Category Archives: Reframe

April 27, 2012 · 10:20 am

Dealing with A**holes

For some reason I’ve talked to a lot of people in the last couple of weeks who were having problems with people in their lives—mostly at work.  The problem when you have to deal with people who are difficult is that you have to keep dealing with them.  It is the rare workplace that offers the perk of being able to trade out your coworkers on a whim.  So how do you deal with the jerks?

It’s a Relationship

First of all, hard as it is, you’ve got to stop blaming the other person (EVEN IF IT IS ALL HIS FAULT).  You can’t make real progress at making the situation better if you think it is all the other person’s fault.  It is a relationship.  A relationship by definition is between (at least) two people.   If you are one of those people, you can do things that will affect the interactions between the two of you.   As long as you are in the frame of mind that it is entirely the other person, you are unlikely to be open to trying some of the things that I suggest.   A good book on the subject is Barry Duncan and Joe Rock’s  Overcoming Relationship Impasses.  Duncan and Rock’s premise is that if you stop reacting in the same pattern to the same situation, you will disrupt the normal interactions and allow a new interaction/reaction to happen that can make things better.  For example, when the person starts once again with  the list of all the things you do wrong, if, instead of defending, you say something like, “you’re right, it must be difficult to deal with someone who you think can’t do anything right,” the other person has no place to go next. He shuts up or says something like, “I don’t think you do EVERYTHING wrong.”

The Relationship is Half You

Ask yourself what you are doing to contribute to what is wrong with the relationship.  What are you doing to improve the relationship?  Before you get all exasperated with me (because it is all the other person’s fault), remember that you only have one tool to make this better—your behavior.  You can’t directly control the other person’s thoughts or behaviors, so you can only use your own behavior to make a change.  You are the instrument of change here.   

Why Does This Person Drive You Crazy?

So, let’s start with trying to figure out with why this person drives you so batty.  Ok, yeah, I know he’s an a**hole, but I know that you’ve dealt with other a**holes in your life.  What is it about this one that is so bad?

  1. Who does this person remind you of?  Your brother?  Your father?  Your ex?
  2. Which of this person’s behaviors is so bad?  His micro-managing?  His criticism?  His inability to make a decision?
  3. Is there a time or a place that is worse?  In meetings?  In one-on-ones? When so-and-so is present?
  4. Are there things that happen first, before you get the urge to run screaming from the room?

If you look at the answers to these questions, can you see anything that you can change to reduce the angst that you encounter in dealing with this person?  Can you not have one-on-one meetings? Can you not have meetings that include the person who makes it worse?  Can you talk yourself out of the insight that this person is just like your big brother who made your life a living hell for eleven years?  What change(s) can you make, either to the circumstances of spending time with this person or to your thinking that makes this person easier to deal with?

Why Do You Drive Him Nuts?

Let’s look at it the other way.  What is it about you that drives him nuts?  Can you spot a specific situation that seems to make it worse for him?  Do you remind him of someone?  Can you spot a particular behavior of yours that seems to set things off?  Can you do something to change any of this?

What is he trying to accomplish?  There is a great book, Dealing with People You Can’t Stand, by Brinkman and Kirschner,  that describes common difficult people as

  1. The Tank (pushy, ruthless, loud and forceful)
  2. The Sniper (identifies your weaknesses and uses them against you)
  3. The Know-It-All (knows 98% of anything)
  4. The Grenade (when they blow their top, shrapnel hits everyone in range)
  5. The Yes Person (quick to agree, slow to deliver)
  6. The Maybe Person (keep putting off crucial decisions until it’s too late)
  7. The Nothing Person (no verbal feedback)
  8. The No Person (doleful and discouraging)
  9. The Whiner (there’s a plan for their lives and they’re not in it)

Recognize your a**hole in any of these? Each of these types of people is trying to accomplish something with their behavior.  In other words, there is a REASON they are the way they are.  The authors say that this is what these types are trying to accomplish:

  1. GET IT DONE:  The Tank, The Sniper, and The Know-It-All
  2. GET APPRECIATED:  The Grenade, Sniper, The Know-It-All
  3. GET ALONG: The Yes Person, The Maybe Person, The Nothing Person
  4. DO IT RIGHT: The No Person, The Whiner, The Nothing Person

(for quick description of this, see http://www.rickbrinkman.com/dealingwithpeople/ftp/dr_brinkman-color-lens.pdf )

If you help them with what they’re trying to accomplish, then they don’t have to use so much of their “difficult behaviors” to accomplish it.  I know that this is hard to do.  If it were easy, then none of us would experience the “a**hole people in our lives.  Just because they are there, though, doesn’t mean that YOU can’t deal with them.

