Bootstrap Leadership Blog

Let’s face it - you need your boss. Unless you work for yourself, the boss is still an organizational necessity, and a big part of your work experience. Your boss hands out work assignments, makes sure you get paid, keeps you from falling asleep in meetings, and hopefully protects you when you do something stupid. But sometimes the boss is the last to notice when you’re ready for something new. This is understandable. After all, they’re focused on making the team look good (not to mention themselves) and that can be a full-time job. No, it’s your job to manage your boss, and that includes telling her when you’re ready for something else. Like a new project or assignment, or even a new job somewhere else in the company.

Now, you have to bring a couple of things to this conversation. You can’t just walk in and say “I want to do something different”. First, you need to be on top of your current work – you better be knocking the ball out of the park, or asking for a better, cooler role is going to get you laughed out of her office. The one “must-have” for this discussion is a great performance record. It also helps to have a sense of the culture, and “how things work around here.” If you’ve only been in your role for a year, and the unwritten code is that managers need to “pay their dues”, well, you better factor that into your thinking. It’s probably going to be an issue.

Second, you have to bring a plan with you. You need to do your homework. You need to have an idea of what you want, and a few reasons why this is such a brilliant idea. You’re selling here, and you better be prepared to answer your boss’s questions. If you want to do more, why do you think you can take on more team members or responsibility? If you want to move to a new role, who will do your work? Who’s on the bench to replace you? Why do you need to make this move right now? What are your long-term career goals? Think through both sides of the conversation; anticipate what your boss is likely to say, feel and do – and be ready with your arguments. Prepare to defend your position, and try to steer the conversation toward why this is good for you and the company.

Lay out your ideal next job and the reasons why it makes sense. Maybe it’s expanding your current role or shedding some of what you do to focus on a specific task. Maybe it’s moving up in your current department, to a leadership position just above your current role. Or maybe it’s an entirely new job elsewhere in the company. Whatever it is, have your facts straight, and a strong rationale for your reasoning. Say: “here’s why I think this is good for me and the team/company.” Be firm, but don’t back her into a corner. The secret is to ask for her input and support in helping you achieve your goals. After telling her what you’d like to do, say: “I’d like to get your thoughts on this - what do you think?” And as the conversation goes along, don’t be afraid to ask for her support directly. Say: “can you help me make this happen?” or “is there anything else you need from me?”

Your immediate boss is probably the most important person in your work life, certainly as far as your career is concerned. Each boss you work for has the power to help you move forward, or put you in a box. They have the ability to accelerate your career, or frankly, derail it. Don’t be that manager who sits in the same job year after year waiting for the boss to offer a new and exciting role. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, and go out and make the case for yourself. If you don’t do it, who will? Do you really want to risk putting your career in someone else’s hands? Make your boss an offer, present it with passion and conviction, and appeal to her sense of pride in helping you move your career forward. If you’ve nailed your current role, chances are good that your boss will be there for you. Just don’t be afraid to have the conversation!

As you know, business today is extremely competitive. In order to survive, you need to know the language of business, which is filled with unique terms and phrases that you need to learn if you want to join the conversation. So let's take a moment to work on your development, shall we? Let's spend some time helping you to continuously improve, and get creative about how you add value. What follows is my advice, my counsel, my mentoring around learning the language of business.

A word of caution though - I can explain this to you, but I can't understand it for you... you have to take responsibility, exude accountability and dedicate yourself to execution, or you'll fall short of the goal. And that would be bad, as you'd be missing the mark and under-performing, and we might have to have a difficult conversation, take action, put you on a plan, manage you out or help you transition out of your role. That is if we don't reassign you or put you into redeployment, or reassess your contribution. You have to understand, we're just managing our resources, so we can maximize our human capital and capitalize on our revenue and growth opportunities. So don't assume that you're not looking at this the right way. I'm just offering a competing point of view, looking through a different lens, and trying to work backwards from the answer.

