Jason Owens

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Helping Manage Your Manager

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Not all engineers are blessed with having a seasoned Manager with strong communication skills and business training. Sometimes engineers get promoted to a senior position for their technical prowess without having all the leadership training they might need to be as effective as possible.

You can help them succeed, and in doing so, you’re likely to be more successful as well. A word of caution, not all Managers want feedback and direction from reports (which is unfortunate and ultimately self-destructive.) Consider how and when you provide the feedback, and remember to be respectful and professional. Here are some ideas to get you started.

  • Regular check-ins. If you don’t have them, maybe you should ask for them. It shouldn’t be a bad thing or time-consuming, it’s an opportunity for you and your manager to discuss goals, progress, and expectations. It’s also an opportunity for you to receive feedback. Your manager should be giving you slight nudges in the right direction if you’re veering off course, not a shove as you’re about to go over the cliff.
  • Clear expectations. If you don’t know what it means to complete assigned tasks and projects successfully, ask for clarification and get an answer you can understand. It’s not a negotiation, you may not agree with what your Manager defines as the end state, but you do both need to understand what done means.
  • Learning style. If you need to take training or take in a lot of information, help your manager to understand how you best learn. If you’re a visual learner, a 30 minute discussion on the phone over spreadsheet numbers might not accomplish what your manager had hoped.
  • Information flow. Managers should be communicated through, not to. When senior leadership provides information down to managers, the intent (hopefully) should not be that the information stops with your manager. Your manager should see themselves as a conduit and translator of information. Granted they might not be able to share everything they know all the time in its entirety, but as a general rule they should be parsing what they learn, translating it into terms you understand, and turning that into actions you can complete if needed. If you feel something is missing or that what you’re working on doesn’t seem to fix with business goals, work with your manager to clarify expectations and get the info you need to be successful.
  • Be concise with your feedback. Your manager may not mind receiving feedback, but if they feel their time is being wasted unnecessarily, they may not be as receptive as you’d like and may miss the message you’re trying to convey.
  • Have realistic expectations of your own. Know that someone that has poor communication skills and not much empathy will not suddenly be what you want them to be just because you give them feedback. Unfortunately there can be ineffective managers, people that have no business being in a leadership position or at least not their current one.

Be professional, tactful, and constructive, and accept that there may be only so much you can do. You may have more success changing your reactions and interactions with your manager than you will trying to change them and their behavior. Hopefully though you can provide helpful information to your manager and some insight as to how they can be more effective and in turn help yourself be more effective in the long run.

Photo by blue_j under CC license.

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Long live Tommy

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This post is a little different from my usual ones. It still applies to project management, security, business, productivity. Last week I went to a funeral. Tommy Kuehn was 24 when he died. I had been his next-door neighbor, and essentially got to watch him grow up. The service was held during the worst snowstorm this winter yet. What was normally a 1 hour drive took almost 2 1/2. As I watched cars disappear into the drifts and snow of the storm, spinning out of control on the interstate, I had a lot of time to think.

Start at the end to get to the beginning. While I was driving I happened to be listening to a podcast about “assumptive goal planning.” I think I’ll write a post about it in the future, but the point is rather than figuring out what you need to do to improve process, be productive, boost sales, etc. and then try to make your numbers, think about where you’d want to be at the end of the goal. Think about what you could say about what you did, or what you accomplished, such as “we improved customer retention rates by 15%.” By thinking about the future and putting yourself in the future, you help avoid the mental block of figuring out everything that you’re going to do in order to get to your goal. You work backwards, distilling down objectives and tasks, until you end up the roadmap.

Back to Tommy. I don’t remember who said (paraphrasing) “if you want to know how to live your life, think about what you want people to say about you at your funeral and work backwards.” Tommy was a really great kid. I say kid because that’s how I still think of him, even though he was really grown. He had an infectious personality, grinning, smiling, always willing to help, intelligent, and positive. He died suddenly of bacterial meningitis in a matter of days.

So remember, terrible storm. Snow everywhere, slick roads, no visibility. Monday morning.

Conservatively there were 500 people at Tommy’s funeral. His mom told me that they had the showing the day before. It was at the funeral home up the street where he had learned to ride his bike in the parking lot when he was little. She said there were so many people that showed up, they had to shut the doors near the end. There was a line outside and people stood in the cold to pay their respects. In a very short amount time Tommy made a very large and positive impact on a lot of people. Unfortunately, I’m left wondering what he could’ve accomplished had he not died so young.

But here’s the point. What do you want to be when you grow up? Are you happy with your current job? Are you loyal to your job or to your profession? Are you producing the work or the results that you want to? Whether you’re a project manager, engineer, security professional, a leader, or manager, what is the impression you want to make? What do you want your legacy to be?

It was never too early to start thinking about your future accomplishments through yesterday’s reactions for tomorrow’s past.

Long live Tommy.

Photo by saturdave under CC license.