REFRAME

Finally, use my most reliable tactic—reframe the situation.  Figure out a way to “see” the a**hole in a different way that allows you to interact differently with him.  He’s a customer, or she’s someone’s grandmother, or he’s an alien. The effort that it takes to deal with these folks can help distract you from the difficulty.   Whatever it takes.

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April 19, 2012 · 11:04 pm

My Boss Doesn’t Listen to Me!

What Language Are You Speaking?

My first question to you is– Are you speaking your boss’ language?  And, I’m sure your answer is, “Of Course!”  But are you really?  One of the most important tools that I use to help people understand this problem is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.  The Myers Briggs is a tool that enables great conversations about your personality and the personalities of others.  It is one of many tools that can facilitate these conversations and investigations..  I like it best because of the research behind it, but it doesn’t matter if you use this tool.  Just look at your own personality/behaviors/interactions through the lens of a tool that helps you evaluate yourself in the context of interactions with others.

Anyway, Myers Briggs divides people into 16 different types using four dichotomies:

  • Extroversion(E)————————————Introversion(I)
  • Sensing(S)——————————————–Intuition (N)
  • Thinking(T)——————————————Feeling(F)
  • Judging(J)——————————————–Perceiving(P)

Myers Briggs assigns personality types based on these dichotomies. I am not going to go into Myers Briggs in detail here. Check it out on the Internet. Or pick a different tool, such as DISC, to apply what I’m saying here. The point is, a ESTJ (Extrovert/Sensing/Thinking/Judger) looks at the world very differently, processes information and needs to be communicated with differently than a INFP (Introvert/Intuitive/Feeling/Perceiver). The practical impact of this is that if your boss has a different type (or DISC profile) than you, then it is highly likely that the problem is not that you aren’t listening to each other. The problem is most likely that you are both sending messages out into the universe and they are falling into space without being “heard.”

What Type Are You?

For example, someone who is an MBTI “Extrovert” gets his ENERGY from interacting with people. He goes to a party and gets energized.  An MBTI “Introvert” gets her ENERGY from being alone, from reading, from spending a quiet evening at home.  An Extrovert might take a break at work and walk around and talk to people to get a second wind.  An Introvert boss might see this as an employee who is wasting her time.  A MBTI “Senser” boss needs hard cold facts to make a decision.  An “Intuitive” employee will struggle to tell the boss how she knows what she knows.  She just “knows” it.

I frequently do the exercise in class sessions where I divide the “Judgers” and “Perceivers” into separate groups and have them plan a vacation. The “Judgers” plan everything right down to when and where they are going to go buy new underwear for their vacation. The “Perceivers” are lucky if they actually come up with a destination and a mode of transportation.  Both of these are adequate plans (for the ones doing the planning) and completely deficient and faulty plans for the other group. So, if you are a “P” and you have a “J” boss, your plan is unlikely to be considered a “real” plan.  If you a “P,” the “J’s” plan is likely to be serious overkill.

These communication gaps cause more problems at work than probably anything else.  I highly recommend the book, Type Talk at Work, How the 16 Personality Types Determine Your Success on the Job, by Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen, to provide you with examples and strategies to deal with these gaps.

So, Fix It

So . . . since this is a problem on both sides–boss and subordinate–why should you step up and do something about it instead of your boss?  Of course your boss should do something about it.  I tell all the leaders that I coach that they should (and of course, they have the same problems with their bosses, too).  If your boss isn’t doing it, though, you have limited options.  You can go on failing to successfully communicate with your boss (framed as “my boss won’t listen to me), or you can work on these skills, develop the ability to successfully communicate with any boss (framed as “my boss always listens to me) and you can succeed at what you’re trying to do.

I had a boss for whom I used to prepare long, detailed (and if I do say so myself) brilliant reports that answered all his questions.  He would take them, set them aside and repeatedly ask me questions that were answered in the reports.  I finally figured out that not only was he not reading them, he also didn’t value the time that I put into preparing them AT ALL.  I started paying attention to the kinds of questions he was asking, and put together a VERY SHORT bullet  list that answered the questions.   (OK, this was a long time ago, and I’m a lot smarter now.)  He stopped being so frustrated with me and I stopped being so insulted that he was ignoring my work and we became much better boss/subordinates for each other.

