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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL Executive Career Site
Reach Your Career Goals By Managing Your Boss By Teri Fisher, President of Insight Strategies Inc.
Are you having trouble getting your manager to buy into your ideas? You can't put your finger on the problem. All you know is you're not getting credit for what you do right and you're being overlooked for plum assignments.
If this scenario sounds familiar, the problem may be your inability to communicate with your boss on his or her terms. This is what's known as a failure to "manage up."
Managing up is strategically working with the style and goals of another, blending them with your styles and goals to achieve results and accomplish your career objectives. In other words, you need to speak the same language and to focus on the factors that matter to the person you want to influence.
This is essential to career success regardless of your position in a company. No matter how high up the ladder you are, at some point, you'll come across a boss or client who's difficult to relate to or influence.
Clashing With the General Manager
A senior manager with 20 years at aCalifornia transportation company was knowledgeable about his industry and had a strong relationship with the company's former general manager. When the new GM came in, things took a turn for the worse. The executive struggled to communicate with his new boss and gain acceptance for his ideas. His career at the company began to flounder, and he feared losing his job. The problem was that the two executives had opposite management styles. The GM had a visionary/creative style, while the manager had a logic-based style. As a visionary/creative, the GM valued exchanging creative ideas, brainstorming, discussing the big picture, exploring all possibilities, seeing things in shades of gray, focusing on the goal, moving quickly on action items and being No. 1. When listening to presentations, he disliked getting mired in the nitty-gritty details. He wanted the top and bottom line, without long explanations about how the concept would be implemented. Subordinates also needed to frame ideas in positive terms. To visionary/creatives, the phrase "it can't be done" doesn't exist. The manager's logic-based style was totally different. He preferred lots of data and to focus on process, methodically and carefully drilling down into problems, seeing things in black-and-white, right-and-wrong terms. When he heard ideas, he'd ask "who," "what," "why," "where," "when" and "how" because of his desire for more information. To ensure he had grasped a concept, he'd play devil's advocate to explore what might not work. It's easy to see how the two managers would have trouble connecting. To save his job, the manager needed to define and understand his GM's style against his own. He sought help from a management trainer. They developed a game plan to help him package and communicate his ideas and tap into goals that were more aligned with the GM's visionary/creative style.
To gain the GM's support, he learned to express himself using "headline" and "bullet point" statements rather than detailed analyses and to always offer a solution when discussing a problem. He worked on his tone of voice so he appeared more assured and confident, and he got his "devil's advocate" to take a hike. Since the GM's style is conversational, the manager also started making small talk about non-business issues before launching into business problems.
Leverage the Plusses
You may be thinking, "Isn't this just selling out?" Actually, by managing up, you're being strategic. Each style has benefits and drawbacks. The trick is seeing and leveraging the benefits by speaking the local language, and mitigating the drawbacks by reserving judgment about a particular style. Other management styles include ego/driven, action/doer, relationship and detail/perfection. Everyone uses a combination of these styles, but typically relies mainly on one or two of them, so it helps to know their characteristics. "[Managing up] sounds simple, but managers, and everyone else, need to learn this basic concept," says Richard L. Knowdell, author of "Building a Career Development Program: Nine Steps for Effective Implementation," (Davies Black, 1996). f we want someone to understand what we have to say, we must learn to speak their language, rather than to expect them to learn ours."
These additional tips can help you to manage up effectively:
1. Don't expect your boss to change.
You may have fantasized about getting your boss to change. You can influence how you're coached or managed, but strategizing about how to get your boss to change is futile. You have control only over yourself, your behavior and how you're perceived. Managing up is about how you can act and communicate to achieve your goals.
2. Include your manager's goals when presenting ideas.
Start by knowing the types of goals to pay attention to. To a manager, these include any ideas or actions that improve the bottom line or profits. When you present a new idea, always show how it will either save or make money for the company. Also ask yourself, "How will my idea benefit my manager, the team, the organization and/or the customer?" and "How will my idea support the strategic vision of the company?" Next, determine what else matters to your manager, whether it's customer satisfaction, quality, continuous improvement, professional development for staff, on-time delivery, or personally moving up the corporate ladder, and speak to those issues.
3. Be aware of your manager's "hot buttons."
What are your manager's "hot buttons" or "pet peeves"? Is it being late to meetings, incorrect spelling and grammar, swearing, or not contributing at meetings? Consider them land mines. If you don't learn to recognize them, you'll commit career suicide without knowing it.
