You can't always choose your boss, but you can choose how you work with them.
And if you get this right, you'll never feel stuck in your job again.
What if I told you that managing up isn't about making your boss happy, but about taking back your power?
There are moments in our careers where we feel stuck.
Not because we lack talent or drive, but because we don't know how to navigate the people above us.
And let's be honest, dealing with bosses can be one of the hardest parts of any job.
That's why I'm so excited about today's conversation.
Our guest, Melody Wilding, knows exactly what that struggle feels like.
Melody is a professor at City University of New York, a coach to top performers and the author of Managing Up, a book that helps you stop feeling powerless at work and start taking control.
If you've ever dealt with a difficult boss, a micromanager, or just felt like your work wasn't being recognized, this episode is for you.
So, Melody, for the person listening right now, why does this episode matter to them?
And how is this conversation going to change their life?
We're going to talk about managing up yes, which is a really valuable skill set that you need now more than ever, when work is very complex.
Things are changing all of the time.
But fundamentally, this is about you reclaiming a sense of agency and control at work and confidence in what you have to offer, instead of just feeling like you're being jerked around by the whims or the personalities of people around you.
To feel like you have more power to influence and shape these dynamics and situations than you may think.
Ooh, this is good.
Okay.
I'm going to.
I'm going to go deeper on that, because so many people today feel powerless, just in general, for so many different reasons.
Life is complex.
It's stressful.
The world, the news is stressful and it feels like we can't do anything about it.
And then to feel that way at work can really break us down.
So let's go a little bit deeper.
How does this allow people to reclaim some of that power?
Yes because, Just like you were saying, that was one of the main reasons I decided to write this book, because I came across two stats that were really shocking and even somewhat unacceptable to me.
And the first of those was that since the pandemic, the number of people that do not feel in control of their relationships at work, the future of their careers has more than doubled, doubled, And just think about that.
We spend 70, 80 percent of our time at work.
Who wants to feel like you're a victim in that situation?
That's not what we humans are built for.
That, combined with the fact that studies have found that your manager, your direct boss, has more impact on your mental health and well-being more than your doctor, your therapist and almost as much as your spouse.
Yet so much of us just kind of float through every day complaining about these dynamics or not even paying attention to that relationship.
Yet it's such a huge part of our lives.
And so this is really about how do you communicate more powerfully?
How do you influence, persuade to not just get what you want?
That's really important.
But also find greater peace of mind so you're not as stressed.
You're not taking your manager or other leaderships. responses to you personally.
You have more peace of mind.
You can enjoy going to work every day.
You can put your head on the pillow at night, feeling good about the contribution you made and feeling like I'm actually getting the recognition, the respect that I want and also I feel like I deserve.
My goodness, that's shocking and honestly, kind of terrifying, especially when you think about the satisfaction that people typically feel at work.
It's typically not very good.
And really what people might assume.
When they read the book Managing Up, they think about it in terms of How can I tell my boss that they're wrong?
They need to change.
Or how can I improve my career and get what I deserve?
But it sounds like this is much more than this.
This isn't just about changing your career.
This is about fundamentally changing and improving your life.
That's so true.
It's about your identity, right?
Because I think so much, especially you and I Kwame.
You know, we're maybe a little bit older of a generation.
And I think we grew up in a time and especially even people who are older than us where the mentality was you go to work, you do what you're told you, put your head down and you'll be rewarded for it someday.
And that's just not true anymore.
You have to be in charge and proactive about your own career development.
If you don't tell your story, no one will.
Or someone else might, and they might not tell the story you want told about you.
And we can't expect our bosses to be the advocates for our careers anymore.
They have so much on their plates.
They are imperfect humans.
Sometimes they may.
In the case of difficult bosses, they may not want to advance us for whatever reason.
And so we have to take that into our own hands.
Melody, when it comes to this book in particular, because this is your second amazing book, what made you decide to write this book at this time?
As with most things, I think it's a combination of personal and professional.
And so on the professional side, I have been working as a coach now.
And after my first book, Trust Yourself, came out, I kept hearing the same pattern over and over again that people would say OK, I feel like I can overthink less.