Stop being so frustrated with your boss and solve the puzzle of HOW to communicate with him. (By the way, if you have an employee who won’t listen to you, re-read this post substituting the word boss with employee and save me from having to write another post:-))

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April 16, 2012 · 9:45 am

What You Believe About How the Organization Works is WRONG

If you are the CEO-Founder of the organization, nothing I’m going to say applies to you.  If you are anyone else, it probably does.  We all have beliefs about how organizations work.  For the most part, at least some of these beliefs are myths.

organization mythsSome Typical Myths:

  • If you work hard, you will be rewarded.
  • Organizations are meritocracies.
  • Leaders Are Heroes.
  • The more hours you put in, the more you will be rewarded.
  • Organizations are families.
  • This organization is better (than all others).
  • I have unlimited potential.
  • The organization will recognize what I do.
  • I am irreplaceable.
  • If I just do a good job, I can ignore organizational politics.
  • Younger employees have more potential than older employees.
  • Older employees are more wise than younger employees.
  • If I work hard enough and do a good job, my career will take care of itself.

But, you say, (some of) “these are true!”  Or, “I don’t believe any of those.”  That’s the thing about myths–they exist as myths or truths in the eye of the beholder.  And they are powerful enough to control your behavior, if not your life.  A myth is only a myth if it isn’t reality.  (Yeah, I know–what the heck did that mean?)

Whose Reality Is It?

I started this post with the statement that if you are the CEO-Founder this doesn’t apply to you.  If you are the CEO-Founder of your organization, then your beliefs are the reality of the organization.  Everyone else’s beliefs are the myths.  Of course everyone has some beliefs that are true (and therefore reality), such as if  ‘I get to work on time, I won’t get in trouble for being late’.  Hmm, even this is not “true” in some organizations.  I used to work in an organization where the official start time was 8am, but the expected start time was more like 7am.  Why?  Because that is what leadership thought was indicative of a motivated, productive, successful workforce.  It is critically important to understand what the top of your organization believes about how organizations work, and how that is different from what you believe.

We come to our beliefs about how things work through a circuitous route.  Our parents drill things into our head.  Work hard, you will be rewarded with grades. (Lesson–effort leads to reward)  Our teachers reinforce beliefs.  You can do anything you want to do. (Lesson–unlimited potential)  Our coaches add to it.  Always get the ball to Russell; whatever you do, get the ball to Kevin!  (Lesson–irreplaceability)  These lessons stick in our minds and we begin to apply them to other venues.

By the time we get to our first jobs, they are pretty much set.  As a coach, I work with people helping them understand the unwritten rules in their organizations.  The reason people struggle so much with this, is that these “rules”–the accumulated “realities” of leadership over the years–don’t match their own “rules.”  And it makes no sense.  When you put in long hours and you aren’t rewarded and appreciated for it, you get disillusioned and angry.  What you don’t understand is that the person(s) in charge believes that it is results that count and effort in and of itself is irrelevant.

Interestingly, as I have started working with more men who work in woman-run organizations, they are finding themselves with the same problem–the “rules” make no sense to them.  Why should we “talk” about it?  Let’s just DO it.  Who cares if we have a consensus?  (Not that I’m saying these “rules” apply to all female run organizations–these are examples I’ve encountered).

It Is Hard

It is REALLY hard to let go of your beliefs.  They are tightly wound with how you derive your sense of personal value.  If you find yourself angry at work a lot–angry at not being appreciated, at not being valued, at not being rewarded, you need to look deeply at how you believe things should work.  Then you need to look–really look–at evidence that it is true in your organization.  Look hard for what the organization’s leadership believes about how things work.  How is it different?  Don’t dismiss these differences.  (Remember, however, that leadership is likely to be in the same boat to some extent about their own beliefs, unless they founded the company.)

Experiment

Experiment with reframing your communications to match the beliefs of those who evaluate you.  If you think results are most important, but your boss talks about effort–communicate your results AND the effort it took to get them.  If your boss thinks she is irreplaceable, decide whether you want to frame communications in terms of that belief.  If you understand these beliefs and their impact on your work life, then it gives you more options and tools to improve your work experience and enhance your career.

