Getting Along With Your Manager, Part Two
Bruce Tulgan is well known for helping managers understand younger workers. Now in a new book called It’s Okay to Manage the Boss he says, there is an “under management epidemic” and the responsibility for getting along with a manager is up to the employee.
Manager’s don’t manage, says Tulgan, but an employee needs clear expectations for performance that can be framed into concrete actions. If you don’t know what’s expected of you between now and your next review (an institution whose value is debatable according to Samuel A. Culbert at UCLA) it’s time to ask.
The days of hitching your wagon to some else’s rising star may be over, Tulgan says, and catering to a boss’ whims, style and preferences at the expense of your own career development is a recipe for career mismanagement. Instead he suggests an employee have clear expectations of what the job entails and make requests for candid feedback. It’s also an employee’s job to figure out how frequently feedback is useful and whether you can arrange for it in small manageable bites or in longer, less frequent meetings.
He says after establishing ground rules, including an estimate of how long the relationship might last, keep score for yourself. He advocates writing your own operating procedures, planning your own schedule and prioritizing your daily and weekly tasks, all the while being sure to run your intentions by your manage. And yes, a manager may even be threatened by your industriousness.
The reality, says Tulgan, is everyone you come in contact with on a daily basis is a boss, whether it’s a manager in another section or one of your customers. Just accept the fact as a given.
Above all, your manager needs to be kept in the loop. And never go behind his or her back or over his or her head. If a manager takes issue with any of the strategies, Tulgan recommends a sincere simple and a dose of humility. “Smile and say golly,” he says, and never surprise the boss.
While what he proposes is fairly labor intensive, the practice may stand an employee in good stead when he or she becomes a manager.
Getting Along With Your Manager, Part One
About a decade ago, in a story about workplace kindness, called The Wisdom of Thoughtfulness, I quoted Marcus Buckingham, then a senior management consultant at The Gallup Organization who said, “People join companies and leave managers.” He found that most workers rate having a caring boss even higher than they value money or fringe benefits.
It seems several years later managers still had not gotten the message. In 2007, a Florida State University study showed that bosses can resort to some pretty offensive behavior. At the time employees said nearly 1/3 of bosses give their subordinates the silent treatment, nearly 40% fail to give proper credit, just over 25% noted their supervisors made negative comments about them to other employees or managers, and just shy of 25% said their supervisors invade their privacy and blamed others to cover up mistakes or minimize embarrassment.
More recently, a Right Management survey found full 20% of employees rate their manager as incompetent, although one wonders how those same employees were rated by their managers.
Apparently there’s lots of room for improvement in the manager/employee relationship. And in a new book, Bruce Tulgan says, “It’s Okay to Manage Your Boss.” Recently we sat down with Bruce to ask him to ask him how to start. He shares his insights in an upcoming post.
Tags: employee attitudes, managers
Do You Know How to To Improve MBA programs?
What is the one idea that would improve graduate management education? If you know, the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the folks who own the Graduate Management Admissions Test, would like to hear from you. They are about to sponsor a contest to find out. And you need not be a current student or faculty member to enter.
The relevancy of MBA programs has drawn widespread attention in the wake of the Great Recession and record levels of unemployment among 18-29 year olds. Who knows the answer to what will keep us economically competitive in the years to come?
The Price of a Non-Linear Career
For those contemplating a little time off, perhaps to care for a newborn or toddler, an elderly parent or even to take a sabbatical between jobs, may to well to consider the findings of Sylvia Ann Hewlett, President of the Center for Work-Life Policy and one of the authors of a recent study about the effects of leaving the workforce and then attempting to re-enter it.
With less than two years out of the workplace and Dr. Hewlett found earnings take a 15% hit. Stay out three to four years, get into the swing of volunteering and feeling you are doing good work and expect to see your financial penalties zoom up to as much as 40% of previous earnings. And that’s not counting opportunity costs of missed promotions or what Dr. Hewlett calls stretch assignments.
If you’re female and think this can’t happen to you, think again. Her data shows that fully two-thirds of women have non-linear career paths. Many of the paths were designed by the women themselves because until recently, corporations were letting women quit rather than making accommodations to a career that doesn’t go in a lock step.
