#94: Managing your manager: revisited
(Much) easier said than done
Hello friends,
How was your week?
This week, I feel so much better than the previous one. Today, I visited the Nanyang Technology University campus (wow!), and hung out with my badminton friends. Good talk!
I realized talking to people dusts off a lot of unspoken knowledge and observations in me. I should do this more.
Now, on to this week's newsletter!
Managing your manager: revisited
In newsletter 72, I shared with you an awesome framework to understand your manager and tailor your style to fit them.
I thought with naivete that I had the cheat code. I can work with any type of manager from now on without conflicts.
How wrong I was.
Last Friday, I nearly flipped the table when my manager reached the extremity of one dimension listed in the article. It made me so angry I literally went to a meeting room and threw my tantrum for an hour.
(┛ಠ_ಠ)┛彡┻━┻
At the maximum of my anger, I thought of nothing but having to feedback to her immediately on our very next one-on-one.
"If I am required to improve this and that, why can I not require the same thing from you? Managers are not perfect, they also have to improve, and how would they improve if their subordinates do not feedback upward?" - I thought with utter confidence that I had to feedback to her, and I knew how.
But when I cooled down the next day (weekend), and really thought about this whole manager feedback thing, I realized many nuances that made it much easier said than done.
Fear: I was nervous that my feedback would ruin the rapport between my boss and me (which, honestly, isn't that good from the start). This leads to my hesitation to bring this to the table.
Emotion: This was not the first time I was (much) annoyed by my boss. I had plenty of compounded evidence to validate and amplify this anger. But emotion is lethal. It can turn me into the most unprofessional employee ever if I ever let it sneak into my words. The thing is: this is the first time my emotion was badly impacted by a boss's doings - so it was overwhelming.
Short-termism: This is definitely not my last job, which means this is definitely not my last boss. The impermanence of this job hinders my urge to voice up, because "I would leave this place either way somewhere in the future, why would I have to do that, and what if my manager doesn't change before I go?"
To add to my frustration, my friend (a senior HRBP) mentioned something sad but damn true: Her boss of boss used to say to her:
"If you let an incident in the past [between you and your boss] go by without working on it, you've missed this chance. Forget about it."
What he meant: there's no use mentioning something that happened months ago - people wouldn't remember it, or worse, they would think of you as pettily holding grudges against them despite all the smiles.
What this means for me: I should not (or cannot) use past examples to add fuel to something that just happened last week.
In other words: I should (or can) only feedback to my boss about the event last Friday, which, arguably, was caused by something much more problematic - the very characteristic that caused all my previous frustration - but which, unfortunately, if stands alone, have little correlation to such "root problem".
Why am I ranting about this?
I want to call to your attention about managing up. It's something rarely mentioned for new hires (eh, of course!), or for people seeking advice to accelerate their careers.
However, it will happen more frequently than you expect, will be harder to solve than you imagine, and more consequential than you believe. It can sabotage your whole career if you get it wrong and so it demands your attention as much as some well-defined problems you're tasked with.
Also, cuz I want to rant. It feels good, although not as much if I can tell you these stories without censoring the sensitive parts :)
Is there any solution?
I think so. Actually, I did have a feedback session (more like a 10-minute casual exchange) with my boss and it went better than expected. But I think the success of this session is subjected to a lot of factors that I have not fully grasped. I’ll need more experience with this before I can confidently formulate it and share it with you. Let’s get back to this topic one day.
Write back to me if you've come across the same problem or found a brilliant solution, will you? (Let's rant together!)
Weekly discovery: Mentimeter
Last week, we explored a beautiful app called Padlet, which helps you create digital boards for multiple purposes.
This week, I want to introduce Padlet's perfect complement: Mentimeter.
Mentimeter is an interactive online presentation tool that allows users to create engaging and interactive presentations, polls, quizzes, and surveys in real time.
It is a web-based platform that enables presenters to collect feedback, opinions, and ideas from their audience in a visually appealing and engaging way.
Your audience can respond to these interactive elements by using their smartphones, tablets, or computers.
The free version of Mentimeter offers the full suite of features (though might cap your usage for some), which I believe will meet 90% of your needs already!
Around the Internet: Twitter Blue
I just realized that I can now see a thread as long as 4000 characters on Twitter thanks (or sorry?) to Twitter Blue.
This is an example:
Taking a look at Twitter Blue, I also realized that Twitter is now a pay-to-win game and it's no longer on the user's side.
Twitter may lose lots of advertisers (Reuters), but if a verified account can pay so that their replies have higher visibility than others, it's a break even.
The users are becoming advertisers whose values are clear for Twitter but unclear for each other.
It’s too early to see the effect of Twitter Blue on an end-user experience. Let’s see how it fares out.
Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. If anything in this newsletter has provoked your thoughts, I‘d love to hear them - it’s the best reward for my writing journey.
As always, I wish you a relaxing Sunday and a productive week ahead.
Yours,
Tuan Mon
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Many One Percents newsletter is my weekly curation of Internet gems, mostly about technology, productivity and product management. If you want to support me, you can either subscribe to this newsletter, or donate via these channels: Momo | Paypal | Vietcombank
navigating dynamics with your boss is so real anh ơi 🤝 i also tried to give feedback to my boss once. the principle i followed was to feedback on the situation/event, not on her as a person. there was a distinction between the problems of the situation and her personal qualities. but then i was still manipulated afterwards so idk :))
Thank you for all the exciting apps you introduced. 🙌