Boss Management from the Beach

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER 

Title: Managing Your Boss (article)

Competencies: influence skills, negotiation skills, communication skills, building strategic relationships, building trust, adaptability

Who benefits: all employees

Consultant Usage: training, coaching

What’s it about?  Greetings from Zihuatanejo, Mexico.  I am in my Mexican office: a folding chair with log footstool in a small corner of a sandy beach under a palm tree with the surf 150 feet away.  The temperature is in the mid-80s. There is a very light breeze.  I have no worries, no cares, and especially…No Boss.

Bosses can sometimes just really get in the way of fun.  Some can actually get in the way of work.  Fortunately I have a great boss who understands the importance of work-life balance: Me!  Me gave me a 38-day balmy assignment, with a workload of approximately 10 minutes a day.

But what about all those other people out there who don’t have such a wonderful boss?  Well if there is one thing I learned in a career in HRD, it is the importance of Boss Management.  None of us can be truly effective unless we have the cooperation and support of the boss.

Most of the literature and other forms of learning stress how the Boss should manage her or his reports.  Not much out there on how to manage upward.

As an example of the need to manage upward, I have spent a lot of coaching time with people who have a boss who micro manages.  Some of you are smiling at this moment and thinking, “ain’t that the truth” or something worse that can’t be printed here.

Well, before you take too many happy pills, here is the down side: Folks, there are lot of you out there who need to be micro managed.  So step one is to look in the mirror.  Am I doing some things (or many things) that cause my Boss angst?  Good Boss Management starts with self and then works upward.  Do you voluntarily communicate regularly, in his/her style, to keep your Boss up-to-date?  Do you withhold valuable information?  Do you resist her/his every suggestion without fully understand The Boss’s position.  These are just starter questions.  There are many other ways to irritate the micro manager/Boss.

Once you are satisfied with the person you see in the mirror, then there are many strategies to working with the micro manager.  One of my favorites comes from the martial arts: When pushed, pull.  I once had a manager who constantly gave me work to do without thinking about what I was already doing.  His philosophy was “I don’t care how you do it, just do it.” 

My metaphor for this style of Boss Management was a bucket that was full, and every new assignment was overflow.  Arguing with him accomplished nothing.  I took the “pull” approach.  Bring it on Boss.  Give it all to me.  And I kept a list of what I was working on.  Each item had a rough time factor assigned to it.  I prioritized the list and made a point of showing him the list every time he popped in with (usually) a new assignment.  I would say, “Sure boss, I can do that – where on this list do you want me to put it.”  A couple of times he grumbled that he didn’t realize I was working on so many projects and tasks.  Over time he stopped coming by so often.  Gradually I got control of my work time.

If you are interested in learning more about Boss Management, there are some very good suggestions and a couple of good stories in the Managing Your Boss article from Harvard Business Review (an HBR Classic).  Check it out….and this just in: Just released this week is short book version with the same title, Managing Your Boss (the book).

Meanwhile I have to get back to work…working on my tan!  Thanks again Boss.

[tags]the boss, boss,  boss management, boss subordinate relationship, upward communication, micro manager, micro management, bill bradley, william bradley,  bradley[/tags]    

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.