with FutureVisions^SM

creating sustainable results in growth and performance

Make sure you understand your boss and his or her context, including:

Goals and objectives

Pressures

Strengths, weaknesses, blind spots

Preferred work style

Assess yourself and your needs, including:

Strengths and weaknesses

Personal style

Predisposition toward dependence on authority figures

Develop and maintain a relationship that:

Fits both your needs and styles

Is characterized by mutual expectations

Keeps your boss informed

Is based on dependability and honesty

Selectively uses your boss's time and resources

The variety of targets possible:

· Understanding office politics and managing upwards.

· Learning to stop fighting the battle after the war is over.

· Developing more self-confidence to step out of your comfort zone.

· Learning to do the right thing in the right way versus the right thing in the wrong way

· Cultivating more executive maturity.

· Learning how to establish a comfortable presence that attracts followers.

· Earning the respect of management.

Strategy to go forward: Managing Upwards

· First and foremost, do exemplary work. Have a solid reason to want management to pay attention to you as well as a solid reason why they will want to.

· Quantify your contributions and let the right people know. If it’s fact, you are not tooting your own horn but rather making it easier for the boss to understand your work.

· In a succinct, clear manner, state the situation, explain what you did, and report the results. This can be done on e-mail, on the phone, in a note, or in the hallway. Just make sure you do it consistently.

· Try to share credit wherever you can. Enthusiastically and sincerely ask, "How did you do that?" You might learn something valuable.

· See possibilities, not limitations, in making sure your accomplishments get noticed in an appropriate way.

· Raise your positive visibility by real acts that produce results management wants. (Allow your name to be put in for committee chairs, join business or trade groups, volunteer to be a company or industry spokesperson, apply for awards, share the spotlight with others, write an article for a company publication, get involved in community events, and so forth.)

· Get a reputation that supports the way you want to be perceived. Use theatrics, "fake it before you make it" if necessary. (Just be careful not to fake competence, results, values, integrity, and other critical things.)

· Get a reputation for being quick to "get up to speed" on things. Size up the boss. Find out how he or she views results, recognition, praise, power, personal integrity, communication, family, etc. Find out by asking.

· Ask questions in an inquisitive manner, not an interrogatory manner. Ask. Observe. Ask more.

· Give what the boss wants in the way she wants it. Be alert to changes in her situation.

· If you are really smart in managing relationships upward, you will keep people apprised of what you have done or are about to do.

· Don’t be afraid to say "no" even to superiors. If you take on too much and end up doing poor work, missing deadlines, or burning out, you’ll both lose. It’s a good idea when you say no to someone to give the person something in exchange that you can and will do. For example, "No, I can’t take on project X, but I will help Joe complete project Y"

Fall-back plans

· Do not think that good work will speak for itself. It should, but it doesn’t.

· Pay attention to how your boss and your boss’s boss handle themselves physically. How do they dress? What symbols of power do they have around them?

· Observe what types of people they surround themselves with? (Your boss may have a dismal presence himself but expect something else from others.)

· Take on the corporate traits you observe. Consistency is important if you choose this route, for example, staying late or coming in early, or sending thank you notes and letters of praise—with sincerity, of course.

· Acknowledge others (upwards) the way you would like to be acknowledged by them. Everybody has something they're particularly proud of. Pay honest compliments in those areas.

· Do a little today, a little next week, and keep at it. The secret to getting ahead is getting started.

· The bottom line: Do something unexpected but deeply desired by your boss.