. . . just sayin’

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April 13, 2012 · 12:56 am

Great Leaders and Their Paradoxes

I have always loved the concept of paradoxes.  A paradox is a self-contradictory proposition.  Paradoxes  are the embodiment of complexity.  Great leaders are full of them.

Extreme Self Confidence v. Humility:

I don’t think you can be a leader without having self-confidence.  Self-confidence and self-worth combined make up self-esteem.  I’ve seen leaders (although not great leaders)  without a good sense of self-worth, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a leader who didn’t have a realistic belief in his own ability to deal with the situation.  It is this self-confidence that inspires others to follow.

At the same time, great leaders demonstrate real humility.  Self-confidence does not preclude humility.  Since self-confidence is a realistic view of your abilities, humility is a realistic view of your limitations.    Humility is a demonstrated sense of modesty.  Humble leaders can take feedback, can admit their mistakes, and are much more respected by their followers.

Decisive v. Consensus Building:

A great leader is comfortable making decisions based on the information that is available.  Decisions are the lubrication that make organizations go.  Without decisions, things slowly grind to a halt.  Sometimes there just isn’t enough information to make a comfortable decision.  Great leaders step up and make the decisions anyway.

At the same time, great leaders have the skill and know the value of consensus building.  There are times when it is best to take the time for the group to make the decision, rather than for the leader to make the decision alone.  Great leaders know not only that is, but they also know how to do it.  They allow followers to participate in the organization decision making and get follower buy-in in the process.

Leader v. Follower:

Leaders challenge and change.  They inspire and energize.  Leaders lead.  It goes without saying that great leaders are leaders.  Leaders do not lead 100% of the time, however.  Leaders follow sometimes, too.  They follow thought leaders.  They follow their bosses and their heroes.  Sometimes, they even follow their followers.  Great leaders are as comfortable being followers as being leaders because they aren’t so into themselves that they need to lead all the time.

Detail Focused v. Big Picture:

There are tons of examples of Executives who failed because they weren’t paying attention to the details.  This does not mean that you need to be in the details all the time;  in fact, that is probably as bad as not being able to deal with details at all.  You do need to be able to dive into the details and spot the aberrations when the situation arises that demands it.  Steve Jobs was famous for his ability to crawl into the details of his products.

At least as important is the ability to see the big picture.  The big picture includes what is going on outside your organization, outside your community, and outside your industry.  You need to be able to see how things fit together and “what is wrong with this picture.”   Fred Smith saw the big picture when he came up with the idea of Federal Express.  Steve Jobs saw the big picture when he saw the need to combine extreme marketing concepts with bleeding edge technology ideas.  The ability to see the big picture can keep you going long after others would have given up.

Hands Off v Hands On:

Delegation is a very important skill for leaders.  The higher up you go the more you need to be able to delegate.  Except when you need to be hands-on.  Situational Leadership Theory by Hershey and Blanchard suggests that different leadership styles are required in different situations.  In other words, it isn’t always appropriate to delegate, even if you are at the top of the organization and have Executives reporting to you.  It isn’t appropriate to be hands-on all the time–your more experienced/senior employees will feel micro-managed.  You need to understand what your personal style is, when you should be using it and when you should be flexing your style.

The Dark Side–The Success Paradox:

Success changes us.  Those changes are mostly good.  We become more confident, more comfortable in our skins.  But we also develop blind spots.  Success robs us of the uncertainty that helps us be more sensitive to our environment.  We develop blind spots about our personal flaws.  We discount negative feedback about our interpersonal skills.  We aren’t as open to seeing organizational issues.  Most importantly, we miss the big, external-to-the-organization contextual issues–the world is changing around the organization and the organization is so busy doing what it does, that it misses it.  Think Borders with Amazon.

Great leadership requires complex responses.

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April 10, 2012 · 10:27 pm

Lead from where you are

Tops, Middles, Bottoms

Are you the same kind of leader at work that you are at home? at church? with your friends?  If you’re like most people, probably not.  Why is that?  Most people have a picture of the “power structure” at work that influences the way they behave.  This picture is remarkably the same for almost everyone.

Our picture:  The people at the “top” tell everyone what to do, the people in the “middle” try to get the people at the “bottom” to do what the “top”wants, while struggling to get the “top” be clear about what it is that they want.

Sound familiar?  There is a interactive exercise developed by Barry Oshry and documented in his book, Seeing Systems, Understanding the Mysteries of Organizational Life, in which people at all levels of the organization, when assigned to be a “top,” “middle” or “bottom,” play out this power structure role–even though they have a different role (and behave differently) in their own organization.  It’s as if you put a group of people in a room and told them all that they were 5th graders–and they started acting like it!

