators are cool and free from much of the bureaucracy that everyone else lives with on a daily basis.  The other group: operations, work to provide the funding that allows the innovators to do their thing.  Managers best beware of the potential for this situation to create divisions and hard feelings.

The challenges and solutions for managers to resolve silo problems and turf wars revolve around attention, constant communication, mutual respect and the creation of an environment of accountability for working together.  All groups are critical…all groups are valuable for many reasons.

As for you as an individual contributor or leader, steer clear of attempts to draw you into the divisions. The temptations is strong.  When you feel the urge to rail about another group, skip the moaning and reach out to a counterpart in that group and find a mutual way forward.  You’ll be happy that you did.

Show Respect by Paying Attention

I trot this anecdote every once in awhile because to this day, it’s still the best example that I’ve observed of a senior manager that missed the memo on the need to engage with her team members.

This individual was uncomfortable making decisions and engaging in difficult discussions, and she had what I describe as a “dodge and deflect” strategy for dealing with the pleas from her staff for face or air-time.  Her response to an inquiry would typically be something to the effect of, “That’s an important issue and we should talk about it at the right time.”

Guess when it was the right time?

If you guessed, “Never!” you’re right.

This senior leader not only frustrated her team members and slowed progress to a halt, but by dodging their need to express ideas to improve the business, she showed extreme professional disrespect for her colleagues.

Another manager that I coached had a habit of engaging in extended discussions while sending e-mails on his p.d.a.  While he heard and acknowledged the words from the individual attempting to communicate with him, we all know that it’s impossible to pull-off this type of multi-tasking and realize a quality communication experience.  In interviews, this manager’s employees indicated that they were both frustrated and offended by this poor approach.

And finally, a senior leader that I coached had invested years in avoiding operational discussions with his team members. While on one hand, he let them “do their jobs,” on the other hand, it was fairly frustrating for the team members to go for years without being able to engage, update, seek advice or even politely show-off what their teams were achieving.  This omission of attention showed a distinct lack of respect not only for the managers, but for the team members of the managers.

Take-Aways:

There are a million opportunities for us to shortchange conversations in pursuit of the urgent important.  It takes discipline and the recognition that your attention as a leader is one of the best ways that you have for conveying your respect for individuals and teams.  These are golden opportunities worth considerably more than whatever efficiency you thought you were gaining from minimizing contact.

It costs nothing to pay attention and the return on investment is priceless!  Perhaps it’s time to slow down and show some respect.

Want to Lead? Consider These Questions: #7 of 7

Note: the Seven Key Questions for Ambitious, Aspiring Leaders, are presented in the book, Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.  I’ll explore each question here at Building Better Leaders through individual “Leadership Tip of the Day” posts, offering ideas for investigation and discussion.

The first six questions in this series challenged you to think through issues that are both philosophical and powerfully practical:

1. Why do you want to lead?
2. Do you understand the true role of a leader?
3. Do you understand that the skills that made you successful as an individual contributor are not the skills that will carry you forward?
4. Are you prepared to give up your domain expertise as your foundation for results?
5. What do you believe are the skills and personality traits that you need to succeed as a leader?
6. Do you understand that you will be judged by the output of your team and held accountable for this output?

If you’ve made it through the investigation of questions 1-6, it’s time for you to consider what your daily work life will be like as a leader.

7. What do you imagine your workday life to be like as a leader?

For those accustomed to having some semblance of autonomy over their daily lives, the transition to a role as a leader can shock the system.  This move from a “me-centric” daily routine to “everyone but me” focus has caught many an early leader by surprise.  The “day in the life” discussion fostered by this question will help clarify what a leader does everyday and how it differs from the role of individual contributor.  One suggestion is to allow aspiring leaders the opportunity to shadow you from time to time, as a means of understanding just how unglamorous leading can be.  Another suggestion is to have the aspiring leader spend a little bit of time with other leaders and interview them about their daily and weekly activities.