I'm not people pleasing as much.
But all of that breaks down when I have to deal with people that are in authority or who I perceive as domineering.
And so that caught my attention.
Whenever you hear people telling you things over and over again, you should pay attention to it.
So it was one thing.
And then second is kind of my own journey.
As in Trust Yourself, I talk about being a highly sensitive, high achieving person in your career.
And in my own career, I would find that I was taking a lot of people's behavior personally.
If my boss was what I thought short with me, I would make it think I'm getting fired or they hate me.
And so many people do that, especially now when we're working in hybrid environments or still totally remote.
We read into people's behavior and then that dictates our reaction towards them.
And so kind of my own journey being someone who is more emotionally sensitive and realizing that That can be your biggest leverage point when it comes to managing up, because fundamentally managing up is about having a solid understanding of human behavior.
Yes, there are leadership and management skills, but you have to know what makes people tick and you have to be willing to empathize with someone, to understand what are their pain points, what are their goals, to integrate that into your message and how you frame your ideas to them.
Be perceptive of shifts in the environment or subtleties that other people may not see, like what executives are engaged or who's muting or unmuting, or on camera or off camera during a meeting.
All of that helps you read some of these subtle power dynamics that may not be explicit, but when you understand what's implicitly happening, the unspoken norms and rules and behaviors, that's that's when you really have a light up on these situations.
It makes so much sense.
And this is an example of knowledge is power, because a lot of things, like you said, they are not explicit, but that doesn't mean that we don't feel them.
Like we can feel them subconsciously.
We can understand it.
And then it makes us feel more powerless when we might have overcome our fear of difficult conversations.
And we have done so well in other circumstances, but with this particular person, in this particular situation, I'm struggling, but now we understand it.
And one of the things you said was it's all about understanding human behavior.
But that doesn't just mean understanding their behavior, but also our own.
And something you mentioned a lot was taking things personally.
And I think that's a term that we throw around a lot.
But as it relates to this concept managing up influencing without authority in these conversations when we take things personally, what does that really mean?
The question I encourage my clients to come back to all the time is asking yourself what am I making this mean about me?
And then after you ask that to really get to the root of how, how am I taking this personally?
How am I making this a judgment on my character, my worth, my capability in this situation?
Then also ask, what are the other possible explanations?
And if it helps, force yourself to come up with three or five.
Because that's when we get out of that, you know.
Think of it a little bit like a old school vinyl record player that gets stuck on one track and just keeps repeating itself.
Keeps repeating itself.
We almost have to mentally pick up the needle, put it on a different track.
And when it comes to managing up, you nailed it.
That yes, it is about understanding and managing your own psychology, your emotions reactions strengths insecurities, but also being able to influence others psychology.
And when you can understand okay, the fact that my boss used a period instead of an exclamation point, I don't have to make that mean I'm getting fired tomorrow or the layoffs coming for me.
You can make it mean maybe my boss is a more direct communicator and that's something I can adapt to.
And that is what puts you back in that seat of control.
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This is fascinating because I think as we go deeper into the psychology, and this is great because both of us are psychology nerds.
I feel like there is a bit of a shift from that limbic response, that fear response where we get that period versus exclamation mark, for example, where we just have that fear fight flight, freeze response.
But then, by stopping and asking these questions internally, it forces us to activate the frontal lobe, which quiets the amygdala and calms us down so we could actually think a little bit more logically and clearly about the situation.
Yes yes you, perfect explanation, right.
And then also, when you can't, when you get out of that fear brain more into the, the prefrontal cortex, you also have more self-control, and that's where you're able to articulate yourself more clearly, more concisely.
You're able to maintain a boundary instead of caving in or getting defensive around it.
And this this is what managing up is all about creating the conditions for your success and creating less stress, more peace of mind.
And creating those conditions starts within ourselves.
And what we're recognizing here is that the first difficult conversation we have to have again is with ourselves.
In this situation,
And so we're oftentimes starting in the wrong place.
So we're going in triggered and saying, I need to talk to my boss.
And now we're not at our best.
And the reality is when we're feeling stressed and pressured and everything like that, it diminishes our capacity to perform.