Now that’s changing. Dr. Hewlett reeled off several initiatives from Cisco, Ernest and Young and others that pay more than lip service to modified work arrangements. Still, in many other companies the going is uphill.
There is good news when corporations are left out of the picture and employees rely on their own initiative. According to Dr. Hewlett when Lehman Brothers collapsed the women themselves came together, some 600, to network with one another and provide support, encouragement and job leads. That’s an upside to the financial meltdown. “Ten years ago you wouldn’t have seen that cooperation at that level,” she said.
Women who make it back into the workplace after children, face prospects of facing a second off ramp if elder care responsibilities fall to them.
It’s probably not a coincidence that there is still a high rate of childlessness among female executives. Turns out you can have it all if you are willing to see your earnings tank, or rely for a time on a spouse, which may turn out to be a bad bet in this uncertain economy.
Tags: career choice, female executives, time off
Is Talent Overrated?
Ahead of the financial meltdown Geoff Colvin, author and journalist wrote a book called Talent is Overrated that has recently been reissued in paperback with a new afterward (Portfolio Trade).
It casts a light on what Mr. Colvin calls world class performers, but others would label achievement through opportunity, persistence and enthusiasm for a task.
The book works on several different levels with insights useful to corporate managers, job seekers and recent graduates.
Even with a fiscal crisis Mr. Colvin still makes the case that financial capital is abundant, but the scare resource is human ability. (If only those who have lost their jobs agreed with him.) The illustrations Mr. Colvin uses to support his thesis, Exxon, Microsoft, and Apple are large corporations that hire for specific areas of responsiblity. “Microsoft hires incredibly smart people,” he said.
Mr. Colvin is also keen on an individual’s cognitive abilities, what some might call brainpower, but he says companies don’t necessarily emphasize them. Perhaps, that’s why he sees opportunities for the resurgence of the corporate manager. “There is going to be a shift to managerial responsibility,” he said. Technology superiority as the basis for economic superiority is about to change.
Where those managers may come from is still open to debate. A recent issue of The Economist (May 8-May 14, 2010) called into question the convention of hiring MBA’s since it said banks and consulting firms are increasingly recruiting people without the degree, particularly mathematicians and computer scientists. And it appears more companies are developing home grown talent.
Since the emphasis in Mr. Colvin’s book is on world- class performance, it would appear the sooner you start, the higher you can soar. If you are considering a so called “encore career” , Mr. Colvin predicts that the more your skills transfer, the more effective you will be.
By far, the best piece of advice applies to companies and new graduates. Think deeply about your core and what you won’t cut. “Focus on that,” he said. Customers will have new problems and will have to come up with new solutions. Don’t just cut price.”
A Double Standard?
Yesterday Reuters reported a federal jury ruled that Novartis, a drug manufacturer, must pay $250 million in punitive damages for discriminating against thousands (5,588) of female sales representatives.
After a five week trial a jury found a pattern of discrimination against women employees over pay, promotion and pregnancy from 2002-2007 .
Working Mother Magazine has considered Novartis one of the 100 Best Companies for Women during the last ten years. The New York Times reported Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media, released a statement that expressed disappointment in the company’s discriminatory practices.
Novartis is the maker of Theraflu and Triaminic. For women going through perimenopause they offer the Vivelledot. And for women who have osteoporosis they manufacture Miacalcin and Reclast.
Why did a company that purports to make drugs to improve the quality of women’s and children’s lives discriminate against women in its workplace?
Novartis said it would appeal the verdict.
Tags: pay, pregnancy, promotion, punitive damages, sex discrimination
Career Transitions Hit Home
There is a saying among journalists, that you never want to be part of the story. Still when fellow journalist Eve Tahmincioglu, asked me to guest blog at www.careerdiva.net about One Family’s Career Journey I readily agreed.
My husband and daughter are both in career transitions. My daughter is a rising college junior, a history major with a fledging interest in becoming a curator. My husband is a long time IT sales engineer, who was unexpectedly laid off last June.
With unemployment among teens and young adults at record highs and long term unemployment a factor in the economic recovery, I hope readers can gain some useful insights from our story.