The Takeaway from The 7 Questions:

The Seven Key Questions for the Ambitious Aspiring Leader are powerful conversation starters to support a manager’s leadership development activities.  They are not intended to be delivered in machine-gun style, but rather to be used in concert with an approach to helping individuals discover and explore the profession of leadership.  Not everyone should lead, yet someone motivated by advancement might believe that leadership is the best or only way to achieve this goal.  An effective mutual discovery process is the leader’s best friend in helping identify leadership talent and in helping individuals come to their own conclusion on whether leading is a good choice for their own careers.

Starting Fast as a Leader With Your New Team

The “start-up” phase with a new team is challenging for even the most experienced of leaders. If you’re an “all new” leader…someone hired from outside or at least outside of the team, there’s an inherent degree of uncertainty and apprehension about you.  No one knows your style or your agenda, and frankly, while you have authority and respect conferred by title, you have not earned credibility or trust.

One of the fastest ways to ramp up and help people develop some early comfort with you is to sit down and listen to them. Notice that I didn’t say talk.  This is an exercise in listening, paying attention, gaining insights and discovering your true situation with your team members. You’ll have ample opportunity to talk in the future, but, start-up is a time for listening.

Set Up Face-to Face Meetings with Your Team Members:

One of the first things that I do in a new leadership role is publicly indicate that I’m going to meet privately with all direct team members. I’ve extended this to indirect team members as well, and I advise including them, unless the size of the group makes this step prohibitive.  I indicate that I will pre-publish the agenda, provide everyone with a few days for people to think through their thoughts, and then I will reach out to schedule the meetings.

The public indication is good for morale and pre-publishing the agenda helps people to frame their thoughts and ideas.  Of course, to earn credibility here, you’ve got to keep to your commitment, so once public, there’s no backing down.

The Agenda-3 Questions:

1. What’s working?
2. What’s not?
3. How can I help you help our business?

These 3 simple questions provide the participants with a broad degree of freedom to offer company and departmental criticism, identify areas to strengthen and improve, and share insights on the obstacles that they see keeping them from contributing at greater level. I’ve yet to attend one of these sessions that wasn’t rich in input and much needed context for me in my new leadership role.  Of course, people feel good that they’ve had a chance to share, and that you cared enough to listen.

What’s Next?

Take good notes, follow-up each session with a personal thank you note (or e-mail), and take care to live up to any commitments that you made during the discussion. Invariably, there are some easy to resolve issues that you can and should commit to fixing.  For the more strategic items, acknowledge the input and promise to consider it as you deliberate or pursue broader team discussions on the issue.

I also like to roll-up the broader business and departmental input (not personal or personnel) and hold a larger team meeting where I share the feedback.  Much of this content can help to define priorities for improvement or action.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I can’t take credit for originating these questions or even this approach.  I read about it somewhere, jotted it down and have used it for years, while long since forgetting the original source.  It’s never failed to help “break the ice” for all parties, and get the discussion focused on the business of the business and off of the fact that there’s a new leader in charge.  Use it in good health.

8 Quick Tips to Improve Your Effectiveness with Feedback

Leaders at all levels struggle with this most important of performance tools: feedback. We delay delivering it, we water it down, we sandwich it in praise and obscure the message or, we avoid it altogether.

Like anything else, practice makes perfect, and a few simple suggestions can help ease your concerns and usher in more “practice time” in your workplace.

Suggestions for Improving Your Comfort and Use of Feedback:

1. Frequency and timeliness count! Your job is to deliver feedback everyday….not just at the performance review.  In fact, that’s a horrible time for it.

2. Always base feedback on observable behaviors.

3. Link the behavior in question to business issues.  Don’t make it personal.

4. Describe the appropriate behavior or in the case of positive feedback, specify the good behavior.  Tell a person, “nice presentation,” and while they feel good, they have no idea what they did right.

5. Keep the discussion simple…focus on one behavior, not everything that you can think of for the past three months.

7. Actions and outcomes count! Create an action plan to change the behavior.  Ideally, the target of the feedback creates the action plan.

8. Observe, coach and provide on-going feedback.

–

Bonus Tip 1: Take a few minutes before your feedback discussion to jot down your opening statement and plan your conversation.  Use the above as a check-list to make certain that you’ve incorporated all of the key elements.

Want to Lead? #4 of 7. It’s Time to Ask and Answer a Difficult Question

Note: the Seven Key Questions for Ambitious, Aspiring Leaders, are presented in the book, Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.  I’ll explore each question here at Building Better Leaders through individual “Leadership Tip of the Day” posts, offering ideas for investigation and discussion.