So, even if we did know what to do or say, we're less likely to do or say the right things because we're not emotionally or psychologically at our best.
So true.
So true.
And that's why almost every chapter in this book actually starts with kind of you getting on the same page with yourself.
And doing some mental accounting, like let's take the feedback conversation, for example.
You may want to tell your boss that they're changing priorities every day and they need to get it together and stop being so flaky.
But you need to ask yourself a few questions like is this a one off or has this become a pattern now?
And am I willing to be part of the solution and come with a change I would potentially like to see?
Is this something that, if I fail to give feedback around sooner rather than later, will have big consequences?
So so much of this is even figuring out.
Am I in the right place, mentally and emotionally, to bring this up?
And is this a battle I want to fight?
So now let's go into story time, Melody.
Let's talk about somebody that you've worked with who has applied this where in the past they might have struggled, but after using the techniques, everything changed.
There was a really profound situation around this that I actually chose to open the book with, because it was one of the biggest transformations I've seen in my career.
This client, she reported directly to the CEO.
She was in a C-suite position.
So you know, by all accounts, Intents and purposes, someone very accomplished, very high achieving in her career.
Yet now, as she was reporting to the CEO, there was a lot of friction between them, where she felt like he was cutting her off all the time.
She would feel understood.
He was getting frustrated with her performance to the point where they kind of had this come to Jesus conversation where he said, I don't know if you are in over your head, incompetent or both.
And that was just like a punch in the gut for her.
That was what led her to reach out to me.
And she said, I have to figure this out because I love my team.
I love my job, but this one relationship is not working.
Yet it's everything for my success and how I feel day to day.
And what we realized, of course, this was not overnight.
None of this is overnight.
And I wish there was an easy button, but unfortunately there's not.
But what it really came down to was, This client was making a few classic, classic mistakes.
Number one, she was not adapting her communication.
She was not flexing her style.
So she was presenting information and updates in the way she would have liked to receive them.
And in terms of what was important to her and not translating it, what was important to the CEO.
So once she made a change there, that was huge.
And then also reporting around.
In terms of her visibility, she would report a lot of status updates.
Here's where this is at.
Here's the problem we're having with this and that.
And that felt like a burden to the CEO versus when she changed her approach to visibility more storytelling instead of focusing on what she was getting done.
She focused on how did it matter?
And I think one of the biggest things from we were talking about identity and how you have to see yourself differently to do this.
Well, she started to realize that she was acting more like an order taker and acting more like a subordinate, and what she really shift shifted was she became more like a partner to him, more of a trusted advisor, and so she would engage him, I would say almost more, on a peer to peer level, where she would bring more strategic problems for them to tackle together.
And she would bring ideas and then try to get his solution, versus just reacting to everything he would say.
And if he said jump, she would ask how high.
And all of that flash forward again, not overnight, took about a year, maybe a year and a half.
She emailed me and I mentioned this in the book.
She emailed me and said, you will not believe this.
I just got my bonus for the year and it is over six figures.
It is one point five times my salary.
And the CEO said that is credit to how I have become more of a partner to him.
And so that's what's possible.
And what was more important to her is she felt like she was back in the driver's seat of that relationship.
She didn't feel like she was in this one down position.
And of course, her confidence grew.
She had gone from not sleeping at night and working around the clock because she felt like she had to compensate and do more, to now she could log off at night.
She wasn't on on the weekends.
And it was just this wholesale change that was Just a remarkable transformation.
There's so much I love about this story, Melody.
But the thing that I really want to focus in on is the fact that it was not just about the money and the respect.
Yes, that was important.
But also it's about how she felt about herself, how she felt about her role and the impact that it had throughout her life.
Because I'm assuming the ripple effects reverberated not just from through her professional life but also in her personal life as well.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
You take yourself everywhere for better or worse.
And so when you realize you know how you're showing up at work, whether it's downplaying your accomplishments over apologizing, that probably shows up in your personal life as well.
And particularly for this person.
She noticed a cycle I talk about in my first book is this idea of over functioning and under functioning.