This  “picture” of the way things (should) work  exists in most organizations, across organization boundaries, global cultures, and all organization sizes.  The behaviors that go with these unconscious roles hold us all back.  It makes the organization slow.  If we accept these roles, it’s hard to get be excellent–organizationally or PERSONALLY.

Step Up, Step Out

LeadFfrom Where You Are

If you don’t step up and step out, if you go along with the “way they do it,” then you aren’t standing out.  People frequently err on the side of getting along and not challenging the status quo.  How does that help the organization?  How does it help your career?  (It’s easier for managers to lay off the ones who’ve never been exceptional–solid and steady doesn’t get you very far for very long any more.)

I realize that I’m saying that you should take risks.  Yep.  And it’s really hard to take risks.  Yep. So start with little risks.  Instead of waiting till someone tells you what to do, figure out what you think should happen?  If you were “king” of the company, what would you have happen?  Just figure it out.   What’s the worst thing that can happen if you did it?  What would you do if that happened.  What’s the best that could happen? Start with thinking it out.  Turn off your “going-along” thinking and be proactive about solutions.

Just Do It

There is a reason that “It’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission,” is so popular in organizations.  It’s mostly true.  My first, and for me, probably the most important, Executive, used to say over and over, “Make a decision.  It is easier to fix a bad decision than to fix the damage from not doing anything.  There are almost always several “right” decisions for every business problem–pick one and DECIDE.”  I had already heard this mantra several times in the first three months that I worked for this guy before my first one-on-one with him.  I had spent these first three months researching the details of a very serious problem and I was presenting the results of my research to him in this meeting.  Looking back, I can’t believe how naive and unaware of organizational politics I was.  My boss sent me to this meeting, fully knowing how bad it was, alone.  I was about 15 minutes into the details when he stood up, looked at me and said, “You’ve made me sick at my stomach,” and he walked out.   I was shocked.  I sat there.  I thought he was coming back.  He didn’t.  I waited probably 20 minutes and got up and left.  I didn’t know what to do.

I waited about a week.  I tried to figure out what to do.  My boss was on vacation.  I thought about the Exec’s  mantra, “Make a decision.”  This one wasn’t mine to make–it was his (or above).  But I needed to figure out how to get him to make it.  I walked into his office and asked when he wanted to finish our meeting.  He looked at me, and said, “I don’t want to, but I guess we better.”  We rescheduled and he listened to me all the way through.  At the end of the meeting, he told me to figure out how much money it would take to fix it.  When I did, he had me present to the entire Executive team and he persuaded them to fund it (it was several million dollars).  I had a leadership role in implementing the fixes–way beyond my original job.  I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have had a role in it if I hadn’t walked into his office and pushed him for another meeting.  I am sure the project would have happened eventually,  later and without me.

It was a powerful lesson.  I think if I had been in the organization longer, I would have adopted the “power structure picture,” and wouldn’t have done it.  I would have waited for my boss to do it.  Or whoever.  I wouldn’t have learned the lesson that helped shape my career.

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April 8, 2012 · 10:59 pm

Fail. Fail. Fail.

Failing Isn’t Fun.

I really, really to hate to fail.  In fact, I hate it so much that I rarely admit that I failed when I do–it’s not that I lie about it–I just don’t even admit to myself.  So why does every guru on leadership say that failing is good?  I had the opportunity to watch lots of kids this weekend–kids of all ages.  They “fail” all the time.  They try something, it doesn’t work, they try again, or they walk away and try something else.  Sometimes they get upset, sometimes they get hurt, but they pretty much pick themselves up and keep trying.  They don’t usually see it as “failure.”  They just see it as a part of living.

Imagine if they were so afraid of failure that they didn’t try.  What if they didn’t learn to walk because they would fall down.  What if they didn’t learn to read because they wouldn’t be able to figure out all the words.  The way they keep going in the face of what we adults would see as “failure” is an important lesson for us.  Some time around late elementary school or middle school, kids start to stress about failing and start to be afraid of trying.  By the time we’re adults, we’ve got that lesson well-learned.

