TWO

Defining “Managing Up”

“Managing up” has become a trendy buzzphrase in the business lexicon. Certainly, we all understand the concept of traditional top-down management, but what exactly is managing up?

Yes, most managers are far from the perfect ideal and more likely flawed (possibly struggling in one way or another), so let’s explore what that may look like in the workplace. Along with their strengths and advantages, they also often possess certain disadvantages or weaknesses either due to their own personal failings or due to inherent disadvantages of holding a more senior-level position. Sometimes leaders can become handicapped somewhat by their ivory tower position. They may not be as close to the customer or have their ear to the ground in terms of what staff really think. They may not understand which processes are truly broken or have an accurate sense of customer trends. They may also have their own developmental weaknesses or shortfalls and be so swamped with broader responsibilities that they don’t have the bandwidth to pore over the details before every decision. Like anyone else, they sometimes don’t know what they don’t know (unconscious incompetence), so they can have huge blind spots even when their intentions are honorable. For teams to operate at maximum performance levels, oftentimes it’s not just important for managers to manage (down), it’s also important for staff to continuously manage up if the team is to yield optimum success.

Not surprisingly, a whopping 84 percent of the survey respondents affirmed that managing up is an important skill set for success in most organizations. While 9 percent of respondents were neutral on this question, I suspect that the remaining 7 percent who didn’t agree with the statement may misunderstand what managing up really is or haven’t been exposed to the powerful techniques that can help virtually anyone increase their success in the workplace.

“MANAGING UP” DEFINED

When I’m asked to define “managing up,” this is my personal formal working definition:

Managing up: A subordinate customizing their work style/behaviors to better suit their manager and taking steps to make their manager’s job easier in an attempt to optimize success for all.

Simply put, in my view managing up is about taking things off your boss’s plate and making their job easier. Depending on your specific boss and work situation, that can entail different behaviors and skills.

Managing Up Feedback from the Trenches

The survey feedback certainly confirmed that it’s not uncommon for the term “managing up” to be either foreign or misunderstood. Some respondents indicated that they weren’t familiar with the term, while others seemed to buy into some common managing up myths. In particular, some respondents indicated a belief that managing up equates to brown-nosing or trying to control your boss. Another mistake is assuming that managing up is only relevant for difficult bosses. We’ve mentioned already that nothing could be further from the truth. I like to say that managing up is just like exercise. It may become more of a necessity if you’re in poor health or overweight but it’s absolutely beneficial for everyone. Thankfully, the vast majority of respondents fully appreciated and understood the true meaning of managing up and provided valuable insights based on their personal experience with managing up. Here are some sample comments:

• “I think in every situation (peer or manager), we have to tailor our approach in working with them. Customizing our style/behavior to better suit the manager (as long as it is not violating company or personal values) can make life a whole lot easier in the long run. Focusing on the team’s success is good for everyone—even if the manager is a clueless fool.”

• “I think this is true even with a good boss.”

• “I do remember a boss telling me to manage up more early in my career, but not explaining what that meant to him was not helpful.”

• “Managing up is as important as managing down. Probably more so.”

• “It should be in every business school. A dedicated course in handling difficult people.”

• “I learned early to keep my boss’s boss off his ass. Anything I can do to make his job easier is appreciated. Even when he is incompetent.”

• “The times that I’ve experienced the most discord and dissatisfaction at a job are mostly related to the times when I did not manage up in my role and responsibilities.”

• “I think everyone should try to learn this skill, regardless of what kind of boss they have. It’s necessary for success nowadays.”

• “I wish that I had learned this early in my career. But these are not skills that are taught in school. You need to be mentored early in your career to learn how to navigate these personalities in power.”

• “Sometimes it’s the only way to keep your sanity and a way to control meeting the expected goals.

• “(1) Do not kiss up or be a yes-man/woman. Know the difference between this and being genuinely agreeable. (2) Strive to understand what their root motivators are—in other words, what they care about.”

• “I regularly ‘manage’ my current boss (she is not difficult at all), simply by anticipating her needs, schedule, and projected stress/pressure level. I know what projects, client meetings, and deadlines she has, and adjust my schedule to complete work well in advance of when she needs it. I also look at her calendar to see when she’s most busy, and give her suggestions on ways I could help ease her workload during those times.”

• “We cannot change anyone, but we can make a difference certainly while we are with them and spark or inspire one to choose to think, act, and behave more effectively within the organization.”

• “Managing up is a critical skill and has benefited me more in my career than traditional management of employees. It’s not taught enough in the work force, but it is a great concept.”

What Does Managing Up Look Like?

