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Your #Career : The Right and Wrong Way to Manage Up at the Office…Don’t Assume Good Work will Speak for Itself—the Burden is Usually on you to Find a Way to #Communicate with your #Boss .

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It’s an ability that can shape your career more than almost any other—but many employees don’t know how to do it.

Managing up, or building smooth, productive relationships with higher-ups, requires understanding and adapting to your boss’s communication and decision-making style. Many people are promoted because of the quality of their work. But as newly minted managers aim to rise in the ranks, assuming their work will speak for itself becomes increasingly hazardous to their careers.

Roberta Matuson felt unprepared after she rose to a senior human-resources job years ago. “I was tossed into the executive suite with little more than a prayer, wondering, ‘What the heck do you do?’ ” she says. She focused on doing her job well but failed to build relationships with her bosses, leaving her with few allies.

When the company went public, “I got taken out by a wave I didn’t see coming” while the rest of the management team kept their jobs, she says. “You have to toot your own horn in a sea of cubicles to be heard.” Ms. Matuson is now a Brookline, Mass., leadership coach and author of the management book “Suddenly in Charge.”

Employees are getting less help learning these skills as companies shift training dollars toward senior leaders at the expense of middle- and low-level employees. The proportion of employers spending more than $1,000 a person annually to train middle managers, supervisors and rank-and-file employees fell below one-third in the past two years, according to a 2017 survey of 237 employers by Brandon Hall Group. Meanwhile, employers spending that much on training senior leaders rose to 58% in 2017 from 55% in 2015, says David Wentworth, a principal learning analyst for the research and advisory firm.

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Some bosses readily explain to subordinates how and when they want to communicate. Others do better when offered multiple-choice questions, says Julie Kantor, a New York City executive coach. How often do you want updates: daily, weekly or only when I have something to report? Do you prefer phone, instant messaging, email or face-to-face?

If you must bring the boss a problem, offer at least one potential solution. And respect the boss’s time. Mario Gabriele served as chief of staff for And Co, a New York City provider of software for freelancers that was recently acquired by Fiverr, a freelance marketplace. Rather than running to his bosses whenever he had a question, he waited until he could say, “I have these 10 things that we can cross off in 10 minutes,” Mr. Gabriele says. His boss, Leif Abraham, says Mr. Gabriele’s approach enabled him to give more thoughtful answers, and served as a useful update on his work.

A common pitfall is taking a boss’s behavior personally as a sign that “this person is just trying to annoy me,” says Robert Tanner, a Lacey, Wash., leadership and business consultant. Many tensions have a less sinister explanation, based on differences in how people see things and make decisions, he says.

Short of giving your boss a personality test, it’s possible to understand a manager’s style by reading such books as “Please Understand Me,” a classic on personality types, and watching how your boss communicates and makes decisions, Mr. Tanner says. Is she quick to act, or more thoughtful and reflective? Does he focus on facts, or intuitive signals or insights?

One financial-services executive was at odds with his subordinates until he and they understood they had different decision-making styles, says Mr. Tanner, who coached both the executive and his team. The executive tended to make decisions intuitively and change his mind a lot. Employees who preferred a more fact-based approach concluded he was indecisive and cared only about himself. Understanding their conflicting styles helped employees stop taking the executive’s behavior personally and frame their complaints in a way that mattered to him—by explaining that he was hurting the department’s reputation.

Employees also need to understand the boss’s priorities, Dr. Kantor says. What seems like a small error to an employee might look like a systemic failure to a boss with a broader realm to manage, she says. This includes being mindful of how your performance affects your boss’s success.

Bill Sandbrook, chief executive officer of U.S. Concrete in Euless, Texas, says he once gave a manager a big promotion, knowing he’d need mentoring to handle the increased responsibility. Mr. Sandbrook had a stake in the manager’s success, and he was disappointed when the man refused to accept coaching or even answer questions. “The power had gone to his head” and he soon left the company, Mr. Sandbrook says. “The new manager can’t be too proud to show when he doesn’t know something, and he has to totally swallow his ego and listen.”

It pays to figure out what motivates your boss, Dr. Kantor says. Does he or she need to look important? Find ways to help her talk about her successes, Dr. Kantor says. Does he want to be in control? Give him lots of information about what you’re doing and offer choices about next steps so he can make the decision.

It also pays to learn the unwritten rules of your workplace: How are disagreements handled here? When is it OK to interrupt a meeting?