The first three questions in this series challenged you to think through issues that are both philosophical and powerfully practical:

• Why do you want to lead?
• Do you understand the true role of a leader?
• Do you understand that the skills that made you successful as an individual contributor are not the skills that will carry you forward?

The next question in the series builds on #3 by asking you to consider whether you are truly willing to let go of some of that expertise as part of your transformation as a leader.

#4:  Are you prepared to give up domain expertise as your foundation for results?

Consider the cases of the brilliant surgeon that takes on the role as Chief of Staff, or, the skilled tradesperson that becomes a superintendent.  Add in the successful teacher that becomes a school principal and the successful law enforcement officer that is promoted to ride a desk.  While  prior experience and  long-developed skills will prove valuable in the new pursuits, a very different set of skills are required for success.

The new skills focus more on supporting and serving others through teaching, mentoring and guiding.  Instead of being the expert, the newly minted leader is now in charge of helping others develop expertise. For many moving from the role of individual contributor or knowledge worker to the role of leader, this loss of sense of self and the need to reinvent prove traumatic.

For good or bad, we tend to identify not only with our jobs but with the work and skills that others acknowledge us for in our daily lives.  Thoroughly investigating and forming answers for questions 1-3 is a critical first step.  Once you’ve progressed through those important questions, it’s time to stare in the mirror and ask and answer  question #4. If you conclude that you cannot let go…that your skills are who you are, then say no.  If you are OK with the notion of reinventing yourself, then keep moving forward.

The only mistake is to not ask and answer these questions honestly.

Want to Lead? Answer These Questions! #2 of 7

Note: the Seven Key Questions for Ambitious, Aspiring Leaders, are presented in the book, Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro.  I’ll explore each question here at Building Better Leaders through individual “Leadership Tip of the Day” posts, offering ideas for investigation and discussion.

The prior question challenged you to ask and answer, “Why do you want to lead?”  This question focused on motivation, while our question today goes to understanding of the role of a leader. Clear answers for both are essential for making an informed decision on whether a role as a leader is proper for you.

The Second Question: “What do you think the true role of a leader is?“

This is a good open-ended question that can ferret out whether the ambitious professional has proper context for the role and purpose of a leader or whether he is preoccupied with advancement and perceives this as the best and fastest way.

I encourage people to talk to experienced leaders that seem to enjoy their work.  Let them know that you are interested in pursuing a leadership role. Ask them the following questions:

• How would you describe your role as a leader?
• How has your view on this role changed over your career?
• Last and not least, what are your leadership priorities?

I have a sneaking suspicion that you will very quickly hear words and phrases like: developing others; coaching, providing feedback, clearing a path by knocking down obstacles and helping set goals.

Take good notes and think long and hard about whether the priority tasks described by experienced leaders fit well with your interest in leading. If yes, you’re on your way to building a solid foundation for your leadership career.

Oh, and for my two-cents worth on the role of a leader, check out my post at Management Excellence, “Leader, What’s Your Charter?”

Innovation is for Everyone

Innovation isn’t just the domain of engineers, designers and other creative product types and functions inside organizations.  Everyone and every function has the opportunity to innovate in pursuit of serving internal or external customers, improving business processes and helping the firm achieve strategic objectives.

It’s too bad that many of us don’t recognize our innovation obligation and opportunity.

People focus on the all-new, all-new product and technology innovations that make our news headlines.  This discontinuous innovation while exciting and big and sometimes transformational, is actually quite rare.  Most innovation is continuous in nature…more incremental than of the all new variety.

My working definition of innovation is: “solving vexing problems in unique and reproducible ways.” While I have no doubt that there may be better and even shorter definitions, mine opens up the innovation frontier to the broad range of “problems” inside and outside of organizations.  My only catch is that the solution be both unique and reproducible.

Jump-starting your innovation thinking can be as simple as brainstorming with your colleagues on the headaches, time and cost wasters and bottlenecks that affect your customers and impede goal achievement.  Pick one, apply my definition and solve.

Rinse and repeat.  Happy innovating!

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