Manage Which? Up or Down (Part 2)

Oct 20

Photo By Brian

Where we left off last post is that our Managewich, Breeze, gets urgent requests from her manager, Hoover, and Breeze habitually has managed down, meaning that she’s generally accepted the work and the consequences of doing it for herself and her team and has muddled through by either directing her team to do the work or doing it herself.  I made a request of Breeze that she not accept work until one of three things has happened, the first being that she understands fully and completely how these reports and spreadsheets are going to be used and how they add value.  So far, this has resulted in some relationship building with Hoover, and it’s reduced some of the distracting work.  And, we’re not done yet.

I hope you realize by now that even though I have framed this as an “or” argument, Breeze has more than two mutually exclusive options to choose from.   Here is another way for her to go.

Sometimes, Hoover really does need the report he’s asking for.  Sometimes, he’s really not in the mood to answer questions.  So, Breeze has to find another approach.

The second circumstance that has to occur before Breeze can accept these ad hoc requests is that she needs to be able to clarify the consequences of accepting that work.   For whatever reason, Hoover seems to think that Breeze and her team are just sitting around waiting to serve his every whim.  Well, I exaggerate.  Really, what he thinks is that if Breeze accepts the work, than she and her team have the bandwidth to do it along with the work they already have.  This is why Hoover gets so mad at her when she misses deadlines and uses his ad hoc requests as an excuse.  (This is actionable for Breeze, and it boggles the mind why he doesn’t communicate this to her more directly!)

Anyway, Hoover isn’t mired in the day-to-day activities of Breeze’s group, so he doesn’t know what it means to him in the long run when he asks for a new spreadsheet.  This has required that Breeze step up her game.  She has to be able to know in short order how long a request is going to take and how it will impact the other things her group is doing.   Her team, understanding the benefits to them, was very effective in helping her set up a system.

So now, Breeze can present the alternatives to Hoover, and now Hoover gets to decide on what the priorities are.  What a deal for Breeze, because she isn’t the bad guy anymore!  Breeze’s team may still not be thrilled with the outcome, but they have more respect for the management team in that at least some thought was given to sometime past tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow….. we move onto the third circumstance for Breeze to accept work for her team.

Be Your Best You Today,

Carolann

Tags: Action Coach, Brain-based Coaching, business coach, Career Management, Carolann Jacobs, Extraordinary Results, facilitation, Inimitable Leadership, Inspired Workplace, Leadership, Legacy Leadership, managewich, Middle Management, middle manager, Neuroleadership, sandwich generation of managers, vivid epiphany