Failure Is A Step

The flip side of failure, though, is that without it, you don’t get better.  Even if we succeed we don’t do it as well as if we fail first and try again.  If I spend my time obsessing about how I failed at something, rather than treating it like a baby treats a fall–that way didn’t work, maybe the next way will–then my forward movement becomes a loop at best.  One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas Edison, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

There are LOTS of books on the benefits of failure:  Fail Forward; Celebrating Failure, The Power of Failure, Great Failures of the Extremely Successful,  Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, to name just the ones I’ve read in the last two years.  So, I  get why failure is critical.  The problem is the way we look at it.  Failure isn’t an event.  To quote Edison again,  “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”  Failure is a step.

Try, Try, Try

So, remember the way a kid thinks: Try. Try. Try.

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April 1, 2012 · 10:12 pm

My Generation Is Best, The Other . . . Not So Much

That OTHER Generation is IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!!!!

One of my favorite team building exercises is to put people of the same generation together and have them describe the other generations.  I have them make a list of the characteristics of the other generations, the strengths and the weaknesses, what most interferes with their own ability to work with the other generations, and what they admire about the other generation.  There are frequently three different generations in the groups I work with these days.  What I enjoy so much about these exercises are:  1) how similar the feedback is across different organizations; 2) how surprised and (frequently) outraged the generations are about how others see them; and 3) how important these conversations are to changing the way these folks look at and work with each other.

The Generations

The three generations that co-exist today in most American workplaces are:

  • Millennials- born between 1984 and 2002
  • Gen X- born between 1965 and 1983
  • Babyboomers- born between 1946  and 1964

Someone born in 1946 was born to parents traumatized by both the Depression and World War II.  Someone born in 1966 was born to parents who were influenced by the Civil Rights Movement, nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War and the Sexual Revolution.  Someone born in 1986 was born to parents who were just getting used to computers, two-income families, PacMan and the beginning of CNN.  Each generation is different from the other because of the influence of their parents’ experiences, the differences in their education, and the impact of different political and technology influences.  Each generation thinks theirs is “the best.”

More important, though, each generation is trying to solve the same problems–create a home, have a meaningful life, feed and educate their kids,  make the world a better place, care for aging parents (Millennials aren’t there yet).  They believe that theirs is the correct way to do it, but they all are seeking similar goals.  The similar goals are as important a common ground as the different ways are an area of disagreement.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

The most important thing that comes out of the team building exercises that I do across generations is that each wants R.E.S.P.E.C.T. from the other.  Real, genuine respect.  Sometimes these exercises get quite heated–and it is almost always because  they feel disrespected by the other generations (not even necessarily from the ones in the room, but from other encounters.  These feelings are usually built up over years.)   Respect isn’t possible if you continue to think that your generation’s way is the best.  It is one way.  It is based on what was going on when you hit maturity.  It is not the ONLY way, though.  If you had had the same issues/experiences/challenges as another generation, then you would likely have the same priorities and opinions of how it “should” be done.

Figure out how to appreciate the strengths of the other generations’ approach.  I couldn’t do what I do if I didn’t have the Gen Ys to challenge me and the Millennials to help me with the constantly changing technology.  They need me to give them a longer perspective that is tinged with wisdom.  Although it would probably be more comfortable to be in an organization that includes only those who share the priorities and understandings that I have, it would be so BORING!

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March 27, 2012 · 10:29 pm

I Hate My Boss!

BadBoss

Unless you’re independently wealthy, you probably have to figure out how to deal with a boss you hate–at least for a while.  Pretty much everyone has this problem at some point in their career.  The good news is that you can and will learn more from a bad boss than from a good one (especially about yourself).  The bad news is that this isn’t easy.

STEP ONE- REFRAME

The first step is to take YOUR emotions out of it.  The best way I know to do this is to REFRAME the situation.  We assign all kinds of import to the boss/subordinate relationship.  We bring a ton of baggage to it.  We want approval–sometimes even love–from our boss.  We realize that the boss has power over us, so we are afraid of the interaction when  it is unpleasant, and more so when it is always unpleasant.  Maybe he will fire me!  All of this sets us up to be more emotional in our interactions with a bad boss.  As long as you’re focused on your boss’ power over you, and your needs that aren’t getting met (appreciation, approval, respect), it is unlikely to get better.

