Dr. Daneen Skube
Tribune Content Agency
Q: There are projects that have been languishing all year long. Now my manager has decided we must complete them all before the end of the year. There’s no way my team can deliver on this expectation! How do I make my manager more realistic without looking insubordinate to him?
A: You can make your manager more realistic without risking insubordination by allowing your manager to select what projects will and will not get done. If you argue with him, he’ll believe you’re not a team player. If you give a timeline for each project, point out the remaining time left in the year, and ask him to pick which projects are his priorities, you both win.
Be aware management often wants us to pull out rabbits from hats — because who doesn’t like a great magic act? There’s an Irish saying that goes like this: “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” The obvious point is we all want something for nothing whether the world works that way or not.
Be aware that your manager is probably experiencing high demands from his manager. Thus he’s letting the stress pour downhill onto his team. I’m not approving of this tactic, but understanding the origin of your manager’s behavior might help.
Since your manager is anxious about performing miracles to make his boss happy, you’d be emotionally intelligent to validate your boss’s worry. Saying things like, “I can imagine you’re experiencing tons of pressure from your boss.”
Make it clear to your boss that you’re on his side, and you want to make him look good. Make it equally clear this is why you don’t want to promise things you cannot deliver.
Your boss may ask you to go off and develop a proposal about what you think the realistic goals by the end of the year should be. Work hard to under promise and over deliver on how you put these objectives together.
Finding a balancing act between validating your boss’s wishes, the pressure your boss is under, and not promising more than your team can provide, will allow your boss to trust your work and judgment.
Some bosses may appear to want “yes men” or “yes women,” but these same bosses will be consistently disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with finding the part of your boss’s goal you can agree to. Saying things like, “Yes, we need to have a realistic budget for 2024,” then adding, “And we won’t have accurate data until December 2023,” is useful.
If you can say “yes” to what you can offer your boss, then you can negotiate the how and when. If you just argue with your boss’s goal, you’ll start a power struggle that you won’t win.
Some clients tell me they don’t understand why they just can’t tell their boss that his or her timeline is ridiculous. I tell them that interpersonal skills involve the art of making a point without creating an adversary.
I know it might seem like cheating to be diplomatic in how you negotiate down your boss’s timeline. However, you’re skillfully creating a productive atmosphere for your team to do good work between now and the end of the year.
Even more importantly, you’re building rapport, trust, and collaboration with the one person that currently has enormous influence over your success at your current job.
The last word(s)
Q: Some people just seem to be born with confidence, but I imagine every possible problem before I act. Do you have any good ideas about how to muster some faith in myself?
A: Yes, imaging every possible problem and then acting anyway means you’ll always be the best prepared person in the room. As American writer Robert Tew reminds us, “If you were able to believe in Santa Claus for like eight years then you can believe in yourself for five minutes!”
Daneen Skube, Ph.D., executive coach, trainer, therapist and speaker, also appears as the FOX Channel’s “Workplace Guru” each Monday morning. She’s the author of “Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything” (Hay House, 2006). You can contact Dr. Skube at www.interpersonaledge.com or 1420 NW Gilman Blvd., #2845, Issaquah, WA 98027. Sorry, no personal replies.
©2023 Interpersonal Edge. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
