【《ChaseDream Career》2013年一月刊选文摘录】职场江湖之“Managing your boss part 1:Getting the hel

Career · 发表于 2013-1-16 10:12:24

Let's face it, your relationship with your boss has a big influence on your career wellbeing. If this relationship is not managed properly, it might even affect your performance. When I was a young business analyst at McKinsey, I received a feedback that I needed to consistently deliver high quality of work regardless of whom I worked with. What happened was that when I worked with a manager whom I respected and liked, I delivered high quality of work, but if I worked with a manager whom I didn't get along nor respected, the quality of my output wasn't so great. Since the feedback, I have worked with 30 different managers across different nationalities: Chinese, American, French, Korean, Indian, British, German, etc. Some are great and some are terrible. I had to learn to deal with all types if I wish to move up in my career. Looking back, I made a lot of stupid mistakes in dealing my relationship with my boss. But the biggest mistake of all was perhaps not getting the help I need from my boss. If you observe carefully, you will find out that the most successful people in the
organization are not the ones who don't ask for any help, as the matter of fact,they are the ones who constantly ask for help hence get a lot of help from their boss (and other people in the organization).

I learned two important lessons the hard way-

Lesson one: Don't expect your boss to help you unless you take the first step to help yourself.

So you have just been given a difficult task by your boss (if it's easy work, he probably doesn't really need you). Your initial reaction is to probably ask your boss where you can find information or what's the best way to do the task. He will give you a few ideas but you know none of his idea will work. You are tempted to "push back" and tell him that none of his ideas makes much sense.DON'T DO IT. Give yourself a few hours to a day to "strategize" the task. This means to have clarity around two things before you ask for your boss's help:

1) The objective/goal of the task.
If your boss didn't share with you why you are doing this task, ask him to clarify, don't assume. If your boss did share with you the objective, think if the objective really makes sense. Remember, just because he is your boss doesn't mean he is always right. He might not know what’s really happening at the ground, or not as close to the customer as you are, or not as familiar with the local market as you are. He might be missing an important part of the picture and he will be thankful
if you suggest him a different perspective.
2) Based on the task's objective, plan how you are going to accomplish this task.
Your boss may or may not know the best way to approach this task. If he doesn't know, he is likely to feel equally frustrated if you keep on asking him what to do. Even if he knows, he probably doesn't have time to walk you through the details.Reach out to your friends, colleague or anyone whom you know might have done this before and get their input. Have a rough plan and then get your boss's input. He is likely to be more engaged if you put an initial draft in front of him. He will also be impressed with ability to step back and look at the bigger picture to devise a plan. This is also a good way to gain his support on your approach and ask him where he thinks you can go to look for the required information.
Lesson two: Don't assume your boss knows how to help you, instead,help him help you

I recently worked with a young designer (Kate) who simply just didn't know how to work with our boss (Ken), whom she thought had less design experience than her. Kate told me that when Ken gave her his design suggestions, she didn't know what to do with them because she didn't think those suggestions were good. At the same time, she was feeling very stressed out as she didn’t think she was getting enough help from Ken. As her co-worker observing her behavior on the
side, I couldn't believe she took all that stress onto herself without asking help from Ken, even though Ken is known to be a very helpful and coaching manager in the office. In Kate's mind she had this assumption that “Ken is nice. He tried to help but he doesn't have any experience, so it's going to be a waste of time if I speak to him” Kate was missing a big point. She failed to see that Ken was a very well connected manager who could get the right resource for her, only if she had asked! To help Kate, I encouraged her to let Ken know specific areas that she needed feedback on, regardless whether she thought Ken knew the answer or not. After she spoke to Ken, Ken then asked another experienced design director to spend 30 minutes with Kate and that was all she needed to move her work forward.
Remember, your boss probably doesn't know what you are really capable of, leading to an over/under estimate of how much help you need from him. So instead of leaving it to him to decide how much help to provide you, why not just be a bit more proactive and vocal on the areas that you REALLY need his input?

Let him know (don't assume he knows) a few areas that you want his help on. He is going to appreciate that you help him becoming a more effective manager by prioritizing how he can best help you.

