There are some behaviors that express disrespect to other people – our family, friends, colleagues and managers. In most cases, they are unintentional — we don’t always actively think about how our behavior is perceived, and we judge others based on their behavior, but we judge ourselves based on our intent. These behaviors, as small as they seem to be, are harmful to you. I’d like to focus on showing respect to your manager, so you can be more effective and not lose points.
Leave your phone
Nowadays, most of us carry our mobile devices with us at all times.
Imagine you’re having a 1:1 meeting with your manager, then your phone rings, or you hear the sound of a message. What do you signal when you answer the call or read the message and even answer it, making your manager wait?
You signal that whoever it is, which might be even unknown to you, is more important than your manager.
How did you feel the last time the person you were talking to, started texting on WhatsApp?
Without being too scientific, in 99 out of 100, this is not urgent. If your children are likely to call exactly during these 30 minutes, or your spouse is in hospital, inform the manager in advance and do take your phone.
New behavior: leave your phone. During occasional talks, reject the call and ignore the messages.
Leave your laptop
In some companies, unfortunately, it is allowed and even encouraged to bring laptops to meetings.
Imagine you’re in a meeting, and someone else is talking. You want to see if you have new Slack messages or emails, just for a second. Then you hear your name. You raise your head from the screen and everybody is staring at you. Your manager asked for your opinion, but you weren’t listening. If you think you can read and listen — you’re wrong.
How did it feel the last time you were talking in a meeting, and you could see 4 out of 5 attendants loudly typing, not paying any attention to you?
If you ought not to be in that meeting ask to be excused. If there’s an incident going on and you must be on the look, let everybody know in advance. Otherwise, they assume you’re on Twitter.
New behavior: leave your laptop out of the meeting. If you need to take notes, and you probably should bring a notebook.
Write down tasks
Here and there we are assigned formal and informal tasks.
Imagine you’re in a 1:1 meeting with your manager, and she asks you to do something. You never walk around with a notebook, and you think to yourself that you’ll remember. Then another topic comes up, and another task is given. You’re sure you’ll remember it as well, including who to coordinate with and by when to finish. The manager also gives herself a task and writes it down.
After a week, in the next 1:1, your manager asks why you never reported finishing those tasks. You have to admit that you totally forgot. Unfortunately, it will happen also in this meeting and the next one.
How did you feel the last time you gave your manager tasks, she never wrote down, and when you asked about it a few weeks later, she admitted that she had forgotten? Or even worse, that you never mentioned it before?
New behavior: walk around with a notebook, write down things, and read them later. Using the laptop for that is less effective, will distract you with messages, and your manager will assume you’re using it for other things.
Report finishing tasks
We are part of organizations that work together to achieve goals.
Imagine you got some task from your manager and you finished it. After two days, your manager asks you what about that task. You answer that you had already finished two days ago. Your manager is angry because others were waiting in your deliverable to do their part. Now everything is delayed just because you never told anyone.
How did it feel the last time you found out your manager approved your going to a conference two weeks ago and didn’t tell you?
New behavior: when finishing, report. Some tasks are on ticketing systems or have automatic notifications. If the task is important, and you know people are waiting for it, notify additionally.
Respect the time
It’s fair to assume that your manager is paid more than you, is busier than you and does tasks that you cannot do.
Imagine you need your manager’s decision on something, but she’s busy the whole day, so you decide to write an email. You write 5 long paragraphs, in order to give every possible piece of information, in order to reach the optimal decision. Only in the last paragraph, do you write your question. Now she has to re-read everything because only now it’s clear what is needed from her.
How did it feel the last time your manager called you, but was still busy with other things, so you stood there ten minutes, instead of making progress on your tasks?
New behavior: spare your manager’s time, learn how she prefers to communicate: quick discussions? long emails? short emails? You can simply ask.
Follow up
There are different action items that need to be addressed at work: tasks and initiatives that you suggest, tasks that came from the manager or the stakeholders, personal development, bureaucratic matters and many more.
Imagine you had a 1:1 with your manager, who put a lot of thought into your individual development plan. Your manager has given you the main ideas and asked you if you could come up with a detailed plan, for your benefit, within two weeks. You agree and even write it down in your notebook. In the following week, your manager asks how the plan is going. You explain that you’re really busy and haven’t got to work on it yet, but you will. On the next one, where you’re supposed to present it, the manager, to your surprise, doesn’t mention it, but only other topics. You feel relieved and wonder whether it was another “flavor of the month” that you can forget about. In the next 1:1, the manager asks why you didn’t present your plan the last week, and didn’t say anything about it then and also not now. You respond that you know you “should” do it, but you just started an after-work class and have no time. Six months go by and you still didn’t do anything.
How did it feel the last time your manager promised to check whether you could get promoted and never mentioned anything about it again?
New behavior: write down and follow up. Proactively and in advance, notify if delays and ask for more time.
Do not ignore messages
For better or worse, we nowadays have many channels of communication.
Imagine your manager has sent you a question over Slack, and two emails with tasks. You read them and decided to act on them “later”. Then there was some emergency at work, or someone came over to ask something. Two days later, you recall one of the emails all of a sudden, perform the task and report it finished. The day after, your manager asks you why you haven’t responded to her question on Slack and what about that task in the second email. Your behavior caused the manager to wait too long, check on you again, and lose trust in your abilities.
How did it feel the last time you requested your manager for vacation, and she didn’t approve or reject it after two weeks?
New behavior: either respond or perform immediately or mark the messages unread, so you will see them later again. Generally, would probably be better to prioritize messages from your manager overreacting to random public posts on Slack while she is waiting.
Notify and remind about absences
It’s well known that for legal reasons, as well as insurance, collegiality, courtesy and effectiveness, we’re required to announce when we’re out of office, either for vacation, sick leave, education or other reasons.
Imagine it’s 10:30 in the morning, and your manager’s manager asks you manager where you are, and the manager must answer she doesn’t know. This doesn’t make her and you look good.
Maybe you did ask for that vacation three months ago and your manager approved, but she has ten more directs and cannot remember everything.
How did feel the last time you were waiting for a performance review talk and you manager didn’t inform you she was sick?
New behavior: request vacations in advance, notify and remind being out of the office, preferably mention how long and for what reason.
Handover
We all have planned vacations, they are great!
Imagine you left on Friday for two weeks in Hawaii. Your manager comes on Monday and sees some tasks that you haven’t finished. The manager asks the team members, but no one has any information about them. There is also no documentation about the tasks’ status anywhere. The team will have to start over in order to proceed or wait for your return. A big waste.
How did it feel the last time you had to redo someone else’s work, only to find out that he had already finished it when he came back?
New behavior: before leaving, for each and every task, document in writing its status, and go over it all with others to make sure it’s understood.
It’s not that difficult to become more effective and help your manager be more effective. In case of doubt — ask her.
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