The Rules Of Management (Pioneer Panel's Library) (14 page)

If you’re really good, one day you’ll learn to explain how the underlings perceive things to the overlings, in terms they will understand—and vice versa. If you can get the underlings to see why the overlings believe that something not in their best interests makes sense, then you’re on the road to becoming a managerial genius.

Why bother to speak if you have nothing to add? And yet people do, all the time. They repeat what they said before. They rephrase earlier contributions. They say things that are completely meaningless. Why? How do they think this is helping? And why do they think they were asked to contribute if they have nothing useful to say?

Listen, if you want to be well respected, you should have listened to what was being said, read the information you were given, researched the background, thought about the issue—and formed an opinion that you can back up. On top of that, you should have come up with creative solutions, inventive suggestions, original approaches, and constructive ideas. Are you trying to impress people or aren’t you?

You might find it instructive to listen to what other people say in meetings and secretly grade them on a scale of 1–10 according to how useful they are to the discussion. It will tell you a lot about your co-managers, and you should find that the high scorers among them are also the high flyers.

The people who have nothing to contribute but find something pointless to say anyway are not simply failing to help. They are actively wasting everyone’s time. I’ve sat through meetings where if you cut out all the time-wasting ramblings from people with nothing better to say, you could slash hours off the duration of the meeting. This is not Rules behavior, and don’t ever catch yourself doing it. You must be the one to set the standard—regardless of whether other people rise to it.
And you can be sure that while some of your colleagues may not seem to notice, your own managers will be well aware that you’re someone to listen to because your contributions add value.

And what if you really have nothing helpful to say, or you’ve already contributed your thoughts and are asked again for your input? Well in that case, decline to comment. Politely say that you have nothing—or nothing further—to add.

There will be times when you are certain and know you’re right. In these times, sometimes you have to make a stand. You have to be prepared to put up or shut up. You have to be prepared to fight for what you believe in. If you are passionate about what you do, then standing up for what you know is right isn’t that hard.

You don’t have to be aggressive, just resolute. If you are being bullied, say so loud and clear—chances are the person harassing you will back off, quick.

You don’t have to be rude, just assertive. If someone is spreading rumors about you or your team or your performance that aren’t true, then confront them. State your position clearly, “I hear you are spreading such and such a rumor. This is not true and I would appreciate it if you would stop.”

You don’t have to be angry, just be very certain of yourself and very well prepared. If someone always finds fault with what you suggest, such as “Oh, that won’t work; we tried it before and it failed,” then stand your ground and don’t back down. Say, “Yes, and here are the figures to show why it didn’t work. And here is my report to explain why it will work this time and how it is different.”

You don’t have to get fired, just fired up. If you work for a boss who fails to give you suitable feedback, keep plugging away. Ask, “How can I improve my performance for next time? What steps should I take to get that pay rise I want that you’ve just said no to? Where do you see me in a year’s time? What can we do to improve sales?” Keep pushing the ball back into their court until they are forced to give you suitable answers.

You don’t have to be argumentative, just conciliatory. If you have a boss suggesting you cut legal corners, don’t point-blank refuse and cause an argument. Instead say, “Ah. How would we handle this if the media/auditors got hold of it?” You aren’t refusing but you are standing your ground and not going along with their ideas—and you are also offering them a way out. They won’t have to make a point and impose their will on you, but they can now diplomatically back down without losing face.

Politicians are people paid to play politics. You are not. You are a manager. You manage situations and projects. The people don’t need managing. They manage themselves. Some of them go off the rails sometimes and play politics. You don’t have to play with them. That’s like playing on train tracks. You’re bound to get hurt, bound to get run over by a train. Playing politics is using people to further your own ends, which, if you are playing politics properly, will be unpleasant, selfish, narrow-minded and petty. Playing politics invariably involves intimidating people, being sly, getting things done by lying or other dishonest means, not being yourself or true to others and generally behaving appallingly. There, I’ve said it now and I guess you know what I think of playing politics—it stinks.

You should “love thy neighbor, but pick thy neighborhood.” Try to hang out with OK-people who don’t feel the need to play politics.

Try to be involved with less popular projects because they attract less attention, less competition. Same goes for the less popular team or department. Here you can shine without having to compete all the time. Every company has people who get stuff done without back-stabbing. Hang out with these people.

Share information, always. This takes the wind out of the sails of those who do play politics. Be everyone’s friend, so no one can accuse you of being cliquey or stand-offish.

Although you aren’t going to play, you still have to be on your guard—be aware that playing politics goes on and be ready to deal with it in an appropriate way. Watch out for the hidden agendas that go on, the concealing true motives, the smear campaigns, the lying, the gossip (often malicious), the hints and subtle nuances that you aren’t up to scratch or speed, the jockeying for power and control, the whispering, that sort of thing. If you are fortunate, you will encounter very little of it and any you do can be cut sharply off. Some industries seem to breed that sort of bad behavior and you will be hard pushed to stop it. Refuse to play, and get a reputation for being a straight-talking, unpolitical being—honest, above board, open, candid, guileless, and straightforward. Nothing complicated about you.

Earlier we looked at how competition should spur you on and encourage you and how you should never be frightened of it. We were talking about the competition of other industries, other organizations.