管理你的上司( 上)--从上司那里得到你需要的帮助

　让我们面对现实吧，你和上司关系的好坏对你的职业发展顺利与否有很大的影响。如果处理不好这段关系，甚至会影响你的个人表现。当我还是麦肯锡的一个年轻商业分析师时，有一次接到反馈说，我应该始终如一地交付高质量的工作，不管是同谁一起工作。这是因为当我与自己敬仰并且喜欢的经理一起工作时，工作的质量就很高；而如果是不喜欢或者不太尊敬的经理，我交出的工作成绩就不那么好。自接到反馈以来，我已经和30 来个不同的经理共事过，其中有中国人，美国人，法国人，韩国人，印度人，英国人和德国人等等，他们中有的非常棒，有的则很糟糕。要想往上发展，我必须学会与不同类型的老板相处。回首最初，我在处理与老板的关系时犯了很多愚蠢的错误，而其中最大的错误可能就是没有在需要帮助的时候去寻找上司。如果你细心观察，会发现在职场上最成功的人并不是那些从不寻求别人帮助的独行侠，恰恰相反，他们就是经常寻求别人帮忙，并且常常从老板（当然还有公司的其他人）那里得到不少帮助的一群人。
我从自己的惨痛经验中习得了重要的两课——
第一课：不要指望你的老板主动帮你，除非你先迈出第一步来帮自己。
　　假设你刚刚从你的老板那儿接到一个困难的任务（如果这是一个简单的任务，他应该不大需要你）。你最初的反应可能是先问问你的老板大概应该从哪里寻找信息或者完成这个任务最好的方式是什么。他会给你几个点子，但是你心里知道，这些所谓的点子几乎没什么用处。这时候你又想回头找他，告诉他，他的建议没什么实际的帮助。千万别这么做。给自己几个小时甚至一天的时间，来给这个任务制定“战略计划”。也就是说，在向老板寻求帮助之前，你应该搞清楚两件事：
任务目标/ 目的
　　如果你的老板没有告诉你为什么要你来做这项任务，那么问问他，不要暗自揣测。如果他已经告诉过你任务目标，想想这个目标是不是实际。记住，仅仅因为他是你的老板并不意味着他总是对的。他可能并不知道在实际执行的过程中发生了些什么，或者他和客户的关系不像你那么好，又或者没有你那么熟悉当地的市场环境。他在决策时可能忽略了整块版图上较为重要的一部分，所以如果你给出一个不一样的视角，他会很感激。
基于任务目标，你计划如何实现
　　你的老板可能知道，也可能不知道完成任务最优的方式。如果他不知道，而你总是问他该怎么办，他可能跟你一样很受挫。即使他知道，也很有可能没有时间帮你分析细节。这时候你可以寻求朋友、同事或者任何一个做过类似任务的人的帮助。先拟定一个粗略的计划，再去请示你的老板。如果你有一个初步的想法呈现在他面前，他也许可以更好地参与进来。同时他也会对你能够退后一步，看着更加全面的图景来制定计划的能力另眼相看。这也是一种让他可以更加明确地告诉你应该往什么方向去寻找需要的信息的方式。
第二课：不要假设你的老板知道怎么来帮助你，而要想办法“帮助”他来帮你
　　我最近和一个年轻的设计师（Kate）一起工作，她不太懂得如何与我们的上司（Ken）共事，因为她觉得Ken 的设计经验还没有她自己的丰富。Kate 告诉我，当我们的老板将自己的设计建议告诉她时，她不知道拿它们怎么办，因为她觉得那些建议并不好。同时，她也觉得自己需要一个有更多设计经验的人来给出一些真正好的建议。当她认为无法从老板那里得到太多帮助时，感到压力非常大。作为她的同事，站在旁观者的角度，我不敢相信她竟然一个人扛着这些压力，而不去向Ken 寻求帮助，尽管他是大家公认的乐于给人提供帮助和指导的经理。Kate 在心里对Ken 有另一番判断，她觉得“Ken人很好，但是没什么设计经验，找他帮忙是浪费时间。”其实Kate 忽略很关键的一点：Ken 的交际面很广，他可以轻易地帮她找到合适的资源，而她只是需要开口去问一问！为了帮助Kate，我鼓励她想办法让Ken 知道她在具体的哪些方面需要指导，不管她觉得Ken 是不是懂这些方面。在她和Ken 说了之后，Ken 马上联系了另一位有经验的设计总监，对方花了30 分钟就把问题解决，让Kate 的工作得以顺利继续。
　　记住，你的老板也许并不知道你有多少实力，所以在他给你提供帮助的时候，可能对这个“度”把握得不太好。所以，与其让他决定应该帮你到哪里，为什么不先行一步，主动去确认你需要他帮助的地方呢？让他知道（而不是假设他知道）哪几个地方你需要他的帮助，他会感激你主动引导他更好地帮助你，从而让他成为一个更有效率的领导。
白心远/ 译

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【《ChaseDream Career》2013年一月刊选文摘录】职场江湖之“Managing your boss part 1:Getting the hel

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