And she was a classic over functioner, let me fix all the problems, be the first to volunteer.
And in the workplace, you know, she was kind of the caretaker personality for her team, the therapist for her team, which then prevented her rather from working on the more important work, the higher value work that actually moved the needle.
And in her personal life, she saw that with family, with her spouse as well.
So it really does change how you show up in every single way.
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Hey, Melody, before we continue, I want to take a moment to talk to the listener.
Yes, you, listener, I'm talking to you.
And no, this is not an advertisement, okay?
If this episode is making you think differently, don't keep it to yourself.
Share it with someone who needs to hear it.
Maybe it's a friend, a coworker, a family member, or even your boss.
You probably know someone who's feeling stuck, who's not sure about how to handle a tough situation like this, or not realizing how much power they actually have to speak up and make an impact.
And if someone shared this with you, take it as a sign.
They believe in you.
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Take a second, reach out and say thank you.
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Knowledge creates change, but only when it is shared.
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So when you say managing up, what does that really mean?
Managing up, as I define it is all about how do you build a relationship and navigate that relationship with your higher-ups, people that have more positional power than you.
Primarily, that's going to be your manager, your direct supervisor, but not just them.
And that's an important point, because today, If you are to pigeonhole on that one relationship, then you put yourself in a precarious position.
You need to think more broadly about who do I need to manage up to besides my boss?
Maybe it's your skip level.
Maybe it's your manager's peers.
Maybe it's a stakeholder on a certain project or a sponsor.
We need to think more broadly about this skill set than just our boss.
This is brilliant.
This is really a paradigm shift because typically, when people think about managing up, they're thinking very, very tactically.
They're saying there is a specific conversation that I need to have, and they currently think this way.
I need them to think that way and then do something differently.
But what you're saying is a paradigm shift because it's a relationship.
It's an ongoing process that doesn't just include you and your manager, but also you and the people who are in that entire constellation of relationships around you and your manager.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
And it's also not just about agreeing with these people and just becoming a yes person, because I think many of us think of managing up.
We equate it to sucking up.
And that's not what we're talking about here, because good managing up when done well, oftentimes you are disagreeing.
You're giving tough feedback up the chain of command.
You're having to push back on multiple priorities or say no to things.
And it's all about how do you do that tactfully diplomatically, without damaging the relationship or trying to mitigate that as much as possible?
Oh, this is great because now listeners are breathing a sigh of relief because they don't think that they need to be inauthentic.
It's like, okay, so cool.
I need to manage up.
I need to pretend I like somebody that I don't like and laugh at all their bad jokes and all of that stuff.
But you're saying, hey, it is not about that flattery, sucking up all that stuff.
It really is empowering because you're saying no part of this includes disagreeing in the right type of way.
And let's go into this, because that can be terrifying for people too when it comes to standing up for yourself and maybe letting your boss know that they are not correct.
So walk us through how that happens.
Yeah, well, let's take a couple of different situations.
Let's talk about the case of boundaries.
There's an entire conversation chapter in the book called The Boundaries Conversation.
And it's all about how do you balance being a team player without becoming a pushover or burning yourself out.
And so this is a place where you quote unquote, have to disagree with your manager because they may say I need you to do this.
This is a new thing I'm adding to your plate.
And you want to say no.
But because of the positional authority, the power dynamics there, you can't just outright say no.
You can't say, no, I'm not doing that.
That's not going to go over well with most managers.
So we have to be a little more thoughtful about how we approach it.
And when it comes to setting boundaries, one of my favorite approaches that is mentioned in the book is called the tradeoff approach.
And this is where you set up the frame for the decision.
So you say, okay, I hear X is a priority.
We also have Y that we're working towards.
In order to make X possible in the timeframe that you're asking, we'll need to slow down on Y or delegate pieces of it or temporarily pause.
How would you like to handle that?
Are you comfortable with that?
Or my recommendation is we do this.
Can we move ahead with that?
And so this does a few powerful things.
Number one, you're setting up the parameters.
You're subtly saying both of these things are not possible.
You have to pick.
And it also puts the final say back in the hands of the person that has more authority than you.