Managing up may require different behaviors or actions depending on the situation; however, employees who actively manage up are typically those who will:

• Anticipate problems and actively work to prevent them

• Actively work to make their boss’s job easier by being exceptionally reliable and productive

• Adjust their work and communication style/approach to better fit their manager’s preferences

• Be particularly flexible and willing to take on the “dog” projects that no one wants

• Speak truth to power when necessary; be the one willing to tell the boss the ugly truth when others won’t

• Learn to navigate prickly or difficult boss personalities to achieve optimal results for the task, team, or project

Survey respondents shared their favorite managing up techniques (a few provided some welcome comic relief as well). While admittedly some of these approaches may or may not work in your environment, it’s helpful to review general techniques used in the trenches.

Sample Survey Respondent Managing Up Techniques

• “Bring allies to meetings and bring as many options to the table as you can.”

• “Therapy and medication.”

• “Most effective practice has been to focus on understanding their perspective and needs before trying to negotiate workload, tasks, etc.”

• “Understand your boss’s communication style and use it, even if you don’t like it. When you communicate effectively much of the conflict is eliminated.”

• “Find a positive characteristic of that manager and share it with others.”

• “For a leader who consistently misses deadlines, putting items like Please Review and Action Requested in the subject line of the email. Putting my requests in bold and in the first line of the email. Giving due dates. Following up in-person meetings with written recaps of action steps.”

• “You have to get to know your boss and what motivates them. You also have to know what your boss expects and how to provide them with what they need to make sound decisions.”

• “Understand what is driving the leader’s fear, and where possible, be proactive, such as scheduling meetings to prep the boss before monthly meetings with his/her senior management.”

• “Clarify to him how you understand what the job is and get a verbal consent. Then type a summary email for the record—this is the key.”

• “Have 1:1 discussions early in the day or late in the day when it’s less busy and there are fewer distractions.”

• “Always come to a meeting with two or more options for any discussion topic.”

• “Plant ideas that are better than theirs and convince them that they thought of it.”

• “I expect my boss to dominate the conversation and go off on tangents during the course of the discussion. I tailor my initial statements/questions so that I get my needed response first, then let her go off on whatever tangent she wants.”

• “Do not confront your boss! Try to understand what they are doing, and be the one who helps them achieve that goal. Do not be a problem that your boss has to deal with, that just makes you both miserable, and if it goes on for a long time you put yourself at risk.”

• “With Chameleons, I’ve set expectations early and written them down, much like a mini project management plan—and I ask for clarity on why they’d like X done this way. When they change their mind on X, I pull out the plan and ask them what circumstances have changed to make this change a desired course of action.”

• “I had a boss that had no clue what was going on. Instead of undermining him, I used to brief him before client meetings so he wouldn’t make a fool of himself and also the project team. Over time he trusted me and gave me the authority to run the job, provided I wouldn’t go over his head.”

• “Ask early and often what is the most important thing I should be working on. Understand what keeps them up at night.”

• “Empathy—try to understand why they behave that way, put myself in their shoes.”

• “Documenting everything I was told to do/not to do, then later referred back to that when Mr. Anger Management contradicted himself. Learn to modify my facial expressions to be devoid of any reaction or feelings at all.”

• “One boss I had would suggest wildly improbable initiatives and expect me to implement them. He didn’t have a very long attention span, so I would do nothing for a while and frequently he’d forget the idea.”

• “For my boss who was always changing direction and often denied giving the direction being pursued, I would repeat back assignments: ‘Great! Just so I’m clear, you’d like me to X by Y.’ And then I would follow up with same in email.”

• “I have often said, ‘I don’t suppose it would work if we …’ or ‘I suppose you have already thought of …’ for the boss who needed everything to be his idea. At another employer, I instructed the graphic designer to save every draft of a project, because inevitably the senior manager would make enough changes for the first iteration to meet all the requirements. (When the project, of course, was overdue and over budget!)”

• “I would take half-baked ideas, brainstorm ways to make them better with a few options, then present them back to the boss.”

• “With the MIA boss, I’ve worked with him to agree on a set of cues that let him know when I need him to respond.”

• “One technique is to overachieve to build confidence. I used this technique so my boss would feel confident and let me manage things more autonomously.”

• “Use ‘we’ sentences—letting them know you’re on their side helps them relax when they’re too stressed.”

• “Offer to take work off their plate, or just do the work and not make a big deal of it.”

• “Know their goals and interests. Forge a relationship based on their interests (i.e., kids, sports, travel) and talk about all of your work based on how it will help them achieve their goals (i.e., ‘This will help you complete …’ ‘This will check the box on X initiative …’).”

• “Looking ahead on projects and having the answers before an emergency breaks out.”

