Fire Your Boss (12 page)
Authors: Stephen M. Pollan,Mark Levine
Tags: #Psychology, #Self Help, #Business
The loner
. Do all you can to help your loner boss avoid others’ influence. Offer to run weekly staff meetings on her behalf, providing her with a written memo afterward so as not to bother her. Suggest you’d be happy to attend the monthly after-hours industry get-togethers she loathes. Listen to her orders and follow them, asking for any clarifications in writing only. Say you’re willing to show the ropes to the new hire and hold his hand while he learns the job. Bring your boss ideas for new projects and challenges.
After analyzing his boss, Jon Halladay thought he was a loner whom Jon could serve by being a gatekeeper. Jon offered to serve as the department’s liaison with the company’s other departments, and to handle all the requests for reports from company management. Jon offered to help manage the routine paperwork to free up his boss’s day for engineering work.
The stickler
. Follow the stickler boss’s rules to the letter. Show up on time and, as subtly as possible, imitate your boss’s appearance. Follow his favored procedures to the letter, whether or not it’s necessary or even productive. It’s the process that matters to the stickler, not the outcome, so do things by his book. Whenever a new situation comes up, suggest he establish new rules to follow. Help him codify everything and follow his rules religiously.
It took a bit of persuading to get recent graduate Joan Kent to accept that she needed to follow her stickler boss’s rules. Joan gave up her funky wardrobe for professional suits that mirrored her boss’s garb. She asked her boss for help and advice in getting her lettering up to snuff. Her most effective move was asking for a meeting with her boss to go over all the architecture firm’s landscape style rules and attentively taking notes, and immediately following the rules to the letter.
The glory seeker
. When working for a glory seeker, make sure every one of your triumphs is attributed to your boss. Ask her often to share her wisdom and advice, alone and in group settings. Flatter both her actions and her appearance. Make sure to ask how she is feeling and what she is thinking, in order to offer her a ready platform.
Nancy Bell decided that the secret to managing her glory-seeker boss was to beat her to the punch. Rather than letting her turn every minor situation into a crisis and then resolve it, Nancy began coming to her with “problems” only the boss could solve. Nancy took to bringing her in to finalize donations that had actually already been finalized, and then made sure to give her all the credit.
The fighter
. The real key to dealing with a fighter boss is not to become his target. Suggest opponents, both inside and outside the organization. Offer scapegoats and targets for his anger. Whatever type of competition he perceives, do your best to help him win, whatever that means. Encourage him to express his anger by subtly goading him into action.
Tom Duffy had a hard time playing up to, rather than punching out, his fighter boss. Still, after some careful reflection he started working to meet his executive producer’s needs. First, he told him how a rival show on another network had stolen one of their potential guests, setting it up as an adversary. Then he suggested that some of the advertising staff inside their own network weren’t giving their show its due.
The coward
. When dealing with a cowardly boss, try to show her that what at first appears to be new really isn’t new, and therefore is nothing to be feared. Try to eliminate or mitigate anything and everything that causes your boss fear. Offer to accept the blame whenever she’s afraid of something going wrong. Identify risks for her in advance of their becoming immediate problems, and either remove them or show how they can be overcome.
Janet Crosetti resolved to come up with ways to overcome her cowardly boss’s fears. Instead of presenting proposals as being her own new idea, she began framing them as modifications of things the department chairman herself had done years earlier. When the chairman was about to deny approval of a new software suite for the writing lab, Janet offered to accept the blame if the board questioned the cost. Finally, prior to the creation of a student film festival, Janet warned about inappropriate subject matter and suggested the department narrowly define the types of film that could be entered.
If you’re unsure whether your plans for meeting your boss’s needs will work, there are a couple of things you can do.
First, look around the organization for someone, anyone, who handles your boss well. It could be a peer of your boss or another employee who’s clearly the favorite. Spend a few days paying careful attention to how he or she interacts with your boss. How does she respond to your boss’s troublesome behaviors? What does he say when your boss lashes out? Consciously or not, this person has figured out how to manage a problematic boss. Learn from him. By the way, this is also a terrific tool if you’re at a loss for ways to meet your boss’s needs. Just do whatever the boss’s favorite does and you’ll be fine.