Coming next week on www.amyzipkin.com our Conversation with Geoff Colvin the author of Talent is Overrated, which will soon be out in paperback.
Paying Lip Service to Job Hunting
Temporary work is considered a bellwether of the economy. And as the economy perks up, (over 284,000 temp jobs have been created since the low in September 2009, 50,000 in February alone), some of the millions of unemployed may be toying with temping as a way of getting back into the job market.
Those still on the sidelines, may want to consider the findings of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor David Autor. With his colleague, Susan N. Houseman of the Upjohn Institute, he’s found that temporary help job placements do not improve subsequent earnings and employment outcomes. His study covered low skilled workers. And he says the temp work takes away from the hard work of job hunting.
What hard work? He directed me to the troubling statistic uncovered by his colleague Dr. Alan Krueger of Princeton University who with Andreas Muller who published a paper in May 2008 entitled The Lot of the Unemployed: A Time Use Perspective.
It seems before the financial meltdown unemployed Americans spent a mere 40 minutes a day on their job search, while their gainfully employed colleagues spent a full 408 minutes on the job. What did the unemployed do with the rest of their day?
For openers they spent nearly double the amount on the care of others, 112 minutes for the employed vs. 226 minutes for the unemployed. What did they do with the rest of their time? The unemployed spent more time on education a day, 25 minutes, vs. 11 minutes for the employed. And they spent a disproportionate share of their leisure time watching television, 201 minutes for the unemployed vs. 109 minutes for those who were employed.
Dr. Krueger is on leave at the Treasury Department and unavailable for comment. And, yes, in May 2008, the recession was just beginning. It’s become a truism that jobs are hard to come by and it’s an employers’ market. Still some job seekers might get better results if they redoubled their efforts.
Tags: job seekers, time management, unemployment
Challenges to Working Longer
Since the recession started, there has been increasing attention being paid to working longer and there are several bright spots. Last month, I profiled Dianne Fuller Doherty who is still going strong in a full time career past the age of 70. Afterwards we talked with Marc Freedman of Civic Ventures, whose passion for second careers has been widely covered.
Recently the Towers Watson 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey found that although th age at which workers say they expect to retire changed little from a year ago, the percentage of workers who expect to retire after age 65 increased from 11% in 1991 to 33% in 2010. It’s up nearly 10% in the last five years.
We recently asked Tamara Erickson, who wrote Retire Retirement, (Harvard Business School Press 2008) about this trend. She has an optimistic outlook, but recognizes there may be challenges ahead if baby boomers chose to work longer.
AZ. When you wrote Retire Retirement, Career Strategies for the Boomer Generation, it was ahead of the fiscal meltdown, and 10% unemployment. What has been the biggest misperception you’ve faced about the book since the recession began?
TE. I didn’t foresee the speed with which the nature of work available in the US economy would change. The recession accelerated the shift away from the manufacturing base toward knowledge-intensive work, to an extent that I didn’t fully anticipate. The US lost millions of manufacturing jobs very abruptly over the past 18 months. As a result, we have the paradox today of high unemployment and growing skill shortages in a number of knowledge-intense sectors of the economy. The prediction that there will be work available for Boomers who want to continue working post-traditional retirement ages is now true only for those with specialized skills or knowledge.
AZ. How do you think the significant erosion of wealth caused by the downturn, not to mention, the fall-off in home prices, even among those homes not in foreclosure, has impacted the baby boomers ability to remake themselves? What suggestions do you have for taking a longer view?
TE. It has clearly shifted the mix of the portfolio lives that Boomers will need to create – toward having a higher percentage of time devoted to income-producing activities. However, I don’t think there’s a major philosophical impact – certainly not to the extent portrayed in some media reports. Boomers have always intended to remain active – to remain involved in constructive, contributing activities. They were never planning to spend their entire post-retirement years in leisure. They may need to spend a little less time doing strictly volunteer activities and instead do things that earn some income, but that’s a shift in the type of activity, not from leisure to activity.
AZ. When you talk about Career Curve archetypes, types of work available, the patterns for each seem very different. Are baby boomers destined to continue in the same archetype they had during their working lives? Or is it possible to transition from one archetype to another and if so how?
TE. They’re not destined to continue in the same archetype – and one of my major hopes is that people will use the book to think carefully about their archetype and therefore the types of activities they would enjoy and find most meaningful. Today only about 25% of the workforce overall is engaged in their work; a significant proportion of the remaining 75% are probably doing work that does not fit their archetype. I hope people who fall in the 75% will use the “retirement” break as an opportunity to re-think and change directions. A number of the tips in the book are aimed at ways to do that – the basic advice is to experiment in low risk/ low commitment ways until you find something that you feel very excited about.
AZ. Do we still have a “Workforce Crisis” of jobs needing to be filled, or did the Great Recession put that on hiatus especially in the financial, automotive and publishing industries? The country’s unemployment numbers don’t appear to be budging, and older workers, in particular, are taking longer to return to work than other age groups.
TE. We have a paradox: persistent high unemployment (that will probably remain for at least another 5 years) AND growing shortages in key skill sets. One problem with knowledge-based jobs is that they tend to be less fungible. In other words, if someone is laid off from a manufacturing job in one industry, there is a reasonable probability that they are qualified to perform a manufacturing job in a different industry. However, knowledge jobs do not tend to span industries (or do so to a much lesser extent). So, an accountant cannot immediately work as a nurse, for example. As our economy is comprised of a higher and higher percentage of knowledge work, the likelihood of high unemployment in some sectors and talent shortages in others will grow.
AZ. Why do you think the preference for cyclic work, taking time off between assignments, has not had as enthusiastic reception in the United States as it has in say France or Brazil? What do you think needs to be changed to increase its popularity here?
TE. I suspect that the Boomers’ firm grip on corporate leadership in the US – and the size of this generation relative to the Xers who follow – has strongly influenced our work patterns. Boomers have been conditioned to go “all out” – as hard and as intensively as possible. Cyclic work, at least during their career shaping years, has not had great appeal for US Boomers. And, because they are generally “the boss,” others have not felt comfortable taking advantage of cyclic work policies even when they exist. As Gen Xers move into leadership roles, I expect to see a much greater acceptance of cyclic work in the U.S.
I’m not sure why France and Brazil have managed to break through earlier. Certainly attitudes toward work are different in these countries from the US Boomer approach. France, in particular, has tended to have more of a “work to live” approach for many decades, which I suspect makes the country, as a whole, more open to various cyclic arrangements.
AZ. In what ways do you anticipate the baby boomers will be able to diffuse long standing attitudes about age discrimination? Can you provide several current examples of how these attitudes are being diffused?
TE. Oh, yes. I think Boomers have always believed that every stage at life THEY reach is a wonderful stage – I have no doubt that they will make being 60 and 70 and even 80 very “cool,” too. As an example, look at the number of Boomers who are posing in swim suits on the covers of magazines or otherwise doing things that formerly would have been the province of the young.
The Price of Job Security
Coonskin caps covered hearts in respect for Fess Parker, better known to all as Davy Crockett who died last week at the age of 85. The three part series in which he starred for Disney in late 1954 and early 1955 was dwarfed the merchandising bonanza that followed. It was perhaps, the first, inkling marketers had of the buying power of the baby boomers, as the hula hoops, Barbie dolls and trends that followed.
But, if Fess Parker had designs on being something other than a stalwart player at the Disney studios, he was destined to be disappointed. As Richard Severo pointed out in Mr. Parker’s obituary in The New York Times, “He began to chafe at the roles the Disney organization was offering him, and when he refused to appear in “Tonka,” the studio suspended him. He was unhappy, too, that Walt Disney had discouraged his being cast in “The Searchers,” the John Ford classic starring John Wayne, and “Bus Stop,” with Marilyn Monroe.”
Of course, no one will know what Mr. Parker’s acting future might have held, if he had appeared in those films. After he hung up his buckskin, he went on to a business career, including that of vintner. Was he typecast by Disney? Or were they just unwilling to tinker with success?
As Towers Watson reported last week, in the aftermath of the great recession, employees are seeking security. To what extent is it okay to give up some of your dreams for security?
