team meetings shifted from weekly tactical decision-making to bi-weekly oversight, challenge and course-correction, while bi-monthly meetings became more future-focused and talent-focused. After a few weeks, Kristy found that she had free time, and began working on an innovation white paper that became a potential roadmap for a new product framework for the company.
Doing What You Expected
Doing exactly the job in your job description, rather than the job the company or your manager needs you to do, does not help you influence anyone. The need for flexibility is common in start-ups, where most job descriptions say, at the bottom, “…and any other responsibilities as they are identified by your manager.” Successful people in start-ups and fast-growth companies often need to learn new skills, shift between two different sets of responsibilities, or multi-task. In more stable, large companies, a “can-do” spirit is invaluable, but people often learn to only do what their job description says. Unfortunately, this does not build your reputation as a problem solver or “go-to” person.
Sarah took a job at a cloud-based technology company as a software trainer. Her job was to learn how the software works and put together and deliver training programs to the end users. She enjoyed getting in front of a group, using technology, and showing them how to use the system. She found it gratifying to see people learn the skills she had to teach.
When her company was bought by a larger software company, a number of people left, and her new manager asked her to take responsibility for implementing the software as well as do the training. She politely but firmly refused, stating, “I'm a trainer. I don't want to do implementation. It's boring.” Her manager explained that the implementation team was stretched thin, and in order for her to have enough training to do, she would need to help with the implementation as well. Despite this, she again refused.
You can imagine what happened. In three months, as soon as the amount of training work decreased, she was the first to be let go.
Doing It “Your Own Way”
Influence comes when you can work and communicate with colleagues in ways that say, “We are on the same team.” Your organization has a set of cultural norms that determine how people share information, make decisions, and work with each other. These mores are rarely explicit, but they are widely shared and reflect the organization's needs, motivations, and beliefs.
In particular, people often think about their relationship with their manager differently from how the manager defines it. Your manager, and your manager's manager, have sets of implicit norms that are usually subsets of the organization's rules. For example, if your manager is insecure, they may rely on you to support them rather than supporting you. If the functional head is a “bias to action” leader, they may think everyone should operate the same way.
Many times, the company's explicit values are different from the behaviors and attitudes they reinforce in reality. Learning the organizational and team culture will increase your cultural agility, which has value in any new setting. Listening and communicating effectively is essential to increasing your influence and impact. Adapting to the culture-as-is is critical to getting the types of rewards and reinforcements you are looking for.
Whom We Tend to Blame—And Why It Doesn't Work
It is human nature to want to blame other people for the problems in which we find ourselves.v Our sense of self tells us we are right, and that problems arise because others have misunderstood our intent, or because they are unfair or have ulterior motives. Some people blame themselves, but the majority maintain personal equilibrium by externalizing problems, even though that may not lead to the best solution.
Linda had been brought in by the president of a small company, Akito, as his head of HR. In reality, he really wanted Linda to handle many tactical and operational issues that he, as CEO, did not want to deal with. She sat in on meetings and frequently provided direction to other team leaders, even though she had no involvement in their work. If anyone challenged her, she pushed back by drawing on the CEO's authority. “Akito made it clear to me that he expects this from you.”
The team was clearly unhappy with her ambiguous role, and developed a noticeable passivity toward her directives. I (Bill) was brought in by Akito to help Linda be more effective, but when I tried to help her find ways to give direction, through influence or from her own authority, she rejected the idea that she should do anything different. “They just resent my relationship with Akito. If they don't improve, we may have to find other people who will listen.”
Focusing on Your Manager
Managers make or break a job experience.vi The problems with managers are legion—from micromanagers to laissez-faire, from domineering to passive, and from abusive to neglectful. Some managers are poor managers. Some were promoted because they were a strong front-line worker, or they have seniority. Others are given unrealistic responsibilities and are browbeaten themselves. More have the right technical skills but have no training or experience in managing. Management is, after all, a learned skill rather than an innate talent.
At least as often, there is a mismatch in style or misalignment of objectives between manager and employee. When the two expect different things, or have different workstyles, problems are likely to follow. A hands-off manager may be exactly what one person, who is self-confident, risk-taking and focused, needs to be successful. That same manager may be exactly the wrong one for a person who needs clear, specific direction, tries to avoid missteps, and works best with detailed plans and timelines.
When you and your manager are misaligned, tensions grow. It invariably leads to anger and disappointment for both. For example, an employee thinks their job is to collaborate with their manager to develop ideas and brainstorm in a meeting, while the manager is expecting a well-considered proposal with pros and cons and a recommendation. Unless the team member accepts the manager's view of the job, they are frustrated by the manager's refusal to help them, and the manager views the employee as underperforming.
We try to get our managers to give us what we think we need, or what has worked for us in the past. But as a supervisor once advised, “Bill, you'll be much happier if you figure out what your supervisor is good at and learn that. Trying to get your supervisor to give you what you think you need to learn is much more frustrating.”
Focusing on Your Team
People often attribute problems at work to the people who work for them. Just as employees tend to blame their managers for many problems, managers tend to think that failures or misses are due to “weak players” and look for ways to replace them. Both authors have known managers who have an endless cycle of replacing team members, all at once or one at a time, never stopping to think that the problem may be themselves instead of their team.
Replacing team members may be necessary, particularly when a new leader comes into a role and has a different vision, strategy, or mandate than the prior one. At some point it is the job of a leader to make the most of the people they have rather than continuously blaming the individuals for what is actually their own responsibility. The manager's manager and others start to notice this pattern of blaming the team members, and the problem with the team becomes a problem with the manager. Before long, the organization is looking for a new leader, rather than new players.
