So I got promoted to management. That’s cool. My boss is really into these management development blogs, and makes us (supervisors) read them. Less cool. I don’t know whether I’m looking for advice on how to respond when he wants to discuss the assigned reading, perspective on the whole issue (it all seems like a load of crap to me; am I not giving it enough credit?) or just sympathy.
A lot of the content is from mamieks.com (“the modern manager”). Last week’s reading included the advice to “find moments to ask about your colleague’s weekend, hobbies, kids, etc. Write down what you learn to help you remember and reference it later. To avoid it feeling like prying, offer your experience first, e.g. ‘my son was in the school play last night. I loved theater when I was a kid. Do you enjoy theater?’” I cringed so hard I think I pulled a muscle. This week’s wisdom includes an admonition to “invite others to engage” in conversation by “ask[ing] ‘why’ to every statement the other person makes to uncover deeper thinking rather than making assumptions about why something is the way it is.” Because everyone dreams of being managed by a toddler, right?
For context, my boss is a bit of an awkward guy. He means well and is generally open to criticism. But I feel like I need to find at least one nice thing to say about all this before I launch into everything I think is wrong with it.
Second, from what you have written it sounds like you actually dodged a bullet. The reading you were assigned is perhaps a little silly, but at least it means something specific. “Ask about your colleague’s weekend” might be condescending advice, but it’s not hard to understand or follow, and it isn’t terrible advice, just (I suppose) obvious. I’ve been subjected to far more egregiously fatuous material in my time.
Third, why do you feel you need to “launch into everything that [you] think is wrong with it”? Why not just say something like, “This reading offers very specific advice that could be really helpful anytime someone is having trouble figuring out what to say. Usually I feel comfortable enough with people that I can keep the conversation going without needing specific instructions, but this is a great help if I ever feel a little tongue-tied.”
Or something similarly diplomatic. Because, here is MY management advice: you don’t need to point out “everything wrong” with stuff unless letting it slide will actually cause bad things to happen.
Congratulations. I hope.
The first bit of advice doesn’t have much to do with being a manager. It’s kind of nice to connect with non-management colleagues too, though one hopes in not such a ridiculous fashion.
The second bit of advice is useful, though it can be done in a slightly less juvenile way. You’ll find that you have to give feedback on what your reports do. If you want them to get better, it helps to understand why they did something, not just assume it. Also, I’ve spent hour upon useless hour in meetings where the problem was that two people had different definitions or assumptions about something. One good way of doing that is to try to predict someone’s position on something based on your assumptions, and asking about it. You’ll quickly find out if you are right or wrong.
There is no substitute for doing management (and screwing things up and fixing them) but before you have that pleasant experience reading about management is good. Maybe you can find a blog or a book not targeted to elementary school kids.
BTW, here is one bit of advice. The three words that will make your reports be loyal to you and be honest with you is when you say “I screwed up,” when you did. All the good managers I’ve had have said that at times, all the bad managers never said it.
I was a kind of awkward guy. I was given advice just like that, and it helped me, because I had never been taught/learned how to have a conversation with people. (there’s a context for that, but it’s not relevant).
I don’t know why you are cringing. Because it’s too simplistic? Because it’s baldly expressed? Because you can do better already? I hope it’s not because you just disagree: because if you start with interrogation instead of volunteering information, or if you don’t ask “why?”, then you’ve got some problems
With your boss’ direction to read these stupid blogs, or with a specific blog posting?
Either way, my advice is to say nothing to your boss. Whether you implement the blogs’ practices is entirely separate. Will he have ways of knowing if you don’t?
Having been through a fair amount of HR conferences and Leadership seminars, don’t sweat it.
Whatever consulting group your company paid to come up with this management philosophy, be aware that hardly anyone believes it. Your boss that you told you to do it, doesn’t believe it either. Just get results and keep everything running smoothly. Upper management will be happy.
There are some HR issues that are valid and you should follow. Be professional and you’ll be okay.
It is good to hear that management theory still largely consists of teaching people, who often have no personal attributes that would make them a good manager, how to fake those attributes in order to manipulate their staff.
Most social advice is either overly specific or overly broad. Both suck in their own ways, but I find overly specific to be better for people who have poor social skills. It’s relatively easy to modify a stilted script after you get more comfortable with it. But if you have a huge social blindspot, you probably won’t know how to tailor vague advice like “make small talk”. You’ll do what I see so many clueless people do: bore the hell out of people. I have had bosses who do the obviously perfunctory “what did you do over the weekend?” thing. I once had a boss who had a much more unpredictable approach, where his interpersonal style was all over the place in just about every way you can imagine. My current boss engages very little outside of work-related matters. All other things being equal, I prefer the first style. I can tolerate my current’s boss hands-off style. But I absolutely despise the rando style. So however you choose to engage people, try to be consistent.
I don’t think a good manager necessarily asks their employees about weekend activities, hobbies, kids, etc., because sometimes these can be sensitive subjects (I usually make up a lie when someone asks me about my weekend). But I do think a good manager checks in with their employees and makes sure they’re doing OK.
As far as the “why” advice goes, I don’t think I’d want my boss to ask me “why” like a toddler does. But I would be pleased if he said something like, “That’s an interesting idea. Can you flesh it out some more? I want to really understand what you’re laying down.”
At least he isn’t having you read management books from the 1980s. My dad gave me a bunch of those. I use them as hard surfaces to write on when I don’t have a desk nearby.
Regarding your examples - I find it useful to think of most Management Theory as “coaching” rather than “instruction”. The difference being with coaching, it isn’t so much about introducing new information and concepts, it’s about constantly exercising something you probably already know, with some guidance thrown in. Just like going to the gym, you don’t absorb it once and then you are done. You keep doing it.
Instead, if you think of it as instruction you can fall into the mindset of “DUH! That’s like basic stuff. Why do I need to hear that?”
Sure, for some people the management information could be revelatory - everybody is different - but for others it just comes naturally. Perhaps your boss is one of those people who find the information revelatory, or perhaps they also put it into the category of constant coaching. I would say the best strategy for you in providing your feedback on the material is to state something in the tone of, “Yeah, those were good reminders.”
Anecdote - Long ago I worked in an office that was an old style row upon row of desks (this was before cubicles). We had a department head who just sat in his corner office and nobody ever interacted with him. Someone must have given him some feedback on this, so one day he started motoring up and down each row like pac-man dropping a “Good morning” every few feet. This went on for a few weeks and then stopped. It seems to me that some people can end up in management without ever developing basic human interaction skills. Odd that.
I haven’t figured out multi-quoting here, but to respond to some questions.
-I have to have something to say about the materials, because my boss schedules 1-2 hour meetings each week with just himself, the other new sup, and me to discuss the reading assignments, and we’re expected to do most of the talking.
-I’m cringing because it would be incredibly awkward to use these scripts, both for me and the other person. I get that some people need scripts, but these are bad. I don’t think it’s impossible to write good ones, or to give solid advice on how to be a better conversationalist; I’ve seen some good writing on this subject elsewhere. But I struggle to imagine the person who could benefit from a bad script: someone both clueless enough not to be able to come up with their own, but savvy enough to recognize what’s wrong with this and improve upon it.
I’m also cringing because my boss actually does take this stuff seriously. Maybe I should have elaborated on that in my OP; I didn’t consider how many of you would be approaching this from the perspective of someone whose boss made them read this stuff but then forgot about it. Over the last couple years he’s stopped by my desk more times than I can count to tell me about his kids. I always humored him and assumed that, like most parents, he just liked talking about them. Now I feel like maybe he was trying to ask me if I enjoy theater. Which is a terrible way to ask, and not just because whatever your kids are doing isn’t theater. I don’t have kids, so your kids aren’t much of a conversation opener if you want to hear about my life. He had also previously instituted a practice of having supervisors set up monthly one-on-one meetings with their supervisees to ask questions that I guess are meant to suss out things like job satisfaction and career ambitions, but end up feeling like you’re re-interviewing for your job every month. It also feels, to the employee, like an unfair imposition on their limited time when they’re busy with work. I’m on board with the idea of connecting with our employees, but going about it in the wrong way might be worse than not doing it at all. And I think all this stuff he’s having us read is preaching the wrong way of going about it.
The Boss may not always be right, but he is always Boss. Humor him.
The task of management is to set reasonable goals and ensure that the employee has the minimum resources required to meet them. Your primary communication with employees should be about goals, timelines and resources required.
My theory about advice articles, self-help books, etc. (at least the halfway-decent ones)—with percentages completely pulled out of my ass:
For 50% of people who may read them, they’re just stating the obvious (and what they say often obviously needs to be taken with a grain of salt or adapted to fit the context).
20% of readers are unable or not yet ready to hear and understand what they’re saying.
20% are in situations where the advice just completely doesn’t apply.
To 8%, the advice is a useful reminder of what they already know.
To 2%, the advice is genuinely helpful, maybe even life-changing, in explaining something they really ought to know but somehow never learned.
@Esprise_Me, instead of telling your boss how all the lessons are wrong, just tell him that they feel awkward and unnatural to you. Because that’s ultimately the issue. The advice may or may not be wrong, but it is undeniable that they don’t mesh well with your interpersonal style. It may be your boss will agree with you.
It seems like he may be giving you what he needed/needs as a manager. If you choose to take it on, maybe it would be helpful to reflect on what support and training you do need as a new manager, and approach it that way. I.e., that looks like good information, and some good reminders. An area I think I could benefit more from would be x, and I found some resources on that here. I’d like to talk about the possibility of shifting my focus to that area.
Also, if he really is into this resource, and you are recognizing it in his actions, by all means use that to communicate with him better, and get more insight about him.
Finally, is it really meant to be a script? Lots of times a concept like that is followed by a stilted example that I’ve always taken to be just an illustration, not a script. If he’s really awkward, maybe he uses it as a script, but is it intended to be? I mean, the “why?” thing doesn’t sound to me like you are supposed to literally say, “why?” after everything the other person says. But the concept of drilling down and not making assumptions is important. I’ve read that in forensic engineering (I think that was it) there’s a concept of asking 7 whys in order to get to true root causes by looking beyond the more superficially “obvious.” It seems like a useful concept, but not a literal script. If it truly is intended to be a script, then that is annoying and I hope you can convey why you shouldn’t have to use it.