Second, you can cloak your ideas in a memo that suggests a response to a problem or proposes a new initiative, and see how your boss responds to the memo. For example, you can finger potential rivals in a memo for your fighter boss and see if that diverts his anger away from you and marks you as an ally. Or you can write a memo that spins your new idea as actually being a very subtle updating of your boss’s brilliant original concept of years back, and see if that assuages the cowardly boss’s fears. (See the box on page 97: Janet Crosetti’s Memo.) Although the written word is actually more permanent than the spoken word, its impact on your boss’s perception of you is much shorter lasting. That means if you were off target you won’t have to suffer for very long. If your written trial balloon works, follow it up as soon as possible with a similar face-to-face effort to solidify the positive perception.
JANET CROSETTI’S MEMO
Here’s an excerpt from Janet’s memo to her department chairman:
To spice up my classes this year I spent some time going back over some of the great things the department has done in the past. I came across information on a terrific diary-writing exercise you used in your classes. If you don’t object I’d like to use your idea in my classes, just substituting the design and writing of blogs (Web logs) for the diaries. I’d love to speak with you to get your advice on what parts of the diary exercise worked best, and what you did to make it so successful. I can speak anytime after 2:00 p.m. this week.
At some point in my discussions with clients they usually have some reservations about working to meet their boss’s needs.
Many will hesitate about directly doing whatever it is their boss appears to want. “Won’t it be obvious?” they ask. “My boss will see right through it and I’ll be in a worse situation than I am now,” they worry. I know that’s what lots of people think, but, in all honesty, people never see through these efforts. Why? Because there’s nothing to see through. You are actually trying to help them meet their needs; you’re not pretending. Sure, your motivation is to help yourself, but that’s not what your boss will see. While you aren’t really putting his needs first, he will think you are. That’s because he is always putting his needs first. Rather than being skeptical about your motivation, he will like you…no, love you.
And that leads right to the other objection. “Isn’t this just brownnosing?” I’m often asked. My answer is, yes…but what’s wrong with that? You aren’t doing anything to harm anyone else. You are helping your boss meet his needs, and in the effort, you’re meeting your own. I call that a win-win situation. Even in situations where you are dealing with a fighter boss and you’re offering targets other than yourself, you’re not initiating the attacks. Those attacks will come regardless of what you do or don’t do. All you’re trying to do is deflect them from yourself and perhaps steer them somewhere justified.
Most important, this type of behavior works. A recent survey of executives conducted in the
Wall Street Journal
showed that, in retrospect, all had been swayed by subordinates who played up to them in one way or another. The key words are “in retrospect.” All the executives admitted that, at the time, they didn’t think it was flattery or, if you like, brownnosing. And when pushed, most of the executives admitted that they behaved similarly in their climb to the top. That’s because it works.
By working to meet the needs of your boss you do further your own goals. By appearing to put him or her first you actually put yourself first. Don’t have any moral qualms over these kinds of actions. Remember, you’re not at work to save the world or to further your art. You’re working to make money. I don’t think you should feel any guilt over this. But in the off chance you do, you’ll have plenty of time to make up for it with all the free time you’ve gained by putting your boss first.
Don’t use up all those extra hours, however. Because from now on you’re going to be spending part of every week, even every day, fishing for a new job. You’ll cast your net in the next chapter.
If one does not cast a big net, one cannot catch big fish.
— C
HINESE PROVERB
FOR THE FIRST
time in his life Joe Gargery has a choice of jobs. Joe’s a mild-mannered guy. In fact, his wife sometimes accused him of being not sufficiently aggressive at work. In the past, Joe always waited until his current job became intolerable, or he was let go, before looking for work. And then he was usually so desperate that he took the first job he was offered. But in the last year, despite the economy’s being in the doldrums, Joe has been offered two different new positions while still holding his job as a field technician with a cellular telephone company. Joe is in the enviable position of deciding whether to take one of the two offers, or to hold on to his current job. While he’s still undecided about which job to take, he’s certain that from now on he’ll be approaching the job market like a commercial fisherman, not a big-game hunter. Joe will continue to do what he did this past year: constantly solicit job offers rather than setting out, only when necessary, to land a specific job.