Think of a relationship that isn’t as important to you.  Maybe an acquaintance, or a sales person, or a customer (that one is my favorite).  Think of your boss as someone in that other role.  How would you treat that person.  Hopefully you wouldn’t be rude, but you would be matter of fact, and you would continue to try to make the situation work out.  If you think of your boss as a customer, then you can position yourself to try to make her happy (the customer is always right, right?), but you’re not going to blow up if the customer is rude.  You’ll deal with it.  You’ll be responsible and even-keeled and you won’t stew over it forever.  Remember, REFRAMING is only the first step, but it is an extremely important step.  It will be hard to be able to do the next steps if you can’t get yourself to this more neutral stance.

STEP TWO- UNDERSTAND

Oh, you’re not going to like this step.  You need to see the situation through your boss’ eyes.  You may need help to do this.  Ask others–several others.  Ask them for their opinion of what the boss’ perspective is.  How does your boss see you?  Why?  Does he think that he’s told you what you need to do and you haven’t done it?  Does he think you’re just not right for the job?  Does he think you don’t listen?  Does he think you’re more trouble than you’re worth?  Forget all the ways that he’s wrong.  Really understand how/why your boss thinks what he does.

I once was having lots of problems with a boss and I just couldn’t understand it.  I had made so many improvements in the brief time I’d been in the job!  From my perspective, I was doing one of the best jobs I’d ever done.  Maybe he was a sexist.  Maybe he was an idiot.  Maybe he just didn’t know what he was doing.  (You can imagine that there was no “maybe” in my thinking.)  No matter how hard I tried, he wasn’t satisfied.  It seemed like everything (including the situation that I had walked into) was my fault in his eyes.  One day he said pretty much exactly that.  I suddenly realized that although I’d only been in the job for three months (too little to fix it, I thought), he had only been with the company and my boss for two months.  He actually thought that it was all my fault.  No wonder I was on his wrong side.  Telling him that I had just started was not sufficient to change his opinion of me–we had been pushing each others buttons for a while.  It was enough, however, for me to finally understand the problem.

Once you can see the boss’ perspective, you have many more options.  You DO NOT have to agree with the perspective.  You just need to see it.  You also need to figure out what makes your boss tick.  Does she make decisions based on lots of facts and details?  Does she rely on others’ opinions to make decisions (others who have issues with you?)?  How does she like to be communicated with?  Does she like frequent updates?  You need to spend the time and energy to figure your boss out.

STEP THREE- MANAGE THE BOSS

Now you need to start to manage your boss.  Who gets along with your boss?  What do they do?  (This may be especially difficult if you don’t like the person who is succeeding with the boss—but you don’t need to like them.  You need to understand what they DO that works.)  Start to communicate in the way that your boss prefers (not the way that you prefer).  Provide the information that your boss needs to make decisions.  Stop making it obvious that you don’t like/appreciate/respect your boss.  Remember she’s the customer.

Pay attention to your assumptions about what the boss knows, wants and needs.  Look at the others who are succeeding with the boss—what assumptions do they seem to be acting on?  Pay  attention to the way that you communicate with the boss.  Do you question the boss when others just say OK?  Do you make sure you’re clear on what the deliverable is?  Does the boss know what you’ve accomplished?  Are you cheerful or glum?

Your job is to help your boss succeed.  Are you doing that job?  It is really possible to turn this “bad boss” situation around.  I’ve done it.  I have had lots of clients do it.  In fact,  it is more common to fix this situation than not.  Don’t give up.

STEP FOUR= FIGURE YOURSELF OUT

Now it’s time to focus on you again.  WHY  does your boss bug you so much?  What buttons is she pushing?  Who does she remind you of?  What do you think that she should be doing (for you) that she isn’t?  This is how you can learn more about yourself from a bad boss than from a good one.  As long as those buttons are “pushable,” then you are not in control of your performance.  Sometimes you don’t even know that they are there until a bad boss starts pushing them.  Don’t blame the situation entirely on the boss.  This is a relationship like any other—two are responsible for it.  The more you understand about yourself, the more successful you’ll be in improving this situation.

STEP FIVE- MOVE ON

If doing these four steps doesn’t work, find a new job with a new boss.  DO NOT bad mouth the boss, however, as you do it.  You’ll set yourself up for a bad situation with the next boss—if you even get the job.

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March 13, 2012 · 10:20 pm

Genericize Yourself, Increase Your Options

Change Your ThinkingBroaden Your Opportunities

For the first ten years of my career, I did product development and operations at an electronic publisher.  Before the Internet.  Explaining what I did was very hard.  (It would be a lot easier now).   When I started looking at other career options, I found that there were a limited number of electronic publishers in the country and none of them were within 100 miles of where I lived.  If I wanted to work at another company, my options were pretty limited.  I looked at job postings (again, before the Internet) and I couldn’t find anyone looking for anything remotely similar to what I did.