4. Don't get blindsided. Solicit feedback often.
Feedback can be a gift if you can learn from it. The transportation manager sought the GM's feedback every few weeks on how he was doing. Luckily, the GM had no problem providing it. He saw noticeable improvement. By seeking feedback and becoming effective at managing up, the manager kept his job and learned to adapt to other styles as well. During her five years with a small credit-screening company in Seattle, an upper-level manager gained the respect of her bosses and increased amounts of responsibility. She was asked to run a newly created department. Under her management, its revenues fueled the company's growth for the next two years. Her staff grew to 15 from two employees. One day, the president called her in to tell her about feedback he had received about her from department employees. They had told him she behaved like a "dictator." The manager was devastated. She thought she was well-respected and had performed well. This feedback came as a blow. Granted, her boss could have described her behavior instead of labeling her personally. But since the manager now sought advice, the focus remained on her. An outside consultant recommended that she have a heart-to-heart talk with her team about the issues, listen to how they viewed her and then take action. Her employees told the manager that her tone of voice was harsh and she tended to "tell" them to do things instead of asking. She learned to moderate her voice and make requests instead of giving orders.
The manager also asked that employees come to her directly with their concerns. She's now in charge of a new department.
5. Manage up in client relationships.
Managing up also is relevant with clients. Recently, a training firm was hoping to win a company CEO as a prospective client. The CEO's style was visionary/creative with a strong splash of brash humor. During the contract negotiations, the training consultants kept reinforcing how they could help him achieve his vision for the company. They also bantered with him and even included a few irreverent comments in the proposal. They got the project for their ability to provide high-quality training and their willingness to relate to him on his terms.
6. Increase your visibility within the organization.
Executives sometimes rebel against this concept. They say, "What if I get a reputation as a toady or a bragger?" But if you aren't comfortable showcasing your strengths and accomplishments, why should you expect anybody else to be? Your actions to gain visibility are like product marketing. When you go to the grocery store, there are thousands of products to buy. When quality differences are minimal, we often select items that have been marketed effectively. One could argue the same goes for professionals vying to advance within an organization. Kathie Sinor, manager of leadership and teams for Sun University at Sun Microsystems Inc., knew that gaining visibility among managers in other departments was critical to her success at Sun and would help her to do her job better. Working on team assignments helped her gain the exposure she needed throughout the company and with her manager. For instance, she put extra emphasis on a team assignment for an Asia-Pacific conference and "scored big points when the event was successful," she says. If you feel under appreciated during performance reviews, you may need to boost your visibility. Just like products at the store, you have seconds to make an impression. Make it easy for your boss to appreciate you and buy what you're offering.
7. Manage up and down
Some managers either pay attention to managing only their direct reports or their own bosses. You may be thinking, "It's those pesky folks who only manage up who can give managing up a less-than-wonderful reputation." Successful managers pay attention to all directions. If you only manage down, you can't advocate for your team and gain buy-ins for its endeavors. If you only manage up, your subordinates will assume you don't care about them and withhold their respect.
To manage up, you don't have to downplay your knowledge, skills and ability to get results. Instead, you can integrate your approach with your manager's to secure short- and long-term career success. This isn't selling out. It's strategic.
Recognize Your Boss's Management Style
To effectively manage up, you'll need to recognize your boss's style and adapt to it. There are six basic management styles. We tend to incorporate parts of all of them into our own unique management style, but usually one or two are dominant. Here's a description of each and what appeals to those who personify them:
Logic: A logic-based manager prefers detailed analyses and facts about an initiative. With this type of boss, be able to answer tough questions and explain processes and methodology.
Visionary/creative: Visionary/creative-based managers prefer top- and bottom-line discussions. Keep them engaged through discussion, questions and brainstorming versus an information dump. "It can't be done" isn't in their vocabulary. Therefore, present ideas with an emphasis on the positives.
Relationship: A relationship-based manager values connection and collaboration. Be willing to discuss life beyond work. Before presenting an idea, be prepared to discuss how implementing it will affect the team.
Ego: Ego-based managers tend to be very driven and competitive. Any idea that will showcase or contribute to their personal or the team's successes will be valued. Understand that they often modify what's been presented due to a need to put their stamp on things. Don't take it personally. Also, they smell fear, so present with confidence.
Action/doer-based: Action/doer-based managers are task-focused. They can accomplish more than anybody around them. Everything is an "A" priority for this style. Therefore, in order to manage their expectations of you, push back diplomatically by asking them to prioritize their "top five must do's" with agreed-upon and realistic timelines.
Detail/perfection: A detail/perfection based manager values getting things done right and of the highest quality possible. Therefore, repeated drafts and "do-overs" aren't uncommon requests. They make great editors. Before presenting an idea, run it by someone else with an eye for detail. This manager's critical eye can sometimes be difficult to deal with, so understand it comes from a need for perfection and quality and isn't usually personal.
-- Ms. Fisher is president and chief executive officer of Insight Strategies Inc., a Redondo Beach, Calif.-based management-consulting firm specializing in career development, leadership
This email was provided by:
Insight Strategies, Inc.
2615 West 190th Street,Suite #241
Redondo Beach, CA 90278
Phone: 310-316-9263
www.insightstrategies.com
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