So it sort of honors the hierarchy in that way, while making sure you're approaching it more as a problem solver instead of just being a wall.
I love this because, first of all, it's very clear.
It's very clear on how to approach this.
And it's not combative.
It's really collaborative in the way you're approaching it.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
And that comes back to this idea of being a partner to your manager and recognizing, having a little bit of upward empathy, that managers, at the end of the day, most of them, are really good people.
I think we hear a lot of boss bashing happen out there.
The managers need to be better and more empathetic and all of that. is true, right?
We should hold our leaders to higher standards.
But at the end of the day, they are imperfect humans.
And, if you can understand, these are the pressures my boss is under.
They may not even realize that they gave me that project a month ago and told me it needed to be done now.
And so it's my responsibility to surface that to them and make sure they're aware that they have that information, those details, to make a sound decision around that.
Yeah, this is great.
And it goes back to essentially one of the things that you mentioned before not taking things personally, because sometimes it feels like why are they doing this to me?
But like you said, sometimes there's a very innocuous explanation.
They forgot that they told you.
And when you just surface it and you have the courage to have that conversation, it can be really simple.
But overcoming that fear to have that conversation can be the hardest part.
Yeah, and on that let me just say something, because over the last decade, plus as I've coached people, I can't tell you how many folks come to us and say I received feedback in my performance review that they can't advance me or grow my scope because they are seeing I don't know how to prioritize or I'm not strategic enough.
I don't know how to have difficult conversations.
And so while we think we're being a team player by volunteering for everything and just continuing to say yes and expand our plate, you also have to think about the other side of that perception, that you may inadvertently be sending the message that you don't know how to make those trade-offs.
And that is exactly what's needed at the next level.
So being able to navigate this conversation diplomatically does paint you as a leader.
Now going into some of the tactical mistakes people can make.
What are some of the most common mistakes people make when they try to manage up?
Yes.
Well, let's go back to the feedback conversation for a minute because that's a big one, right?
You may be frustrated that you feel like your boss is a micromanager and they need to review all of the work you do, or that they're all over the place.
They're favoriting somebody else.
And when you are feeling stressed and emotional about something, we may be more likely to come to your boss and say you're being a micromanager and that's not working for me, right.
That's not going to go very far.
And so, when it comes to giving some of that constructive criticism up the chain of the command, we need to get internally right within ourselves and define our A B, Cs.
A is the assumption we are making.
That's the label you're putting on your boss's behavior.
They're a micromanager.
They're flighty.
They're favoriting this other person.
Think of it like an accusation you're making.
That is just for you.
The next two parts are important as well.
B is for behavior.
So what is the observable action that's leading you to make that assumption?
So in the micromanagement example, They're asking to review all of my work before it goes out to this client.
That is something your manager or you could take action on, versus if you just say you're a micromanager.
Where is someone going to go with that?
They're going to defend themselves.
And then last, the C in this formula is the change, the change you want to request or the question you want to ask.
In this example.
It may be what if I come to our next one on one with some ideas or an audit of accounts that I can act independently on, versus one, that ones that you want to continue to have more oversight on?
That way we can be aligned.
We're both on the same page.
And so when you do that, it's approaching the conversation in a solution oriented way.
And you also want to think about how when I share that this is something I want to talk about.
Don't catch your boss by surprise.
Don't just come to your one-on-one and say, I need to give you some feedback.
But make sure your boss has a little bit of a heads up.
Like in our next meeting, I'd love to talk about that meeting last week.
And so they know a bit about what they're getting into.
And then try to set a shared goal so that, metaphorically speaking, you're both on the same side of the table versus against one another across the table.
And a shared goal can be as simple as I hope.
You would agree that we both want to do what's best for this client.
Or I know that transparency is one of our top team values.
Is that correct?
Or are we still on board with that?
And by creating that shared goal, you're getting a micro agreement of your boss saying yes yes, that makes sense, which makes them more receptive to what comes next.
And it feels more like a joint effort rather than you criticizing them.
Amazing.
And here again, we are the consistency.
I love this consistency.
We're starting from the inside out.
What are my assumptions?
There's a difference between an assumption and a hypothesis.