The fact that my company was being sold made me realize that I needed to figure out ways to open up more opportunities.  The way I did it was to examine the positions within my company that existed in other companies in my community–human resources, organization development, strategy, government relations, fulfillment, and customer service.  I looked at ways that I could get more experience in those areas so that I could market myself to other companies.  Luckily, I didn’t get swept up in the layoffs associated with the sale of the company.  Also, I was lucky that my company was open to me getting experiences in other departments.  I acquired enough experience to make myself credible in a number of different positions.

Then Broaden Them Some More

Today, if I wanted to genericize myself, I would do it differently.  I would become an expert who is broad and deep in a subject area that expands beyond inside-organization jobs to external contractors and consultants.  These would be jobs like Project Managers, Program Managers, experts in ERP systems,  global operations or social media marketing.  These would expand the opportunities to reflect the way job opportunities exist now–inside and outside companies.

And Then Some More

At the same time that you are building your skills to make you credible across companies/industries/delivery models, you should be building your brand as a complete player in your area of expertise.  If you want to go to the top you also will have to make it all fit together.  Your understanding and performance at that point will have to be broader than it is deep.

All of this requires that you look beyond today’s job to tomorrow’s job and beyond.

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March 11, 2012 · 10:01 pm

Being Told “No” Changed My Life

The most important lessons I have learned came from people who told me “No,” or “Do it faster.”

NO!

I was “reorganized” into managing a large department with twenty managers reporting to me.  Only a few of those managers had been in the their position prior to the reorganization and few of these managers knew each other very well.  I decided that they  needed leadership development training, both to give them the skills to succeed at their jobs and to help bond them as a team. I proceeded to get estimates from several vendors and took the best of them to my (also newly reorganized) boss.  She looked at the proposal and said “No.”  She didn’t believe in that kind of training and she certainly wasn’t willing to spend that much money in this newly configured organization.  It was a well thought out proposal, with a a curriculum that was well designed to set my whole organization up for success.  I couldn’t believe she was saying no.  She said, “If you really believe in this, do it yourself.”  I don’t know if she was calling my bluff, or if she was just  blowing me off.    I went away pissed.  I had never really had a boss tell me no before on something that I thought was that important.  But she clearly meant it.

I thought about it.  What would it take to create the training myself?  I had never done anything like that before.  I did it.  I probably did it because if I didn’t, she would be able to say that I didn’t really believe it was worth it.   It changed my life.  It changed my career.  I found that I loved developing and delivering this kind of training more than anything I had ever done.  And I never would have/could have known that if my boss hadn’t told me no.    I went on to create an executive development program for the company (different job) and to create a business doing for other companies.  All because I was told no.  I probably should thank her, huh?

Do It Faster, Much Faster!

I was hired by a CEO client to implement his company’s strategic goals.  I put together what I thought was a very aggressive timeline to get it done.  As far as I was concerned, to hit my timeline it would take absolutely everyone in the organization doing everything they needed to do as quickly as they could to actually hit the schedule.  I pride myself on being an optimist, though, so I had hope that we could do it.  His reaction to the plan? Do it quicker!  Much quicker!  He looked at the plan to hire key players and cut the time to do it by 80%.  Absolutely impossible! I thought.  He was unyielding, and I decided to see just how fast I could do it.  I was shocked to find that we were able to meet his deadline! I won’t even tell you how fast we did it, because you wouldn’t believe me.  It took managing each task with urgency.  It took not approaching the tasks as “business as usual”, but rather with focus and intent to get it done quickly.

When you go into work on Monday and look at what you have to accomplish this week, think what it would take to get it done by end of day Monday.  Your first reaction is likely to be like mine:  impossible.  Think about it, though.  What would it take?  What if it meant you had to to keep your job?  To feed your kids?  You get a lot more creative (and urgent) when the stakes go up.

The Lesson

The difference between taking no for an answer and not, is your decision.  The difference between “business as usual” and moving fast enough to deal with this constantly changing world is your decision.  It’s your mindset.  You have the ability to reframe like I had to at any time.  You don’t have to be told no, and you certainly don’t have to take “no.”  You can DECIDE to do it anyway.  You can DECIDE to do it fast.  And once you learn this, you won’t be the same.

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