By Bob Clark
Nov. 18, 2010
It’s Okay to Manage Your Boss: The Step-by-Step Program for Making the Best of Your Most Important Relationship at Work
By Bruce Tulgan
Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, San Francisco, CA
Sept. 2010, 208 pages, $23.95.
At some point we’ve all had a problem boss. The extremes are the one who has to manage everything and the one who has to manage nothing. This new book delivers some practical counsel on how to improve the important work relationship between a boss and a subordinate.
Bruce Tulgan is the founder of Rainmaker Thinking, a consulting and research organization specializing in workplace research and training. He has authored many articles and books on making workplace relationships more functional and organizations more successful.
Tulgan’s book has a typical supply of self-help notions – e.g., a chapter on how you have to manage yourself first. However, he continues with sound material on the fact that being under managed is destructive and offers practical steps to avoid getting less management than appropriate for the job.
The basics of sound management are not reinvented. However, looking at management with a focus on the subordinate’s responsibility to make sure the supervisor is doing his or her part provides an interesting perspective.
Tulgan’s press release observes that, “Although managers are demanding more and more from their employees, they are also providing them with less guidance than ever before.” To avoid this, it is critical that all parties communicate on work efforts better than ever before.
The key to this process is taking the concrete steps involved in developing any business success. Doing so requires the players to do the following:
• Create a recognizable vision for the organization.
• Develop clear goals for the individual.
• Agree upon the timing for the work effort.
• Establish the deliverables for the work at hand.
• Understand the resources needed to complete the work.
Tulgan’s approach is for the subordinate to always take the initiative to be certain these steps are taken. Using that approach, he contends that the individual can get more done which can translate into greater personal rewards.
While the book is good for subordinates to reflect upon, its real power may be to liberate the boss to better manage the efforts of his or her people. It contains no license to micro-manage, but it affirms the need for managers to be fully aware of what employees are doing and why.
The author includes a good chapter on how to deal with the real jerk who may become your boss. Working your way out of the pit a bad boss can dig will always be a challenge and the book provides some good steps to apply when confronted by such a problem.
The joint responsibility for the effectiveness of the work relationship is spelled out, and the book will serve to re-establish the need for clarity of communication on work assignments for both bosses and subordinates.
Bob Clark is the president of RWC Consulting LLC and has more than 30 years’ experience in labor-management relations. He provides consulting help in labor relations and is an adjunct professor at Concordia University in Ann Arbor.