re: The Art of Managing Up – When Sucking Up Isn’t Gonna Cut It!

Alex Smolen — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:28:44 GMT

Really good post. One thing I might consider adding is to approach your boss with solutions, rather than problems. When an employee has some sort of issue, rather than presenting it as a problem and expecting a handout of sage wisdom, he or she should come up with one or several potential solutions and ask for the boss's blessing. For example, rather than "The client can't receive the attachment" or "The database version isn't supported by the new framework", try "I'm going to Fedex the client a CD because they can't recieve the attachment. Cool?" or "We need to devote some dev time to making the database version work. OK if I put it in the schedule?"

This gives the impression that you know what you're doing and makes the boss feel smart because they helped solve the problem (even if all they did was say OK). And if think your approach may be wrong, come up with several options and the boss will certainly tell you what's best or point you in the right direction.

This advice has helped me from both sides of the table (boss and employer).

re: The Art of Managing Up – When Sucking Up Isn’t Gonna Cut It!

rudolph — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:07:59 GMT

Excellent point Alex. Will put this in the next update.