Then, two days before the wedding, my boss the
managing editor had an epiphany right there in the middle of the newsroom. He
announced that such an important occasion certainly called for more than an
extra day off or two. On the spot, I was granted a full week for a honeymoon .
. . too late to do much planning for use of the generous gift.
A little later, a similar act of largesse
marked the birth of our first child: I got a raise. Nothing to do with the
value of my work. Just the man showing kindness to the kid who now would need a
few more bucks.
It may or may not come as a surprise, but
a somewhat bumpy tenure at that place ended very badly for me after a few
years.
That manager was acting on a philosophy
that was flawed and destructive. Days off and pay increases are not acts of
generosity.
And
the boss is not my buddy. Not my Mommy either, not my Daddy.
That’s obvious, at least for most of
us. What’s not so obvious is why so many
of us seem to respond in the workplace with expectations – and resentments –
similar to those we have for our friends and family.
We can be bitterly resentful of the
manager who won’t listen, who unfairly favors someone else on the staff, who takes
us for granted. There’s nothing we can do because he/she is The Boss.
You
know, if I was supposed to be grateful to the boss for the wedding and
childbirth gifts, I failed in that responsibility. And, as the relationship
developed, I learned that decisions and acts of discipline could be extremely
unpredictable, and often personal and vindictive. You couldn’t trust the man.
Adding to the syndrome, a coterie of cowed
senior staff members eventually formed a compliant, silent chorus that could be
gathered on short notice to line the back of the room when someone was to be
summoned for kangaroo proceedings.
That
was my introduction to dysfunction in the workplace, and I have only once personally
experienced or witnessed anything quite so extreme in the ensuing decades. But,
as a consultant, I catch glimpses of familiar facial expressions, hear stories
and see evidence. It’s there to some extent, maybe in more organizations than
not.
When I was subject to the management
practices described above, I didn’t do enough of the right kind of thinking.
Well, I didn’t refuse the honeymoon days
all those years ago. And I didn’t turn down the birth-of-the-baby raise. Should
I have? No. If you work there, you play by the rules they have there.
On the other hand, should I have
understood that what is freely given can be easily withdrawn? Sure, but I just
gave a mental shrug, took the gifts and moved on. Mature reflection would have
told me that a place managed by personal whim is no place for an idealistic
young professional.
I wasted too many years in that operation.
Each
manager has his/her own way of doing business, and there is an infinite
variety of combination goods and not-so-goods in management styles.
In a previous post, I urged the thoughtful
person, regardless of position, to be alert and thoughtful to just exactly how
a particular manager can be expected to behave. (“A Project: Rating Managers” http://jimmillikenproject.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-project-rating-managers.html.)
So what do you do about it?
Well, just as good managers should get to
know each of their staff people, and should tailor the relationship to account
for the person’s professional and personal characteristics, so should everyone
get to know his/her boss thoroughly.
You want to know expectations and
communication style, of course. What does she/he want from me, what is the best
way for me to respond, offer ideas, solve problems?
Beyond those working matters of
communication, though, you want to know what makes this person tick. You want
to understand the values, goals, interests that underlie behavior in the
workplace.
I
read once about a couple of people who worked for a real bear of a boss.
The man was a tyrant, capable of great anger and real cruelty in treatment of
people when he was displeased. Everybody in the place quaked at the sight of
him, and did everything they could to stay out of his way.
These two guys decided they were going to
take assertive action in their own behalf. They studied how the difficult
manager functioned in various situations. They decided that the root problem
was the man’s fear of mistakes, of looking bad to his own peers and superiors.
He was too insecure to trust his people to
not embarrass him, and his overreaction was aggravated further by their furtive
actions when he was around, and their occasional outbursts when he admonished
them.
The two who wanted to succeed in this
situation came up with a strategy. Their goal would be to reassure their boss,
in effect taking the opposite end of the relationship we usually expect. We
want our manager to be the one going beyond halfway in supportive behavior.
So
they disciplined themselves to suppress their feelings when they were unfairly
criticized, nodded pleasantly and uttered positive sounds as they were being
lectured. They made it their business to turn in results that exactly met
directives, however better their own ideas might have been.
Without
overdoing it, they made sure to always act in pleasant and respectful ways
around the boss. No matter how irritating and/or pompous he might be on
occasion.
It worked.
Gradually, the insecure boss came to trust
them. He wasn’t stupid, and he knew he wasn’t doing a terribly good job. He
sought their advice more and more often, and quite frequently followed it. Of
course, he took credit for all their good ideas, but they had expected that.
While their colleagues looked askance at
the undeserved respect they were displaying toward this incompetent, everybody
was pleased as the heat eased up on them.
The two presumably went on to successful
careers, using their sophisticated understanding and skills to outperform
everybody else.
They understood. You don’t look to the
boss to take care of you. You don’t have to love the person. You get clear on
what you want, what it will take to get it, here and with these people. You
decide whether you want to pay the price. If you do, you go in all the way. If
you don’t, you’re on your way.
This is not friendship and it’s not
family. It’s business. The boss, warts and all, is a partner. It’s your career,
and you’re the manager of that project.
Sometimes I wish I’d been that perceptive
at their age. I may actually be working for those two guys right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment