Relationship Building
OfficePRO magazine, March 2004
Establishing rapport with your boss means less stressful days and higher productivity
BY KAREN FRITSCHER-PORTER
If you can build rapport with your boss, your work days will likely be less stressful and you’ll feel more secure in your position. Why? One reason is that your days will lack conflict, surprises, and even paranoia. You won’t be walking on eggshells in some cases. But that doesn’t mean your days will be uneventful. In fact, you’ll be working in conjunction with your boss toward mutual goals. You’ll better under-stand what makes him or her tick. And you’ll be clearer about the boss’s expectations for you at work. So how do you get in synch with the boss? Let’s take a look:
►Practice expectation-setting. Learn your boss’s expectations. Don’t assume. “Too often, we just operate by mental telepathy and subtle hints and then just can’t figure out why communication broke down,” says Joan Lloyd, syndicated workplace advice columnist, management consult-ant, and owner of Joan Lloyd & Associates in Milwaukee (www.joanlloyd.com). When you get a job, you need to discuss expectations, such as communication media and frequency between you and your boss, she says.
Ask and observe, adds Ronna Lichtenberg, author of It’s Not Business, It’s Personal and president of management consulting firm Clear Peak Communications in New York (www.askronna.com). “Does the boss like to have conversations in person or by e-mail?” Lichtenberg asks. “Does she like long lists or little bits at a time? Is it better for you and her to meet daily or weekly? Ask the boss to tell you her preference and even to tell you examples of how someone has handled communications that worked for her and techniques that haven’t worked for her.”
Also practice ongoing expectation-setting. “When the manager gives you an assignment, don’t just take the assignment and say ‘Great, I’ll do it,’ and go off blindly and do something,” Lloyd says. “Spend that extra time asking ‘Who is this for? What are the important components? When is it due? What ideas do you have for me to consider?’”
Share your expectations, too. “You’re there to support the boss, and your boss needs to know what you need in order to be able to support him and to be able to do the job he tells you he wants you to do,” says Andrea Kay, a career consultant, executive coach, and workplace columnist in Cincinnati (www.andreakay.com). Your expectations may entail asking for equipment, information, meetings, or anything else that enables you to give the boss the results he’s looking for, explains Kay.
►Huddle regularly. “A weekly huddle [with your boss] is crucial, even if it’s only 15 minutes and a stand-up meeting,” Lloyd says. “Monthly meetings are a mistake. The purpose is ongoing communication. If you only talked to your spouse in a meaningful way once a month, you’d be in trouble. Request the huddle. Insist on it. Be persistent,” stresses Lloyd.
►Don’t criticize. “I think ‘constructive criticism’ is an oxymoron, like ‘jumbo shrimp,’” explains Lloyd, who conducts workshops on how to give feedback. “I would never offer criticism to anybody.”
And like anybody, bosses don’t want criticism. “I don’t want to be criticized for how messy I am or how I forgot something,” adds Kay. “I already know that. I want this support person to have my best interests at heart and to be there to support me. So to put me down or to make me feel bad is going to make me say ‘Wait a minute! Whose side are you on anyway?’ Instead, be my partner.”
►Know when to offer feedback. You can offer feedback to the boss when it will help you to do your job better, says Lichtenberg, who also says you should be specific with your feedback. “For instance, say ‘Let me give you some feed-back on a way to make it easier for me. If you tell me too many things at once, I get confused. It would be better for me if you could tell me one thing at a time,’” says Lichtenberg.
You can offer more candid feedback to your boss once you’ve earned the right. “You start slow,” Lloyd says. “You build trust. You build rapport. You get to know each other. You learn the boss’s style. You learn how she thinks. You learn what her goals are. And then you’ve earned the right, and the respect, to speak a little bit more candidly. And over time, that candor can turn into a genuine partnership where you can really push back.”
But make sure the boss wants a partner. Many do, but some don’t, Lloyd says. If you haven’t discussed building this type of relationship during the initial job interview, then tread carefully, she says. “Look for opportunities and then test it,” Lloyd suggests. “Offer opinions and see how they go over.” If you get a positive response, you gradually offer more. “There is nothing wrong with going in and saying ‘I have an opinion on this; do you want to hear it?’” Lloyd says. Then if you get an approving nod, couch it in appropriate words, she advises.
►Use an “I message.” Put the feedback on you instead of the boss, says Lloyd. “For example, some managers procrastinate, and then working under pressure, dump lots of tasks on their assistants at the last minute when they could have given it to them in chunks,” Lloyd says. “Instead of the assistant then saying ‘Why do you always wait until the last minute?’ which is an accusation, she could put it on herself by saying ‘I work so much better, I make fewer errors, and I’m so much more relaxed if I’m able to have these chunks a little bit sooner in the process. How about if at the beginning of each project we establish some interim dates; then I’ll flag you when those due dates are, and then let’s you and I work together to get those chunks done on a little bit more of a flow plan.’”
►Support the boss’s goals. If you learn what your boss’s performance goals are, you can match yours to help advance them. Knowing the boss’s professional and personal goals, including what things impact her compensation, will help you to prioritize your daily activities and make decisions and judgment calls.
“It may be that your boss has a compensation objective around partnering well with a specific department in the company,” Lichtenberg says. “Or it may be that this other internal organization is mugging your boss and they’re not a priority.
“If there is somebody in the company who is working on something that is not a priority issue for your boss but it is for that person, then that person can be really insistent about ‘I need to talk to your boss right away’ or ‘I need a turnaround in 20 minutes’ or whatever it is he or she needs. If you know it’s a priority for your boss, you can facilitate getting that to happen. But if it’s a priority for this person and not for your boss, then you don’t have to kill yourself to make sure it gets done,” Lichtenberg explains.
Deborah Dobson of Bethesda, Mary-land, who is co-author with Michael Dobson of Managing Up (www.dobson-books.com), suggests you frame inquiries about the boss’s goals this way: “Ask ‘What are your professional goals? What do you want to get personally out of this job for as long as you’re going to be in this job? How can I help you?’” Why? “They see you now almost as a peer,” explains Dobson, who works as a senior director of management development, training, and staffing for Giant Food Inc.
Lloyd says that you’ll need to let the boss understand why you need the information. “It’s all in the approach and phrasing,” she says. Explain it and say ‘I want to help you reach your goals next year. If I know what they are, I’m in a bet-ter position to help you.’ That’s so much better than ‘How come you never tell me anything around here?’
“Make sure you put yourself in the loop,” Lloyd suggests. For instance, if you know the boss held a planning retreat but you weren’t a part of the actual meeting, ask about its outcome. “Say ‘I know you were in a planning session this morning. Are there any notes that I could look at to get a feel for where you’re heading next year?’” Lloyd suggests.
►Know the boss’s pet peeves. “Figure out what your boss’s pet peeve areas are and do not do them,” Dobson says, suggesting instead that you emulate your boss to the extent that you’re emulating traits and areas that are of value in your work and that are in your value set. For example, you wouldn’t want to emulate yelling or lying. Lichtenberg says there are bosses who care a lot about grammar and punctuation, or punctuality, or none of those things—but you need to know that. “Ask and observe,” she advises.
►Learn to listen strategically. “Administrative support persons need to listen more than anybody else because that’s a critical part of determining what their boss really wants,” Dobson says. “Listen for themes, work styles, priorities, and what’s important to the boss.” By listening, you’ll hear recurring patterns indicating what your boss wants. Dobson once had a boss who frequently said things like ‘We’re not going to get worried about this.’ By listening to this recurring pattern of his, she learned that not worrying was a big deal to him. “He tended to hang around people who also emulated that, and he tended to not like people who were constantly getting upset about things,” Dobson explains. “So if you’re an admin with a boss for whom the sky is never falling, you behave as though the sky is never falling. Whatever the issue, you approach it calmly. You never overreact to things. And you don’t get emotional over things.”
