How to Survive the Boss

PREFACE

I WISHED FOR some simple guidance about navigating my way in the corporate world when I was still in the early stages of my career, trying to figure out how to deal with my boss. I would often come home and chat with my brother – he was in a similar situation – and discuss how to handle my work problems. Those days were challenging, not because I was new to office politics, but because I was yet to learn the art of managing managers.

Today, several years later, I make a living by coaching professionals on how to manage their careers. I impart learnings about finding ways to deal with bosses, be they helpful mentors or difficult taskmasters. I show them that working for a manager is about getting the job done, no matter how stressful or demanding the situation. Fundamentally, I advise them about getting through the formative years of their career.

In the US a lot of books are already available on this subject. Most of the advice offered is fairly solid and usable. But India is a different country. Our workplace atmosphere and culture are unique. Here we respect hierarchy and rarely question our bosses. Any form of aggression or a combative nature is considered impolite, especially when dealing with senior colleagues. Indians work on stretchable time-frames, productivity is not measured, and leaving office on time (before your boss leaves for the day, that is) is looked down upon. Face-time seems to be more the norm than delivery-time.

It is only in the past few years that concepts like work-life balance have started making their way into conversations about the workplace. A work-related phone call from the boss on weekends or after office hours is considered normal. The divide between personal time and work is blurry.

The standards might vary from an MNC to an Indian organization to new-age start-ups, but generally, these practices hold true for most of India, compared to the West. In France, for example, it is illegal for a manager to call his subordinates on weekends. Many employers in Sweden have recently introduced six-hour workdays in a bid to increase productivity and make employees happier. Will this approach work in India? It remains to be seen.

Although cultural differences exist, an eagerness to learn the art of surviving the boss is common in workplaces across the world. This book is an anecdotal account for early to mid-career employees about the art of managing their managers. It is also a collection of personal experiences based on information gathered while discussing workplace scenarios with co-workers and peers in cities like San Francisco, New York and New Delhi. It is a documentation of lessons learnt and tricks used to make life as a junior employee easier.

I must also tell you what this book is not – about office politics or dealing with co-workers. It’s only about working with managers. Hopefully, you can benefit from my learning and glean some helpful pointers to apply to your own situations.

I am not claiming this is the best way to do things, but this is my way. In the last ten years of my career, I worked with several managers – not because I switched jobs; it’s just how the nature of my work was. I worked in business consulting for a large part of my career. A typical consulting project in my organization lasted six to eight weeks. With each project came a new manager. Having survived all these managers in ten years, I consider myself a little bit wiser in knowing how to deal with them.

‘I QUIT’

PEOPLE QUIT MANAGERS NOT JOBS

THERE IS ENOUGH research to suggest that people do not quit jobs, they actually quit their managers. Working with a bad manager is stressful. Instead of focusing on performance and getting the job done, precious time and energy is spent in tackling a hostile relationship which, ideally, should be one of mutual understanding and support. In such situations, both the work and the individual suffer, resulting in low-quality output and unhappy employees.

It’s hard to distinguish a good manager from a bad manager at first sight. Now, when I say ‘bad managers’, I may not mean the person is bad in a literal sense; it may just be that he is bad to you, or for your situation. Irrespective, you will have to deal with this every day. Hence, it helps if one looks for cues to predict the nature of the relationship – because you will have to find a way to manage this relationship every day – often with little or no help.

I have worked for three large global corporations, reported to a number of managers and been one myself. In all this time and in innumerable conversations with peers, I almost never found anyone who has never faced a bad manager situation. If you work with people, you will run into this problem at some point or the other in your career.

So what can you do about it?

While ‘I quit’ might seem like the default answer to any bad manager situation, it is often not the most practical solution. Hence people continue to endure them, remaining frustrated, disengaged, demotivated and stressed.

Is there a possibility of another outcome?

What if it was possible to diffuse the situation? What if you could create an opportunity out of a bad manager situation and continue to reach your goal and manage your stress?

It is possible. Not in every situation, but certainly in most of them. It is possible to avoid saying ‘I quit’ to bad managers by taking some clever steps. The challenge is in knowing what those steps are.

Whenever I have been in a bad manager situation, it has been hard to evaluate and redress – resulting in either an emotional rebuttal or a state of inaction. Fear of losing my job or ‘earning a reputation’ I did not want were other reasons that reinforced inaction, and both slowly turned into a behavioural pattern.

