My last boss, before I started Candid Culture 18 years ago, was the best boss I ever had. He always had my back. He was knowledgeable about the business and happy to share his knowledge. He trusted me and gave me a lot of latitude. And I confused that positive relationship with that of a confidante.
I felt comfortable with my boss, so I complained about my internal customers to him. I thought he was a safe person to do that with. I was wrong. He eventually told me he had no way to determine that I didn’t vent with everyone. My naïve decision to vent to my boss was a point of reference about my professionalism and not a good one.
A manager’s job is to help employees eliminate obstacles, ensure employees have the resources they need to be successful, and to be a coach. A manager’s job is also to evaluate their employees.
Managers only have so many points of reference to evaluate their employees’ performance. If employees tend to vent with their boss how internal customers are difficult to work with, the manager doesn’t know that that employees don’t do this with everyone. It’s a point of reference that makes an impression.
It would have been fine to tell my boss I was struggling to work with an internal customer and ask for suggestions for how to work better with the person. It would have been fine to say I was frustrated or discouraged and was in need of support. It’s ok to share problems and breakdowns and leverage your boss to find solutions and to get help. Asking your boss to help you solve a problem you haven’t been able to solve yourself is expected. Using your boss as a therapist is not.
I don’t want you to be paranoid, to feel that you have to watch every word that comes out of your mouth, and that you always have to be on your guard. Just know the role people in organizations play. Leaders and managers have to determine who is successful in their current role and who is a good fit for future roles, so be mindful of how you show up and to whom.
We all know impressions are formed quickly and are hard to change. If someone sees you once a week, one a month, once a quarter, what are they seeing? People only know what we show them and what others tell them. Let your boss see the poised professional you are. Let your friends and family see the rest.
If you work long enough, you will have a manager who doesn’t delegate well, doesn’t give feedback, and isn’t a great coach. Not everyone is a good manager.
You’re accountable for being successful, regardless of who you work for. Don’t wait for people to tell you what they need and expect, which often happens after breakdowns occur. Set clear expectations at the beginning of anything new and ask for feedback as you make progress. Take your career and success into your own hands. I call this reverse delegation.
Reverse delegation defined: Asking questions until you’re clear what a good job looks like and asking for work to be reviewed in stages, versus solely at the end of a project, ensuring you get all the information you need to be successful. Ultimately, taking your career success into your own hands, where it belongs.
The people you work for and with should tell you what they expect. They should give you feedback along the way. And many won’t. Your career is in your hands, and that’s a very good thing.
When you start a new job, project, or any responsibility, ask the person delegating the work some of these reverse delegation questions:
Reverse Delegation Question one: Why is this project a priority right now? How will it impact the organization?
Reverse Delegation Question two: What does a good job look like? What’s the criteria for success?
Reverse Delegation Question three: What kind of updates would you like? In what format, how frequently, and with what level of detail?
Reverse Delegation Question four: Who in the organization should I work with on this project?
Reverse Delegation Question five: What history, pitfalls, or landmines do I need to be aware of? Has anyone tried to do this before, and if yes, with what outcomes?
Reverse Delegation Question six: Who in the organization supports this project? Who doesn’t?
If you’ve been in your job for a long time or have been working on a project for a while, it’s not too late to ask these questions. Simply approach the person with whom you’re working and say, “I want to be sure I’m doing great work on _____________ project. Can I ask you a couple of questions about the desired end results and how we should be communicating, as I make progress?”
Lots of people aren’t the best delegators. They give us a project, ask if we have any questions, and provide a due date. Don’t fall into the trap of completing an entire project and then asking for feedback. Even if the person delegating the work doesn’t want to review work as it’s completed, ask for that feedback. Schedule weekly or monthly review meetings, present the work you’ve done, and ask for feedback. If you’re worried asking for iterative feedback will make you seem needy or like you don’t know what you’re doing, explain why you’re asking. Say something like, “I want to give you precisely what you’re asking for and don’t want to squander the organization’s resources.”
If you get to the end of a project or responsibility and what you deliver isn’t what the person delegating expected, you didn’t ask enough questions at the beginning and middle of the project, and didn’t get feedback along the way.
People will tell you everything you need to do a good job, if you ask. Take control of your career. Ask more. Assume less.
At the end of presentations, attendees often approach me and say something like, “People tell me my communication style is really direct and that it can be off putting. I don’t know what to do about this.” Or they say, “People say I’m really quiet and hard to read. They have a difficult time getting to know me.”
If you’ve been given the same feedback repeatedly or know you create a first impression that may be challenging to others, set expectations and tell people about your communication style when you begin working with them. Don’t wait until they feel offended, confused, or frustrated. Simply tell people when you meet them, “I’ve been told that I’m too direct and how I provide feedback can be off putting. Anything I say is to be helpful. If I ever offend you or provide too much information, I hope you’ll tell me.” Or you could say something like, “I’m told that I’m quiet and it’s hard to know my thoughts on projects and initiatives. Please feel free to ask anything you want to know about me or my thoughts on company initiatives.”
People will make decisions about and judge you. There is nothing you can do about this. But you can practice what I call, ‘get there first.’ Set people’s expectations about your communication style and what you’re like to work with, and then ask people to speak freely when they aren’t getting something they need.
The root of frustration and upset is violated expectations. People may not be aware of their expectations of you or be able to articulate those expectations. But if they didn’t have certain expectations, they wouldn’t be upset when you acted differently than how they (possibly unconsciously) expected.
I’m a proponent of anticipating challenges and talking about them before problems arise. If you know something about your behavior is off putting or confusing to others, why not be upfront about it?
When people interview to work for me, I set clear expectations about my communication style and what I’m like to work with. I tell them all the things I think they’ll like about working for me and all the things I suspect they won’t. People often nod their heads and say, “no problem,” which, of course, may not be true. They won’t know how my style will impact them until they begin working with me. But when I do things I gave them a heads up would likely be off putting, we can more easily talk about those behaviors, than if I had said nothing.
Talk about your communication style when projects and relationships begin. Replace judgment and damaged relationships with dialogue.
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