You know, we assume and then we believe it's true and act as if it is or, hey, I might be wrong.
Let me lead with a little bit of curiosity here too, which helps us to not take it as personally as well.
And I really appreciate the fact that we're focusing on observable behaviors.
Because when it comes to these tough conversations, a lot of times we are led by our emotions inappropriately.
And we say, this is how I feel, but we don't have any specificity that the person can latch onto.
And the person might just leave the meeting saying well, apparently Melody hates me and thinks I'm terrible and I don't know what to do about it.
And so we're coming with something a lot more tangible by focusing on the behaviors and then being solution oriented as well.
And we can't overlook the fact that this is just fundamental collaborative negotiation.
It's not me versus you.
It's you and me versus the problem.
We're on the same team moving in the same direction.
Let's work through this and figure out how we can go forward.
Yeah, it makes all the difference.
When it comes to the label of difficult, a lot of us say that our boss is difficult, but sometimes that might be an inappropriate label.
Can you help us to understand the potential challenge with labeling somebody as difficult?
A label like that can then be a wall because what do you do with that?
What do you do?
How do you solve a difficult person?
It feels inherent to them.
I think also when you attach yourself to my boss is difficult or they're toxic.
And I want to be clear, there are some truly toxic situations out there.
But when we see everything through that lens, we start catching more of it, right?
Your brain has that confirmation bias of oh see, they slighted me in that conversation or they talked over me.
And everything starts to confirm that story which, at the end of the day, only makes your life more miserable and difficult.
And what I have found, again disclaimer there are truly toxic abusive, bad managers situations out there.
But the vast majority of the time, what people say are difficult behaviors or my boss is impossible to work with comes down to a difference.
And this goes all the way back to this styles conversation.
We were talking about that.
We have to flex our approach.
We don't have to change who we are fundamentally, but if you make some strategic adaptations, maybe you are someone who is really a detail lover.
You want the context, you want to understand how we get here, who is involved, and your boss is more of a straight shooter.
They want you to get to the point, they want to know what was the outcome.
And if you lead with context, a manager like that is going to get frustrated really quickly and say you know what?
Just give me the bottom line here and you'll feel slighted.
But if you know that, OK, my preference might be this.
But if I really want to get through to my manager, I just have to change the framing or the presentation, the package that I'm putting this in.
I need to lead with my bottom line and present bullet points instead of 10 paragraphs of data for them.
Your message is going to get through.
It's going to be a smoother interaction for both of you.
And likewise, you may have a manager who's very pie in the sky, visionary type.
But if you're talking, you're really down on the ground, talking about precision and quality and details.
It's like you're talking past each other.
But if you can use some more of that language to say, I know our vision within two years is to double our sales in this area.
So I wanted to present how we could streamline this process to help get us there.
You're connecting it in a way they can understand, without fundamentally changing the content or the intent behind what you want to say.
All right.
Let's talk about something that's We'll be right back.
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What I love about this advice melody is that sometimes we can give well-meaning advice that turns into unintentional gaslighting.
Because sometimes we say, all right, this person's difficult.
Well, no, don't say they're difficult.
They're not difficult.
Well, what are they?
What are they?
I'm certainly feeling something.
What is it?
And I love that we can shift from this is a difficult person to we are simply different.
We have different approaches.
And then now we have to figure out how we work well together.
And once we can figure out how to reconcile those differences, we can move forward.
But I think sometimes it takes us to actually say it explicitly.
So correct me if I'm wrong.
It sounds like you prefer this approach and it was frustrating to you because I use this approach.
Am I getting that right?
Okay, great.
Well, going forward, how can we change it?
Yes, yes.
But I think what underlies all of this too, is that then it allows you to understand what is my threshold of difference, where it becomes a problem for me, right?
Because that's where I'm not saying at all that you should continue to tolerate a situation that's not working for you.
But but rather realize, going back to this idea we talked about, that don't make your boss your single point of failure.
You also need to have there's an entire chapter on the networking conversation.
You need to build other allies who may be able to go to bat for you or advocate for you.