► Don’t cross intimate boundaries. Be friendly, but not friends, with your boss. “You should take the cue from your boss as to how friendly he wants to be in the relationship,” Dobson says. “If the boss asks about your personal life, such as ‘How are the kids? Is everybody well at home?’ or ‘What are you doing over the holiday?’ it’s fine to go there with your boss, too. But don’t start inquiring about family members until he is comfortable doing that. Or, if you do foray into that ground, then watch for body cues and verbal cues to ensure it’s some place he wants to go.” But never get too personal, such as complaining about your spouse’s behavior.
“The boundaries are not sharing personal intimate details about your relationships that you wouldn’t want typed up in the company newsletter,” Lloyd says. Kay notes an exception to sharing intimate details would be if the personal issue affects your work, such as if you need to take some kind of medical leave.
►Utilize times of day. Dobson once had a boss whose best time of day was early morning. Though he arrived before everybody, she didn’t do the same because she knew he valued that solo think time. “But if I wanted to get a decision, if I wanted to discuss something that was particularly complex, if I wanted to make an impression, or if I wanted to change his mind about something, I always did it in the morning and never later in the day,” Dobson explains. “Later in the day, he was feeling hassled and tired, and it was just not a good time for him to address things. In fact, the later in the day it got, the more he made snap decisions.”
Learn your boss’s times of day by observing verbal cues and body language and behave accordingly, advises Dobson. “Are there times of the day when the boss more freely engages in conversation when you come in to the office versus other times when you get a really quick ‘OK, thanks’ response?” asks Dobson. “Experiment. Take things in and see how the boss responds,” she suggests.
►Plan your visits. “Don’t just pop into your boss’s office to talk about one thing and then pop back in 10 minutes later,” Dobson says. Be prepared with a thoughtful agenda. “Open with ‘Do you have a minute? I’ve got three things I need to cover with you for which I need two answers between now and noon, and it’s 10 a.m.,’” suggests Dobson. This statement not only suggests to the boss how much of her time you need, but it indicates the importance level of your agenda items. Don’t proceed with your items until the boss gives the go ahead because she may want you to come back at a better time for her agenda.
►Offer solutions. When you’re planning your visit to the boss’s office, work in recommendations when relevant regarding your agenda items. “Executives want to be around people capable of managing themselves, making decisions, and making recommendations,” Dobson offers. Managers want administrative support staff who aren’t trying to usurp the boss’s power, but rather are just trying to do their jobs and make the boss’s life easier while bringing solutions to the table, Dobson explains. “Admins who walk in looking like they have control over the agenda are ‘managing up,’” Dobson says. The boss knows he is going to be directed, rather than the admin coming in with a problem that he’s going to have to help the admin figure out.
►Know when not to interrupt. If the boss’s spouse or children call, and they say they must speak with the boss pronto, think it through first. “People have different notions about how they want their spouses, partners, or kids involved during the day,” Lichtenberg says. “It’s not a good idea to make assumptions about that.” Instead, she recommends you make a detailed list of who is important to your boss to help you make judgments about who merits the interruption. And though you can make this list through observation over time, Lichtenberg says go ahead and ask the boss early on.
Building rapport with the boss may be easier when you start early in your job. But you can still do so later in your job. If things aren’t going well, acknowledge that to yourself and then take the lead in scheduling a formal sit-down meeting with your boss, advises Kay. Frame your phrasing tactfully and with techniques such as using the “I messages” discussed earlier.
“It’s not too late,” Lichtenberg agrees. “It’s going to be a little harder, especially with boundaries, but you can still do it by doing it gently and patiently and trying to offer something more.” That something more could be offering to do a better job or being more productive as a result of expected rapport enhancements between you and your boss. What boss wouldn’t want to hear those words?
Karen Fritscher-Porter is a freelance writer in Bloomingdale, GA.