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Demotivators and Job Burnout

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What is Job Burnout?

Job burnout can be described as a lack of motivation and direction, a feeling of futility, or concerns the effort you put into your work are meaningless. Job burnout might not always be obvious. It’s not as if you wake up and realize, “I have [[[job burnout]]].” But you might feel frustrated, unmotivated, disconnected from what others are working on, think “why bother?” when opportunities come up, or feel emotionally overwhelmed and as is you can’t handle situations you normally would be able to.

The list below identifies some factors that contribute to [[[job burnout]]]. If you’re an employee, these are some things to watch out for. You may have had trouble in the past identifying what it was that was bothering you, hopefully this will help. Future articles will talk about dealing with burnout. And if you’re a manager, this is just as important for you. Check to see if the environment you’re working in has these factors or, as a manager that you’re not contributing to these factors. At best, your employees will not be able to reach their full potential and at worst, you will likely lose some good people.

Demotivators as Causes of Job Burnout

[amazonify]1560523573[/amazonify]If you feel like you’re working for or towards something, that typically leads to feelings of accomplishment and enthusiasm. However, if you’re constantly working to avoid something, such as loss, trying to keep up with the workload, avoid criticism, or constant “firefighting” you may end up an unhappy workaholic.

True there are personal and behavioral factors that can add to burnout. From a workplace perspective there are some specific significant factors that will act as great [[[demotivators]]]. These [[[demotivators]]] will eventually fuel job burnout. The following demotivators have been adapted from Preventing Job Burnout (Potter, 1995.)

A Critical Boss

No matter your performance or accomplishments, you are never able to satisfy your manager. There may be something to always find fault with, or something wrong with how you get things done. It may not be consistent. There may be a Jekyll and Hyde dynamic; something that was acceptable one week may be completely unacceptable the next. You end up feeling like you’re just not able to make your boss happy, happy with the work you provide, or feel like you are constantly walking on eggshells around that person. Critical comments may be subtle as well, not easy to identity consciously at first. Behaviors such as, “you’re doing ok, but…”, frequently being interrupted, feeling like you not allowed to provide constructive feedback and ideas, or having your work questioned or second-guessed contribute as well.

Perfectionism

Very much like the critical boss but in this case the boss is you. You are too hard on yourself, placing undue pressure and unrealistic expectations on yourself.

Inadequate Recognition

There are several factors that can fall under the category of inadequate recognition. People want to feel valued for the work they do, and in ways that are meaningful to them. In addition, being or feeling underpaid can lead to feelings of lack of recognition. Under-utilization can as well. If you have a lot of education and experience, but feel you are being held back or not given opportunity to use your skills, that can contribute to recognition issues.

Unclear Goals

If you don’t know why you’re doing what you are, how your efforts contribute to the success of overall goals, or if what you’ve been asked to accomplish isn’t clear, it’s likely you will wonder what the point is or why bother if the goals conflict or are unclear. The same can be said of poor or missing information. If you are not provided with the information needed to accomplish goals or frequently given incorrect information, it’s unlikely you’ll be motivated in the future.

Unrealistic Expectations

You may be given tasks that are not possible to complete in time. You may have clients and customers that either have expectations that cannot be met, or expectations that may have been set that you now have to meet. You might also be trying to take on too much at once.

No-win Situations

Depending on the nature of your organization, you may have more than one manager, and those managers may have differing demands that make it difficult to accomplish goals. Or you manager’s supervisor may have conflicting goals and expectations, placing you in an awkward position. You may feel like you’re being pulled in too many directions as an employee, spouse, parent, or partner. Depending on the nature of the work you’re doing or being asked to do, you could also have conflicts with your beliefs, values, or even with what you believe to be a lower quality of work than should be produced.

Bureaucracy

Frequent red tape, process for process sake, unnecessary layers of management approvals, etc. can impede progress, leaving an employee feeling less than effective, untrusted, or worse, helpless. And attempts to circumvent bureaucracy  in order to try to get things done may only lead to more frustration and problems.

Work Overload

Note that this doesn’t mean having a lot of work. It means too much work, at least more that you feel your can handle effectively. And prioritizing your workload doesn’t help if all your priorities are determined to be the same.

Lack of Training

Although not receiving training on a regular basis may make you feel like you’re not learning anything new, being consistently put into situations where you are responsible to complete work or to manage tools and solutions of which you have inadequate (or no) training will likely lead to multiple issues, burnout being a direct result as well an indirect result in the future.

Projects or Tasks That Never End

You work constantly, long and hard, on a project that never seems to have any defined goals or progress. But it keeps going. The deliverables may change, the schedule, the budget, but it just keeps going with no end in sight. As a team member you may feel, even know, that it’s time the project was killed, but your leader either doesn’t listen or you’ve hit the wall where you just don’t care anymore.

Fruitless Efforts

How would you feel if everything you ever worked on was not used, canceled, or considered unsuccessful?

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