Pathfinder (eBook)

Max’s story

“Keep your Linkedin profile updated; you won’t be there long.” Max’s friend alerted him right after his first week at HiFintech.

Max Li had been a key Cloud architect for a product line at his previous company. He overcame the language barriers in the early years of his career by taking business language courses and personalized English language coaching. Because of his AWS Cloud technical skills, he was headhunted and hired as a multiple team manager by a competitor.

A friend of Max, who worked for the new firm, gave him some unwarranted advice. His friend warned Max to keep his resume updated because Max’s new boss, the VP of Engineering Operations, had a reputation for being extremely demanding and expecting top results with measurable KPIs (key performance indicators).

Max was well-organized, logical, and capable. Once he was in his new position, the VP of Operations used a Slack message to Max and asked him to provide a thirty-day plan and a review at the end of the quarter. The VP wanted to see certain deliverables. Max realized that his boss was indeed demanding. He worked hard to deliver the short-term results that his manager asked for while also devising strategies for long-term initiatives. Max’s communication reached new levels as his English vocabulary expanded, and he adapted to the culture, power, and influence of a purely American-managed corporate office.

As a mid-level manager, Max noticed that his teams were more siloed and isolated than he would like them to be. They used cookie-cutter process cycles. Remote work was a large part of day-to-day operations, and Max decided that the company’s existing collaboration tool was hindering team creativity and productivity. He collected data on how people collaborated and prepared a report to show how a new collaboration tool would improve team results and ultimately boost the company’s bottom line.

Max presented his proposal to his boss in a meeting after bringing up the subject in previous one-on-ones. The VP asked tough questions about budgets, cost savings, and trade-offs. Although the collaboration tool would change the way the teams functioned, the VP did not consider it something that would bring in revenue directly and was against investing in the idea.

Max continued to push for his proposal in subsequent one-on-ones with his boss, linking the problems with existing bottlenecks caused by legacy system tools. Max explained the pros and cons of the current situation and how his proposed system would be of benefit.

After another presentation and tough negotiation, Max’s boss approved the proposal. Once the new tool was installed, and its value was realized, Max found that his manager was approving more of his ideas, including bleeding-edge initiatives on machine learning with the largest investments the company had ever committed to in operations. Max was adding maximum value to his company by leveraging his relationships. At one point, he told his boss,

“I have unique problem-solving approaches. I am engineering minded. I can deliver what you want, but I want you to judge me on the results more than the process.”

Max had managed to win the support of his new boss within four months, despite a questionable beginning, by using measured communication and a systematic approach. With the total support and trust of his boss, he was now a powerful influencer.

1. Managing the Boss

Max viewed the relationship with his manager as absolutely his responsibility. It might not be harmonious (some personalities do clash), but he could always find ways to make the relationship constructive. He connected with his boss by presenting him with facts and using negotiation. He created a mutual foundation of trust. Fundamentally, Max knew his managers did not have time to focus on getting the details themselves. All managerial decisions were based on his data, and they trusted him. Thus, his management’s decisions were based on trust.

During one-on-one meetings, Max proposed ideas to his manager. At the next staff meeting, Max’s manager presented one of the ideas as his own. This was awkward and upsetting for Max. His jaw dropped, but he later found the strength to praise his manager for a great presentation. Max observed this type of behavior as common practice for some of the managers in the company as well as people in other teams.

By providing an idea, Max supported his manager one hundred percent and without any objections. Why? Because by working as a team, he received sponsorships and approvals that granted his idea further access to the next level. The higher an idea goes, the more powerful the decision, and the more impact that person will have on the organization, the individuals, and the product directions. Even though his boss might own one of Max’s ideas, Max would rise in influence along with his boss because of their relationship—they are a team.

How do leaders make decisions? They make decisions based on data from their team members. Most senior managers rely on their reports to gather data that the team members deliver along with extensive analysis by trusted individuals. Therefore, managers and leaders ultimately make decisions based on the trust they have in their reports. Max built his relationship with his boss by delivering reliable data. He built mutual trust. Max did not complain when his ideas were claimed by his boss.

1. Owning the Manager-Report Relationship

Max volunteered to take on new initiatives, and he became someone his manager could rely on. He did what mattered the most to align with the management direction. He pivoted his behavior to fit with his manager’s personality and characteristics. For example, in order to get the best out of his meeting, Max would go out of his way to ensure his boss would be in an accepting mood. Knowing that his boss normally drank a Coke at two o’clock every day after lunch, Max brought him a Coke when they happened to meet at that hour.

Alignment with his boss and the corporate direction was Max’s priority as a middle manager. Additionally, there is significant shuffling and reorganization in big tech companies, and Max stayed out of his silo so that he could engage in the core of the business. He adjusted his objectives on a weekly basis and often asked his manager “Am I aligned?” in one-on-one meetings.

Agile methodology calls for a retrospective every sprint, where the team reviews progress in terms of project expectations. Max followed this practice and held retrospectives monthly and quarterly, even weekly. If the direction of work changed, he followed up with his managers to find out what he should start to do, what he should keep doing, and what he should stop doing.

The illustration below is taken from Angela Duckworth’s book “Grit.” It shows that the goals of managers at each level are linked. In Max’s case, managers broke down the quarterly objectives from one level up into daily activities so that the team members could make sure their work aligned with the manager’s goals.

Figure 2 Goals of managers at each level.
Source: Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, 2016

1. Managing Up, Across, and Around

Max achieved rhythmic growth by acting as if he was the CEO of his own career. He imagined that he would manage all the relationships that surrounded him as a virtual company. Max managed the relationships regardless of how he felt about the people involved. He needed to manage these people well. He managed up, across, and around depending on his priorities. Max built relationships to manage his boss, his boss’s boss, his peers, his team members, and his indirect reports as if they were his personal network.

Figure 3 illustrates this relationship management.

1. The Three Pillars of Managing Up

Max was a middle level manager; his manager was a director who reported to a VP under the CEO. To Max, managing up meant managing his director, managing his VP, and even managing the CEO. Max’s goals were threefold: to influence the conversation, to educate his boss, and to prep his boss for negotiation.

Influence. Max often prepped his management by making sure his immediate director had the information she needed to do her job. Management makes decisions, and at an elevated level, managers have other information that the lower level is not privy to. Max’s director communicated this information and the data that Max provided to her peers and the VP in advance of their discussions. Max often anticipated the issues that would be discussed. The director relied on Max to do the groundwork and to provide solutions.

Education. Max educated his director by providing all the data needed to be fully aware of the issues and the rich data behind them. Because of his efforts, upper management was...