At the end of the day, you need to get aligned on the language of your company. You need to capture the synergies and strive for outperformance when you engage in the dialog. Be sure to calibrate yourself, and manage expectations, because others are looking to streamline your feedback and achieve a paradigm shift. If you can offer alternatives, and provide some perspective, others can focus on results, think outside the box, and produce some early wins. Be sure to manage conflict, however, or people will lose work-life balance, and that will not be a measure of success that you'll cite as a best practice. How can you innovate, on time and on budget, to produce the strategic thinking that others will utilize to produce project outcomes that will have clear metrics that demonstrate a win-win for everyone?

Last time I checked, learning to talk "corporate" boosts your executive presence, demonstrates that you're buttoned up, and sends a clear message that you are looking for a competitive advantage. If we were to plot you on a nine-box, we'd see that you've been achieving your potential, and working off the side of your desk to create a deck that reveals a rigorous burning platform. You're in sync with the culture, and understand that how you speak has everything to do with motivating, empowering, and engaging your people. It's not just about coaching others to take their game to the next level, it's about extending your own mojo beyond your sphere of influence, so you can help others get out of their comfort zone and step up to operationalize their unique contribution.

There is a lot of synergy to be gained by collaborating with your teammates on a common language - who knows, you might even win the war for talent in the process. You'd better understand the international landscape, however, or you'll miss an opportunity to beat the competition with a business model that builds customer loyalty and increases your brand and global footprint. In the end, it's about bringing others with you and investing in your people, who, after all, are you most important asset. It's about building a pyramid of focus that is unmatched by those who might seek to copy your position or outflank you in the court of public opinion. It's about winning in the marketplace, being # 1 or # 2 in your industry, and making it all about the customer.

It's not about you, it's about the language. So get with the program, start driving for results, and be a team player. It's funny, because when it's all said and done, more is said than done. And what's not to like about that?

There was a great article in the Harvard Business Review recently on millennials (people born between 1977 and 1997) and what they want from an employer and a manager.  In 2014, millennials will account for almost 50% of all employees in the world.  Think about that for a minute… pretty amazing, huh?   As the HBR article pointed out, in some companies they already constitute a majority.  As a people manager, are you ready for this wave?

Millennials are famous for wanting a constant stream of feedback, and for being in a hurry to have success.  They also view work as just a part of life, something to be balanced with the rest of their passions.  As a result, they place a lot of value on finding work that is fulfilling.  HBR polled 2,200 professionals across a wide range of industries to ask them about their values, their behavior at work, and what they want from their employers.  Here are some of the results:

What millennials want from their boss:   

•  Help me navigate my career path
•  Give me straight feedback
•  Mentor and coach me
•  Sponsor me for formal development programs
•  Be comfortable with flexible schedules

 What millennials want from their company: 

•  Develop my skills for the future
•  Demonstrate strong corporate values
•  Offer customizable options in my benefits/reward package
•  Allow me to blend work w/ the rest of my life
•  Offer a clear career path

 What millennials most want to learn: 

•  Technical skills in their area of expertise
•  Self-management and personal productivity
•  Leadership skills
•  Industry or functional knowledge
•  Creativity and innovation strategies

What do you make of these lists?  I think the first two look a bit different than they probably did 30 years ago… but that last one seems pretty timeless.  Maybe managing millennials isn’t that hard after all… I’m guessing the classic management tips still apply:     1) Get to know your people – find out what really motivates them; 2) provide lots of candid feedback about their performance; 3) challenge and stretch them; 4) engage them in the process – ask for their input, and 5) help them get exposure across the organization.

If you’re managing millennials, I’d love to hear from you – what’s it like?  Are you finding these survey results to be true?  Are they easier or more challenging to manage than other employees?  Pretty soon, millennials will be the workforce.  I wonder what that will mean for employers, and for the millennials themselves, when they become management?