ARE YOU ABOUT TO BE FIRED?
There are always signs you’re about to be fired. Most people, however, fall into denial and refuse to pay attention to them. By the time you finish reading this book you’ll be a practiced job fisherman, so you’ll always be looking for work. But until then here’s a checklist for spotting impending termination. Check off every box that applies.
- You are asked to compile a report on all your ongoing projects.
- You are pushed hard to finish one or two specific projects.
- You are encouraged
not
to do your usual long-term planning. - You’re neither informed of nor invited to meetings.
- You receive a critical review for the first time.
- Your expense reports are questioned.
- Your typical expenditures are criticized.
- Your direct superior keeps his or her distance from you.
- Conversation stops when you enter a room.
- You have a vague sense of unease.
If you checked one box or none your job is probably safe for the near future. But don’t let that lull you into complacency. This is the best time to start your job-fishing efforts, since you’ve enough time to rely primarily on long-term efforts.
If you checked two to five boxes your job is in danger. Your boss is laying the groundwork to terminate you at a time of his or her choosing, though it may not be for weeks or months. This is the time to accelerate your job-fishing efforts, both short- and long-term.
If you checked more than five boxes you’re already fired…you just don’t know it yet. The decision has been finalized, and you’re just a “dead man walking.” Unless you’ve got enough money in the bank to keep you and your family afloat for six months, find yourself a stream of income as soon as possible. It will be easier to get another job while you’ve still got this one.
Like Joe, you can go from being a despairing, out-of-work job seeker to being someone who is in demand on the job market.
You can shift from taking the first job that comes your way to having your choice of which jobs, if any, to take.
You can stop being a supplicant at job interviews, signaling your weak position to potential employers, and instead become a finicky job shopper who, by playing hard to get, ends up with far more.
Just as with the previous steps in my new approach to employment, the secret to turning your work life around this way is to adopt a new attitude: job fishing.
The traditional way people look for work has led to a job search that’s reactive, inefficient, and enfeebling.
If you’re like most of my clients, you start looking for work only after you’ve been laid off or fired. Maybe, if you’re like a handful of my more assertive clients, you start looking for work when you pick up signs at work that your job may be in danger, and you refuse to fall into denial. (See the box on page 100: Are You About to Be Fired?) In either case you’re in trouble.
CAN YOU NEGOTIATE SEVERANCE?
In a word, yes. There’s no legal requirement for an employer to pay a terminated employee severance. However, it’s an accepted standard to provide a minimum of two weeks’ pay to anyone who has been fired without cause. The problem is the two-week tradition started half a century ago, when it might have been possible to land another job in two weeks. Fat chance doing that today.
That’s one reason why you shouldn’t hesitate to try to negotiate a larger severance package than the one you’re offered. Another reason is that the worst that can happen is they say no. They’ve already fired you, so what’s the risk? Believe me, they won’t take back their severance offer just because you ask for more. It’s another story if you launch a lawsuit.
Do not sign or agree to anything when you’re informed of the termination. The human resources person and your ex-boss will push you to take the check they’ve already cut and sign a release right then. Resist. Say you’re too distraught to comprehend anything and ask for a meeting the next day instead. There’s nothing they can do except say yes. Do not say thank you when you leave or shake anyone’s hand. Just nod and say, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
If you believe you’re being discriminated against, call an attorney as soon as you get home and let her handle it from there. If you think your termination, while unjustified, is legal, take matters into your own hands.
That night, call your former boss at home on the telephone. Don’t ask for your job back. Just say you’d like his support the next day. Lay the guilt on as thick as you can. After hanging up the telephone, come up with a counterproposal. Ask for at least a month’s severance for every year you’ve worked for the company, for use of the office for your job hunt, for outplacement counseling, and for the company to pick up the cost of your health insurance until you’re reemployed.
Be as businesslike as you can at the meeting. Be ready to do some horse trading. You don’t want this to drag on any more than they do. Get as much as you can and get out of there.