I have whined about my bad manager situations to colleagues, family and friends but have rarely spoken about it to the managers themselves, mainly to avoid creating the wrong impression or for fear of possible repercussions. This was truer in the early years of my career as I was still learning the dynamics of the corporate world. It was surprising how remarkably few places I could go to to rant about everyday work issues to receive some practical guidance.

The self-help sections in bookstores didn’t have any answers either. Everyone I spoke to only gave me advice on how to be a leader and take charge of my career. But all I really wanted to do at that point was just go to work every day, do a good job, learn and develop new skills, have a great time doing it and get back home with no stress. I was in no rush to ascend the career ladder and was happy to let it take a reasonably paced course.

BEFORE YOU MANAGE A COMPANY, LEARN TO MANAGE YOUR MANAGER

Before becoming a corporate leader, one has to take charge of their own career and relationships in the organization. Books about leadership speak about becoming leaders at every stage of your career. But realistically, how many opportunities are there in the early years of one’s career to be a leader? How does a junior employee influence company strategy? As a junior employee, the best one can do at that stage is to contribute facts that would help the company leadership. And even for that to happen, the manager needs to be convinced. He is the gatekeeper of how others perceive you. Your relationship with him is critical, and you need to take charge of shaping it better.

Over time, I learned that there’s one thing you can do in improving your relationship with your manager. Some people may call this ‘sucking up’ – I call it ‘investing time in a relationship’.

Given the inordinate number of hours we spend at our workplace, this relationship becomes one of critical importance. Like any other relationship, this also requires time and understanding. The approach is often about understanding the other person’s point of view, evaluating and making a compromise by keeping your ego aside and agreeing to walk on the path suggested by your manager, at least for some time, till you earn your stripes.

In his farewell speech, a managing director (MD) of a multimillion dollar company I worked with, said that he always saw his career as a way to make his manager successful. (This person had risen through the ranks at a steady and sustained pace and finally become MD.) This is the truth of corporations. If your manager and team members do well, so will you and vice versa. If you are in the corporate world and are looking for steady growth, your job really is to manage your manager. Work towards making him successful, and you will reap the benefits. Because, whether you are valued in your organization or not depends a lot on your manager. If your manager truly values you, he will support you and create opportunities for your growth.

Having established the importance of a manager in your work life, it is worth pondering over how little time we spend in evaluating our manager at the start of a new job. I have always found it surprising and must admit that I am guilty of the same. In the early years of my career, the initial period of a new job was all about the novelty of it; new title, big brand, the role and, of course, the salary. At times, I did not even meet my future manager at the interview stage. Only now do I realize the importance of my managers, and the people I worked with, in shaping my career. With the benefit of this hindsight, I believe it is important that you invest time in knowing your manager, if possible, before even taking up the role, and do a mental check if you can work well together.

It is also important to try to differentiate between a good manager and a bad manager early enough even though it is hard when on the lookout for a job. Mostly it is not about ‘good manager’ or ‘bad manager’, but if you think you can work well with that person. Walk the floor of your prospective employer, observe, ask questions and follow your gut feeling. All this will help you understand your future manager better and help greatly in eliminating the possibility of you ending up reporting to a bad manager sooner than later.

Years of corporate experience have also taught me that the first desire to say ‘I quit’ is often an emotional response. If we deal with the situation smartly, we can delay this and in some cases, turn this to an opportunity. The important thing here is to distinguish between a transaction and an emotion.

Each person in a role is a human being (who connects with you individually) and a title (which is the role they are playing). And it is important to segregate the two – the personality from the title.

Similarly, in any task there is a transactional response and an emotional one.

TRANSACTION VS EMOTION

If the actions of the people around you are a constant source of anxiety, then either you are not the right fit for the team or you are reacting too emotionally. Ask yourself the question: are the people around you hampering your ability to deliver or is your stress an emotional response? Are you reacting to the person or the title?

If you find that you can fulfil the transaction but only under a lot of strain, then you are reacting emotionally and you need to retreat and separate your emotions from the transaction.

An example that illustrates this point well is a situation my friend Kavya faced at her workplace, a start-up for jewellery retail. She complained that her manager was hosting strategy meetings with heads of the sales department, who also happened to be his college buddies, and she was never invited for these meetings and therefore felt left out.

‘It is just wrong. I am the head of the customer service team and I should be consulted for any sales-related decision. He [my manager] just wants me to get out of the way because