Work relationships are learnable.
The work relationship between you and your boss is one of your most important investments. Your boss is key to your future and the primary source for the resources you need to get your job done. That being the case, it's an important reminder that your boss is also the one who can help you prioritize your jobs. Finally, your boss is the one who can best link you to the rest of the organization. In sum, more than anyone else, your boss can either help or hinder your career.
So how can you go about building a great work relationship with your boss? The best way is by means of an informal social contract. But first, I want to disabuse you of some widespread, totally false notions regarding boss-subordinate relationships in all kinds of contexts.
Whatever your boss’s style, typically it’s up to you to establish and manage the lines of communication. The first error many workers make is that they somehow believe that it’s their boss’s responsibility to communicate to them and create the work relationship. That’s a hangover from the old hierarchical mythology of the last century. It’s not true, never was true, and it won’t work that way. Furthermore, information rarely flows down. In short, if you want to know what your boss thinks, needs or wants, you’re going to have to find out for yourself. And if you think your boss is operating outside reality, you’re going to have to figure out how to tell him.
Finally—and make certain you understand this—if you want to be noticed for your performance, influence the dimensions by which your boss will measure you, manage the powers that be and enhance the egos of those above you, the starting place is a great work relationship with your boss. [All three of these competencies are quite learnable. You’ll find a blog on influence here, one on managing up, and another on enhancing egos. Check my personalized Googler for more blogs on the subjects. It’s rare to meet anyone with these competencies, but today’s complex, diverse workforce makes them both more needful and more valuable.] In short, no one gets ahead in business without the ability to smartly suck-up to their boss (all without, hopefully, compromising their values too much). I would argue that it’s true in education, government, especially the non-profits and the church/temple/mosque ministry—and often in our own families. My brother always got in trouble with my mother—which meant he got in trouble with my dad—because he didn’t know how to suck up to mother. I learned early on, and realized that once I did the few things she really needed, I could do whatever the hell I wanted. As a former family counselor, I should say that there are some healthy parents, but that they are few in number.
Now back to that business of building a great work relationship with your boss. Years ago I adapted a relationship process from the work of Ed Schein, one of the world’s top experts in organizational behavior, now emeritus professor at MIT. Though originally a process for team relationships, it also works exceptionally well when applied to the boss-subordinate relationship. Indeed, bosses have requested me to coach their subordinates into the process. There’s no reason that bosses can’t manage down and teach the process to their subordinates, in spite of the fact that it is a managing-up strategy—but they just plain don’t like to spend their time communicating down. The successful bosses spend their time building a great work relationship with their own boss.
The relationship between a boss and direct report is always rather straightforward. They need to build a work relationship, establish an emotional climate that facilitates getting things done effectively and develop a set of work methods. The underlying social and communication forces that shape the working dynamic are significantly overlooked in most boss-subordinate relationships. These work “methods,” what I call “infrastructure,” support the achievement of decision making and business processes and provide the underlying relationship logic. Bosses and workers make all kinds of assumptions about their relationship, but this is one way of getting those assumptions on the table, talking about them, and enhancing the relationship.
The easiest way to talk about these issues is to arrange a conversation in which you want to talk about or confirm your understanding of what your boss really wants from you. After all, you know that if your boss looks good, then you’ll look good. You’d be surprised how often you can say those actual words, get a laugh from your boss, and get all the information you need from him. The conversations should include one or more of the following questions (you may find that your boss wants to spend the whole time on the first question you ask. OK. Finish the other questions later. It may take several sessions.)
How do you set mutually shared goals?
How do you prefer to solve problems?
What kind of information do you typically need to make decisions, and how do you go about it?
How do we ensure follow-through and completion of tasks?
How can we best collaborate in our efforts?
How will we keep our lines of communication open?
How do we manage our differences most effectively?
Again: These are best discussed early in a relationship. But my clients have initiated these conversations at all stages of their relationship with their boss. Although there are occasions in which this entire infrastructure has been covered in one extensive conversation—and bosses have asked for that—a conversation may include only one or two of the issues at a time. They do not need to be discussed in any special order.
Furthermore, once you’ve gotten the information from your boss, and she thinks you understand, your boss may break her rules. That means you’ll have to renegotiate the issue once more. Renegotiation is normal for these relationships. As often as not, you won’t realize that your boss has stepped outside his agreed-upon rules until you’ve slept on it. Then you need to get right back to her, talk about the issue some more, renegotiate . . . or whatever. And keep her happy. It should be obvious that if your boss is happy with you, you’re liable to be happy with her.
I should also add that I’ve worked this process with 75 to 100 bosses and subordinates at some of the best companies in the world, and, without exception, they all love it.
P.S. I note that Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the resident brain at Harvard Business School, argues similarly about boss failure, although fixing the relationship seems to be a more limited agenda.
Photo: Flickr, Hira10