Never Kowtow Again: How to Manage Up Successfully

It's a fact of life. We all have bosses we need to manage. (Their expectations, our relationship with them, our responsiveness to them, etc.)


CEOs have boards and shareholders. Entrepreneurs have clients/customers and maybe investors. Mid-managers, well...much of your day is often spent managing up.



While many of the standard approaches for managing up may work, they also leave you kowtowing a tad too much.



You need to (politely, appropriately) push responsibility back onto your boss's plate. You need to always ensure that yours is a successful two-way, not-just-one-way relationship.







One sure-fire approach is the 

Do You Agree Method. 

(Detailed in depth in this cheap Jensen FastPak Tool).



The model is simple:


State the proactive step you will be taking in any given situation, then ask some variation of "Do you agree?"




Example: "This is similar to what we did on the customer service project we did a year ago. Like before, I'd suggest we do this, this and this (fill in with specifics). Do you agree?" (Or..."Does that make sense to you?" Or... "Do you have other suggestions?")






This works for two specific reasons:

1. You are articulating your accountability. You are not presenting your boss with problems, you are going to her with proposed solutions.






2. You are creating a space for your boss to also articulate her views, her measures for success, her recommendations. This ensures that both your asses are on the line, not just yours!






Follow this approach and the result is almost always an enhanced two-way relationship!





MORE TRADITIONAL ADVICE, BUT TOO ONE-WAY KOWTOWY FOR MY TASTE...

Peter Guber, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, recently shared his top three steps for managing up, including:

Put Yourself in Your Manager's Shoes: Your job is to align yourself with her interests, goals and priorities, not the other way around.