HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across (HBR Guide Series)

by Harvard Business Publishing

friends with whom they can just be themselves;

holding them accountable for activities that improve their physical health (such as sports),

Analyze Start by looking at the individuals in your network. Where are they located—are they within your team, your unit, or your company, or outside your organization? What benefits do your interactions with them provide? How energizing are those interactions?

Diversify Build your network out with the right kind of people:

“De-energizers,” by contrast, are quick to point out obstacles, critique people rather than ideas, are inflexible in their thinking, fail to create opportunities, miss commitments, and don’t show concern for others.

And our own research suggests that roughly 90% of anxiety at work is created by 5% of one’s network—the people who sap energy.

Generally, benefits fall into one of six basic categories: information, political support and influence, personal development, personal support and energy, a sense of purpose or worth, and

Categorizing your relationships will give you a clearer idea of whether your network is extending your abilities or keeping you stuck. You’ll see where you have holes and redundancies and which people you depend on too much—or not enough.

But many of the people he relied on were from his own department and frequently relied on one another. If

His insularity was limiting his options and hurting his chances of promotion to managing director. He

realized he would need to focus on cultivating a network rather than allowing it to organically arise from the day-to-day demands of his work.

Once you’ve analyzed your network, you need to make some hard decisions about which relationships to back away from.

John, an academic, realized that two university administrators in his network were causing him a great deal of anxiety. This had so soured his view of his school that he was considering leaving. He therefore decided to devote less time to projects and committees that would involve the negative contacts and to avoid dwelling on any sniping comments they subjected him to. Within a year he was much more productive and happy. “By

The next step is to ask yourself which of the six categories have too many people in them.

Beyond this, consider which individuals—and types of people as determined by function, hierarchy, or geography—have too much of you, and why. Is the cause structural, in that work procedures require you to be involved? Or is your own behavior causing the imbalance? What

He also changed his leadership style from extraordinarily accessible to helpful but more removed, which encouraged subordinates to solve their own problems by connecting with people around him. “As a leader you can find yourself in this bubble of activity where you feel like a lot is happening moving from meeting to meeting,” Paul says. “You can actually start to thrive on this in some ways. I had to move past this for us to be effective as a unit and so that I could be more forward-thinking.”

Diversify Now that you’ve

You should also think about how you could connect your network to your professional and personal goals.

Capitalize Last, make sure you’re using your contacts as effectively as you can. Are there people you rely on in one sphere, such as political support, that you could also use to fill a need in another, such as personal development? Could

So he started inviting his more-junior contacts, who were informal opinion leaders in his company, to lunch and asking them open-ended questions. These conversations led him to streamline decision making and uncover innovation deep within the firm’s hierarchy. “When I met with one lady, I was stunned at a great new product idea she had been pushing for months,” Alan says. “But she hadn’t been able to get the right people to listen.

A network constructed using this four-point model will build on itself over time. In due course, it will ensure that the best opportunities, ideas, and talent come your way.

“I don’t care who they are. I won’t buddy up to people I don’t like and respect just because I want something from them.” These are the words of a Fortune 500 senior manager, but we hear similar comments from managers at all levels, in all types of companies. Perhaps you feel the same way.

If this describes your approach, you’re probably making yourself and your group less effective than you should be.

Every organization has a political environment—that is, one where human relationships matter—and yours is no exception.

The good news: You can do that without succumbing to mean and self-interested tactics. The secret is to build ongoing relationships for mutual advantage.

A big-picture view will help you do what’s best for your group. Recognize your interdependence with other units, and consider how your goals and theirs align.

Focus on issues, not personalities. Suppose

Accusing colleagues of “not knowing the market” or being “stuck in the last century”

And complaining about them behind their backs will surely come back to bite you.

When it comes to information, you get what you give, and what you know depends on who you know.

Bullies are actually a key reason not to withdraw to your own corner of the organization. You can counter their tactics with the help of allies. If someone spreads half-truths about you or quotes you or your people out of context, it’s much easier to set the record straight if you’ve developed influence through strong relationships.

One of his direct reports was Tom Gunning, a 20-year company veteran who believed Clendenin’s job should have gone to him, not to a younger, nontechnical newcomer.

Anyone who has faced a rival at work—a colleague threatened by your skills, a superior unwilling to acknowledge your good ideas, or a subordinate who undermines you—knows such dynamics can prove catastrophic for

Here we share a method, called the 3Rs, for efficiently and effectively turning your adversaries into your allies. If you execute each step correctly, you will develop new “connective tissue” within your organization, boosting your ability to broker knowledge and drive fresh thinking. The method is drawn from our own inductive case studies—including

investigating the physiology of the brain, the sociology of relationships, and the psychology of influence.

Research shows that trust is based on both reason and emotion. If the emotional orientation toward a person is negative—typically because of a perceived threat—then reason will be twisted to align with those negative feelings.

When we experience negative emotions, blood recedes from the thinking part of the brain, the cerebral cortex, and rushes to its oldest and most involuntary part, the “reptilian” stem, crippling the intake of new information.

But in these situations, the “emotional brain” must be managed before adversaries can understand evidence and be persuaded.

Gunning had 20 years’ worth of organizational and technical knowledge, and contacts around the company, but he lacked the leadership skills and vision that Clendenin possessed.

Redirection Step 1 is to redirect your rival’s negative emotions so that they are channeled away from you. Clendenin

He followed this with a plain statement of redirection, telling Gunning that a third entity beyond the control of both men was the root cause of their situation. “I didn’t put you in this position,” Clendenin said. “Xerox put us both in this position.”

Another common redirection tactic is to introduce a discussion of things you and your rival have in common, or casually portray a source of tension—a particular initiative, employee, or event—in a more favorable light.

Reciprocity The essential principle here is to give before you ask. Undoing a negative tie begins with giving up something of value rather than asking for a “fair trade.” If you give and then ask for something right away in return, you don’t establish a relationship; you carry out a transaction.

reciprocity is like priming the pump. In the old days, pumps required lots of exertion to produce any water. You had to repeatedly work a lever to eliminate a vacuum in the line before water could flow.

But if you poured a small bucket of water into the line first, the vacuum was quickly eliminated, enabling the water to flow with less effort. Reciprocit...

But, recognizing that mere promises of future returns wouldn’t be enough to spark collaboration, he also offered Gunning something concrete: the chance to attend executive-level meetings.

The arrangement also ensured reciprocity. Gunning’s presence at the meetings furnished Clendenin with on-hand technical expertise and organizational knowledge while giving him “reputation points” with Gunning’s contacts.

Reciprocity involves considering ways that you can immediately fulfill a rival’s need or reduce a pain point. Live

up to your end of the bargain first, but figure out a way to ensure a return from your rival without the person’s feeling that pressure.

who advises leaders in contentious restructurings and business closings to generate goodwill among outgoing employees by offering professional references or placements at other companies as long as the employees continu...