Streamline Training & Documentation: Lonnie Pacelli's Tips on Managing Up

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Lonnie Pacelli's Tips on Managing Up

Lonnie Pacelli, president of Leading on the Edge International, has put together a good list of thirteen do's and don'ts for managing up. You can read his full list, complete with folksy explanations, here, but I'd like to call attention to these items:

First, and foremost, understand your boss. For instance, communicate in the way your boss prefers. When is face-to-face communication best? When does he/she prefer e-mail? How about phone conversations? Adapt your style to the boss's style. For example, avoid doing things that are your boss's pet peeves.

As far as possible, handle problem-solving yourself, rather than dumping problems on your boss. A classic article on this point is "Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?", by William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass (Harvard Business Review, 1974). Enlist your boss's help when his/her experience and/or influence is needed for solving a problem.

Be specific about what you need in the way of resources, and explain why, detailing benefits relative to costs.

Embrace integrity. Since trust is enormously important and valuable, and hard to regain once lost, respond honestly to questions from your boss. (Tact is a plus.) Show your boss that you can be counted on to intelligently follow company policies and procedures.

Keep your commitments. If something you've agreed to is looking undoable in the agreed time frame, talk with your boss about priorities and what sort of rescheduling may be feasible.

Present options. Pacelli: "Some of the best decision making meetings I've been in with my bosses have been where we had meaningful dialogue around two or three viable options to resolving a tough problem. My job in the process was to frame up the options, provide facts to support each option, and provide a recommendation. Sometimes the recommendation was taken, sometimes not; the most important thing was that a good decision was made because there was good informed discussion."

Make your boss look good. This is part of the relationship of trust that you need to maintain.

Avoid surprises. It's one thing to take responsibility for solving problems yourself. It's another thing to see a problem emerging and neglect to give your boss a heads-up so he or she can decide on any intervention while the scope of the problem is relatively contained.

Admit mistakes. A reasonable boss knows that mistakes happen, especially when an employee is doing something new, working under unusual time pressure, or dealing with ambiguous circumstances. When you make a mistake, acknowledge it, discuss with your boss the best way to correct the situation, and think carefully about the lessons you can draw from the experience.

I recognize that the above tips assume that you and your boss have a basically healthy relationship. If such is not the case, then mutual efforts to build a productive working relationship are in order, a topic I'll save for another day.

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Labels: Upward influence

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