Issue No. 201 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks you how much time you’ve invested in becoming a student of your boss. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Boss Talk
One hundred percent of the time in my workshops and consulting, I have hallway conversations with really smart people who say something like, “I just don’t get my boss (or board chair). We’re rarely on the same page. Help!”
So I go down the boss talk path: “How many hours have you worked so far this year? How many hours have you invested in studying and understanding your boss this year?”
“Is your boss a reader or a listener? What are your boss’s Top-5 strengths on the Gallup StrengthsFinder system? What is your boss’s social style (driver, analytical, amiable or expressive)? If your boss is a Christ-follower, do you know his or her spiritual gifts (leadership, mercy, teaching, etc.)?”
I explain that everyone must be a student of their boss and I urge them to read the Harvard Business Review classic article, “Managing Your Boss.” In addition to leading your direct reports, you must own and navigate the relationship with your boss—not in a manipulative way—but in a mutual respect way.
Authors John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter write, “At a minimum, you need to appreciate your boss’s goals and pressures, his or her strengths and weaknesses. What are you boss’s organizational and personal objectives, and what are his or her pressures, especially from his or her own boss and others at the same level? What are your boss’s long suits and blind spots? What is the preferred style of working? Does your boss like to get information through memos, formal meetings, or phone calls? Does he or she thrive on conflict or try to minimize it? Without this information, a manager is flying blind when dealing with the boss, and unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, and problems are inevitable.”
In addition to a 12-point “Checklist for Managing Your Boss,” the article addresses that critical question: “Is my boss a reader or a listener?”
“Subordinates can adjust their styles in response to their bosses’ preferred method for receiving information. Peter Drucker divides bosses into ‘listeners’ and ‘readers.' Some bosses like to get information in report form so they can read and study it. Others work better with information and reports presented in person so they can ask questions. As Drucker points out, the implications are obvious. If your boss is a listener, you brief him or her in person, then follow it up with a memo. If your boss is a reader, you cover important items or proposals in a memo or report, then discuss them.”
No surprise. This 1980 HBR article is a classic because the boss challenge is a classic. If your key people have given little thought to managing up, invest seven bucks and download the article from the Harvard Business Review website.
Or…read the expanded treatment of this subject (from Harvard Business School Press, 2008). To order the 64-page book from Amazon, click on the title for Managing Your Boss, by John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Is your boss (or board chair) a reader or a listener? Do you communicate in his or her preferred style?
2) What are your boss’s Top-5 “S.M.A.R.T. Goals” for the year? (S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-related.)
Drucker Centennial - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Drucker Bucket, Chapter 4, in Mastering the Management Buckets is to become disciplined students of the great management thinkers, especially Peter Drucker, the father of modern management. He was born in Vienna on Nov. 19, 1909, and so The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, Calif., has been celebrating the Drucker Centennial this year.
According to the school’s website, “The Drucker Centennial is a time of commemoration, celebration, and renewal, which was crowned by a week of special events at Claremont Graduate University in November 2009 and supplemented by other activities from Fall 2008-2010. It marks the 100th birthday of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management; author of 39 books on organizational behavior, innovation, economy, and society; and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
To get a taste of Drucker’s savvy insight, download “Peter Drucker on Goal Alignment” from the Results Buckets on my website. Along with 29 other CEOs, I heard Drucker tell this classic story at a week-long retreat in the Colorado mountains.
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