But what of co-workers and other departments? Same goes. Don’t be frightened of anyone or anything. If you are good at what you do, bold, creative, fast on your feet—as I am sure you are—then there is no need. If you refuse to engage in politics, then you will be seen as honest and trustworthy. You should never criticize, make inferences about, condemn, pass judgment on or whine about your co-workers or people from other departments/divisions.

If you do, you will be seen as weak or a poor performer. Sure, others will, and will be seen to profit from it at times. But do they sleep at night? Can they, hand on heart, swear they enjoy their job, or do they fear others calling them out as they have called out others? I think not. I’ve worked with quite a few. They harp on about how good they are, how bad everyone else is, but they quake in their boots privately because deep down they know they aren’t as good at their jobs as those whom they criticize.

Just because someone points out your faults doesn’t make you any less of an emperor, does it? And if you see another emperor with their new clothes, there is no point in pointing it out to them that they have been fooled—no one will thank you.

I worked with one manager who would jabber on incessantly about all the other managers and how bad they were. Interesting thing was every fault he pointed out, he was equally guilty of. We laughed because it was so obvious to everyone but him. He couldn’t see he was highlighting his own faults.

This Rule is about mentoring people who know less than you. They don’t have to know that much less, and you don’t have to know that much more. But if you share everything you do know, then they will know as much as you.

Some managers will see this as a threat. They are the foolish ones. What you have just done is train someone to take some of the workload from your shoulders. Someone to replace you when you get promoted.

Some managers feel awkward about sharing because they feel they don’t know enough. But when you learned English at school, it was enough that your teacher knew about grammar and clauses and punctuation and that sort of stuff. You didn’t need an award-winning novelist or a Nobel prize winner. No, just a humble English teacher was enough.

And what are you going to share with your team? That’s easy. Anything that might help them do their job better: information, tactics, plans, skills, ideas, reading material, contacts, lunch—just keep giving them all the tools you can to make them more useful to you and to themselves.

Sharing with colleagues is important, too. The more you give out the more you’ll get back. Suppose you give one bit of information to 20 other managers. If only half of them are generous enough to return the favor, it means you now have ten bits of new information to add to your collection. They have only gained by one but you have gained by ten—easy. They will invariably share with you, but not each other—don’t ask me why. Perhaps they feel indebted to you and not to them.

Being a manager gives you authority and power, no doubt about that. Perhaps that’s what separates good managers like you from ineffective ones. You know how to handle that power and you don’t abuse it.

People will look up to you as a manager, respect you, and even fear you. You have the power of unemployment or work over them, and they will be aware of that in all their dealings with you. But you have to try to overcome that by getting them to trust you. Always be predictable so that they know where they are with you at all times and you don’t frighten them by catching them unaware. You mustn’t abuse your position by intimidating your team.

Yes, there are two ways to get things done—fear and reward—and a lot of managers choose the first because they feel under-confident, unsure, and uncertain. Unlike you they aren’t at ease with themselves, and this shows up in a threatening or bullying attitude toward their staff. We ought to pity them—or if we work under such a boss ourselves, try and get them better trained. Perhaps leave a copy of this book lying around for them to stumble upon accidentally?

A lot of managers don’t know that their attitude sets the standard for how their staff treats each other and their customers. If they see a manager who is kind and cooperative, rewarding to work for and confident, it rubs off and they, in turn, act the same way toward each other and toward customers as well.

Working this way makes life easier and more productive. It’s so much better to work in an organization where reward is used instead of fear to get things done.

I once worked for two bosses at the same time. They were two directors of the company and they hated each other. Each had an agenda. Each fought a vicious campaign against the other with us managers—and staff—as their foot soldiers or pawns. It wasn’t pleasant. They had their own areas of responsibility, and if you worked solely in any such area you were happy, because you had one boss. But if you, like me, had to cross over frequently from one director’s area into the other’s, then life was made intolerable.

The two directors countermanded each other’s orders, played dirty tricks on each other, wouldn’t speak to each other, and generally behaved like small children. I learned, and learned fast, to be a diplomat and a tactician. One director worked upstairs and one downstairs. I was sent up and down and learned to stop on the landing half way and stay there until each had forgotten what particular bit of interdepartmental warfare was going on. I also learned to play them off against each other to get what I wanted—but that was naughty.

I guess that was about as bad as it got, but I’ve also worked in companies where the rivalry between departments was extreme and interfered with productivity, kept staff on edge and contributed, I think, to high staff turnover. You would have thought the directors would have stopped it, but in my first example, you would see that even directors are capable of being silly and childish.

Don’t you go the same way. Steer well clear of it all, if you want my advice. Be open and honest and upfront in all your dealings, and then you will get a good reputation, and no one will accuse you of being underhanded.

Your team is your tool for getting the job done—whatever it happens to be. Without your team—and that can be one lone person or thousands of people—you are nothing. Without your team you are an empty page waiting to be written—or typed. You must support your team, praise it, fight for it—to the death if need be. The brilliant manager—we don’t need to say who that is by now, do we?—generates loyalty and respect by being the team cheerleader—that’s you, that is.