For me, hearing what techniques or approaches others have effectively used to manage up in general and manage difficult bosses in particular is so helpful. A few respondents admitted they hadn’t found any techniques that worked or ultimately chose to leave their job or move to a different organization out of a sense of frustration, and that’s helpful feedback as well. There is no one size fits all solution! What worked for one person in their situation with their boss may be ill advised for your situation with your boss, but the great news is that there are lots of effective techniques for you to add to your toolbox to help increase your chances of success. Managing up isn’t easy, but it’s absolutely important and effective. Most employees don’t take the time to actively manage up, so the ones who do truly stand out from the crowd. The good news for you is that you picked up a book that is full of specific techniques to help you learn to manage up whether you’ve got a great boss or a nightmare. So stay tuned, but let’s first pause to consider what you shouldn’t do.

WHAT MANAGING UP ISN’T

Obviously, managing up can have a tremendous impact on business results when done effectively, but it can also have a negative effect when executed poorly. The key to managing up the right way is avoiding a few classic managing up mistakes.

When Managing Up, an Employee Should NOT …

• Try to take over. Employees must recognize that managing up isn’t taking over. Instead, they should always respect their manager’s legitimate authority. Managing up doesn’t mean swapping roles or telling your manager what to do. Instead, it’s about seeing your manager’s preferences and/or weaknesses and making adjustments or helpful suggestions to improve the likelihood of success.

• Regularly offer unsolicited advice. Regularly offering unsolicited advice could be construed as lecturing your boss (which generally doesn’t go over well). Instead, ask them if they’d like feedback on a particular issue or wait until asked. An alternative to offering unsolicited advice could be asking strategic questions instead. For example, if you think the project should not use a particular vendor, your thought bubble might be “Dude, are you crazy? We’ll never make our due date if we use Vendor X. They’re notoriously late!” Out loud, you might say, “Mike, I can definitely give them a call and get the ball rolling, but before I call I just wanted to check to see how much buffer time we have with our due date. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Vendor X has been late shipping product at least three times this year, and I want to be sure you’re comfortable with the fact that there could be delays if they continue that trend. I wouldn’t want you to be blindsided. What do you think?” The latter approach respects the boss’s authority as the decision maker but provides him with the additional information he might need to make a more informed decision.

• Focus on the boss’s weaknesses or personality quirks. Understanding your manager’s vulnerability areas or quirks is really important, but obsessing on them can be not only futile but counterproductive as well. The reality is that you’re not their therapist or parent, so stay in your lane! Focus instead on the task or goal at hand. For example, if your boss is unorganized, model the desired behavior by offering to develop a structured plan instead of calling them out on their chaotic approach. No one likes someone else focusing on their weaknesses, and your boss is no different.

• Use the same approach with everyone. A key element of managing up is learning to customize your behavior to best fit your manager’s preferences. This might mean opting for early morning meetings with your boss if you know that’s their preference or stifling your natural temptation to chitchat about the weekend for the first few minutes of a meeting if you know that they have more of a BLUF (bottom line up front) personality. Customizing your approach enables you to maximize success with everyone even though you may have drastically different preferences.

MANAGING UP APPROACHES THAT DON’T WORK

Before we launch into a laundry list of recommended techniques for managing up, let me comment on a few flawed philosophies and approaches that can be prevalent. One huge mistake that I see team members make when they’re faced with a difficult boss, senior leader, or client is that their initial visceral reaction is to rely exclusively on their personality or powers of persuasion. This book is full of specific techniques because personality alone typically doesn’t work.

Another mistake many make is that they interpret their boss’s disposition as a personal affront and obsess on being liked more than being effective (How can I make Mike happy? How can I get Mike to like me?) Although “getting along” (personality harmony) seems like a logical goal, it’s really the wrong ultimate objective. Although being liked can be a critical means to an end, the ultimate goal isn’t to find yourselves binge watching reality television after work, braiding each other’s hair on the weekends, or planning play dates for your kids—that’s known as friendship. It’s great to develop friends in the workplace, but the goal here is not just building relationships for the sake of being liked, but instead finding ways to move past personality differences to get on the same page, advance the task or project, and ultimately achieve the desired results. Let me be clear: building relationships in the workplace can be absolutely critical (more on that to come), but it’s a mistake to think that the best way to manage a difficult boss is to focus exclusively on getting them to like you or become best buddies. On the contrary, my training and work experience as a project manager has provided me with some of the best techniques to enhance business results whether personalities are jelling or not. Indeed, on a daily basis project managers have to comb the spaghetti of differing stakeholder personalities and interests (often without the benefit of hierarchical power). The great news is that these techniques are ones that everyone can use!