Laura Williams’s boss, Rick Miller, chief executive of Sensible Financial Planning, a Waltham, Mass., investment-advisory firm, sometimes gets tied up in meetings or calls and fails to show up on time for appointments she has scheduled with him. Ms. Williams, an associate financial adviser, knows it’s OK to knock on Mr. Miller’s door when he’s more than five minutes late. She also knows the exceptions to the rule—such as avoiding interruptions when he’s on a client call, which he blocks out in red on his calendar.

“Getting to know how your boss prefers to deal with things is important,” Ms. Williams says. Mr. Miller, who includes “managing up” as a target ability on employees’ performance reviews, gives Ms. Williams high marks.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT WITH YOUR BOSS

  • Figure out and adapt to your bosses’ communication styles by watching them interact with others.
  • Seek agreement on how and when to update your boss on your work.
  • Ask yourself whether tensions with the boss may be a problem of clashing styles rather than more fundamental conflicts.
  • Avoid escalating problems to the boss too quickly, before you’ve tried solving them yourself.
  • When you bring the boss a problem, also bring at least one potential solution.
  • If you must disagree with your boss, do it privately, in a calm voice during a low-stress time.
  • Never bad-mouth your bosses behind their backs.
  • Never embarrass your boss in front of others.
  • Avoid overload by asking your boss for help prioritizing projects, rather than saying no.

Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com

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WSJ.com | April 11, 2018 | Sue Shellenbarger 

 

Your #Career : How Do You Survive Office Competition?…Hypercompetitors Spark Strong Reactions in Colleagues, from Fighting Back to Shutting Down; Warriors vs. Worriers

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Every office has at least one—the hypercompetitive employee who’s out to win at all costs. These adversarial types go beyond striving for success. They turn every endeavor into a competition, whether it is intended to be or not, psychologists say. And they spark strong reactions in colleagues, from fighting back to just shutting down.

Free- Man at Desktop

 

Competition is often healthy and encouraged at work, of course. People who compete in a healthy way see it as a route to developing their skills, reaching shared goals, staying motivated and thriving on the job.

Research on hypercompetitors sets them apart. Intense rivalry is linked with a win-at-any-cost mind-set and a tendency to ignore the perspectives and decisions of others, according to a 2010 study at Harvard University. Other research shows highly competitive people focus on attaining status over getting work done, and readily put their own interests above others’.

HEALTHY OR HYPER?

How competitive are you? To find out, answer ‘true’ or ‘false’ to the following questions.

  • 1. Winning in competition makes me feel more powerful as a person.
  • 2. I do not see my opponents in competition as my enemies.
  • 3. I like competition because it teaches me a lot about myself.
  • 4. I can’t stand to lose an argument.
  • 5. Competition can lead to forming new friendships with others.
  • 6. Failure or loss in competition makes me feel less worthy as a person.
  • 7. It doesn’t bother me to be passed by someone while I am driving on the roads.
  • 8. Competition does not help me develop my abilities.
  • 9. Success in athletic competition does not make me feel superior to others.
  • 10. If I can disturb my opponent in some way to get the edge, I will do so.

Scoring: Answering ‘true’ to questions 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 10 reveals a tendency toward hypercompetitiveness. Those who answer ‘true’ only to 3, 5 and 8 tend to have a healthy attitude toward competition.

Source: Richard Ryckman et al., Journal of Personality Assessment.

 

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Hypercompetitive people tend to ignore their impact on others, so getting them to change often requires pointing out that they’re hurting themselves.

How we react to competition varies widely. People may be conditioned by childhood experiences to see a hypercompetitive colleague as a challenge—and to respond by trying harder—or as a threat, triggering a retreat into fear and anxiety.

It is rooted partly in genetics: Scientists have identified a “warrior” variant of a gene linked to performance under pressure, which confers an advantage in threatening situations, and a “worrier” variant linked to poor performance, according to a 2015 study by researchers at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest.

These tendencies shape early decision-making. College students who are competitive by nature tend to aim toward competitive jobs, such as coaching, according to a 2015 study led by John M. Houston, a psychology professor at Rollins College, Winter Park, Fla. Those who are less competitive train for more collaborative jobs, such as school counseling.

People who become anxious and shy away from hypercompetitors in the workplace often hurt their own performance, says Shelley Reciniello, a New York psychologist and author of “The Conscious Leader.” After a rival confronted one executive with a harsh critique of her speaking skills, “she lost her footing. It started to get to her,” and the executive began stumbling during presentations, Dr. Reciniello says.

Such confrontations can stir a visceral response so powerful that it blindsides people, she says. “They know they feel angry, they feel sick, they feel sad. They find themselves having revenge fantasies,” Dr. Reciniello says.

Equally at risk on the job are those who prefer to sit out any competition. “Some people don’t even want to compete,” says Steve Sims, chief product officer for Badgeville, a Redwood City, Calif., maker of gamelike motivational tools for the workplace. If you show such a person a leaderboard of the top 10 performers in the office, “that person will drop out.”

Patti Johnson first noticed a colleague’s hypercompetitive behavior when she was vying with the woman for a promotion years ago. She withheld information Ms. Johnson needed to do her job, and took credit with the boss for work they had done together, says Ms. Johnson, chief executive officer of PeopleResults, a Dallas human-resources and change-management consulting firm.

“I realized it was part of my job, to manage her,” Ms. Johnson says. She insisted the boss include her in meetings on joint projects and kept her boss well-informed about her contributions, she says. “I made it more and more difficult for her to throw tacks on the road.”

At times, the presence of super-competitive people can spur others to achieve more. Jay Bower says feeling overmatched early in his career by warrior types with Ivy League M.B.A.s drove him to study nights for 4½ years to get his M.B.A. too. Knowing he lacked skills his co-workers had “was kind of a searing experience for me,” says Mr. Bower, president of Crossbow Group, a Westport, Conn., marketing-services firm.

Deciding whether to confront an ultracompetitive colleague can be tricky. “It depends on the situation. You have to look at what you stand to lose,” says Susan Packard, author of “New Rules of the Game,” a book about how women can compete in the workplace. A little political maneuvering by a rival might not hurt much. But if a hypercompetitor starts interfering with your career goals, or with the funding or resources you need to do your job, you have to act, she says.

The first step is to be aware of your own reactions. Then, practice confronting co-workers, if necessary, to insist that they stop undercutting teammates or shared goals.

Gather specific examples of the hypercompetitor’s bad behavior and the reactions it caused. A hypercompetitor won’t understand what you’re asking unless you explain the behaviors that need to end, saysJessica Bigazzi Foster, a senior partner with RHR International, a Chicago leadership and business-psychology consulting firm. Prepare to explain how the behavior is hurting the business or the team.

​Consider practicing what you plan to say with a friend, to help control your emotions, and write a script if necessary to keep the conversation on track, Dr. Reciniello says. Super-competitive people “will do everything to get you off point.”

Start on a positive note, says Elaine Varelas, managing partner of Keystone Partners, such as, “You’re very successful and I appreciate that. What I find very difficult in working with you is that you don’t share information.” Then give examples and describe the behavior you’d like in the future, she says.

Employees who are stuck with a hypercompetitive colleague may not get much help from the boss, at least at first. The dark side of a hypercompetitor often goes unnoticed because the boss “is seeing this aggressive, results-oriented person,” says Ralph Roberto, president of Keystone Partners, a Boston career-management consultant.

It can be tough for a boss to crack down on a hypercompetitive employee. Bill Fish sees competition as a motivator. When an aggressive sales agent at his company, ReputationManagement.com, accumulated an oversized roster of clients, he initially hesitated to take clients away from him, thinking the competition was fueling sales, says Mr. Fish, president of the Cincinnati provider of reputation-management services. “He wasn’t thinking about anybody else. At first, I really didn’t see it as a bad thing,” he says. After customers began to complain that the agent wasn’t responding quickly to their requests, however, he realized that the agent’s uber-competitiveness was hurting the business and made him share the load.

Hypercompetitive people tend to ignore their impact on others, so getting them to change often requires pointing out that they’re hurting themselves. David Hoffeld once managed a top-performing salesman who needled co-workers, saying, “Maybe you should work harder, because I’ve noticed I’m always higher than you on the leaderboard,” says Mr. Hoffeld, chief executive officer of a Minneapolis sales-training firm. “It didn’t spur his co-workers to work harder. It just made them angry.”

Mr. Hoffeld took the salesman aside and pointed out that he was alienating his co-workers, making them less willing to help him out on big projects in the future. The salesman changed his behavior.

Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com

 

WSJ.com | April 20, 2016 |  Sue Shellenbarger