But also then you start to realize you know what this fundamentally is a person that is so different than me, wired so differently, or their values or their approach to work is so different in my than mine that this is not going to be a place i can thrive.
And then at least you are running towards something new, something that's better for you, rather than just running away from a situation and telling yourself the story.
That person was difficult.
I just couldn't deal with them because even when I also, if I could go on a little bit of a rant for just a second, I do get some criticism online, for you were saying, like this idea of almost gaslighting ourselves.
And I've gotten some criticism that I'm encouraging people to do that, and not at all, because I think there's a lot of talk, whether it's it's out there online on LinkedIn, or that if you have a toxic boss, leave.
You're better than that.
You don't deserve this.
That is true, but not all of us have that privilege.
And some of us have to make the best of an imperfect situation because we have to feed our families.
We may not be able to undertake a job search, may take us a while to find a new role.
And so these skills of being able to negotiate persuade influence, protect yourself and have integrity and confidence, even when you're in a bad situation.
That is the ultimate form of self-protection in this type of environment.
And those skills will be so valuable wherever you go next.
And so I'm always encouraging my clients to ask, I may not like this situation.
This may not be something that I want to be in forever, nor do I deserve any of this.
But how can I make this work for me instead of against me?
What value can I extract from working with this terrible manager, whether it's learning to go around them or to advocate for my work when they steal credit for that?
All of that is so powerful, no matter where you go next.
And I'm glad you said that too, because sometimes the advice that goes the most viral is the advice that is the worst.
It's like, okay, cool.
What does my amygdala say?
Hey, do that thing.
You know what?
My amygdala told me the same thing too.
Put it all to the ground.
So, yeah, I'm glad that you said that, too, because you're right.
People do not often just have the privilege to just up and leave.
Right.
So it has to be a balance.
And what's great about your work is that you give people the tools to actually explore that balance and understand what's right for you.
That's right.
That's right.
Alright Melody, so we've got something interesting today, and I think we'll have some fun with this.
We received a letter from a listener who's dealing with a tough situation, and I think it's one that a lot of people can relate to.
Ashley from our team is going to read the letter for us, and then you and I will break it down together.
And also, by the way, if you yes, you listener, I'm talking to you.
If you're ever in a tricky situation or have a workplace dilemma, or just have a story you want to share with us, we'd love to hear from you.
You can send your story to our producer, Simone, spelled like Simon. at negotiateanything.com.
So that's S-I-M-O-N at negotiateanythingcom, because we're always looking for real situations to dive into.
All right, let's get into it.
Here's Sarah's letter.
Hi Kwame and Melody.
I'm a project manager at a software company.
My boss is obsessed with AI.
He talks about it all the time, follows every trend, and now wants to launch an AI-based product.
The problem?
His idea isn't new or innovative and the costs to build it are huge.
If it fails, and I really think it will, it could bankrupt the company.
I've analyzed our customer data and I know he's making the wrong assumptions.
I've tried showing him the numbers, explaining the risks and sticking to the facts, but he won't listen.
Every time I bring it up, he gets defensive like I'm questioning his intelligence, which isn't my intention.
I've tried everything different ways of presenting it, different tones and breaking it down as clearly as possible.
But he's so caught up in the excitement that he won't see the danger.
Now I feel stuck.
I can't afford to lose my job, but if I push too hard, he might see me as a problem.
On the other hand, if i stay quiet and the project moves forward, i could lose my job anyway when it all crashes.
So what do i do?
Keep pushing back off?
How do you tell your boss he's making a mistake when he refuses to listen?
I'd really appreciate your advice, sarah.
This is a tough situation to be in, sarah right, because you're you're trying to do your best and ultimately, your bosses is the decision maker.
So i can understand why you feel a little bit trapped and i want to offer a few different ideas in kwame.
I want to hear from from you as well, based on your experience uh, but i wonder if you could propose a experiment.
I think fundamentally, we need to lean into his excitement and move away from him feeling like we're putting the kibosh on it, because that may be triggering some more of the resistance.
So could you use what's called the foot in the door technique, which is, can you suggest a small scale pilot or some phased rollout of this, so that you're saying this is a really exciting idea?
What do you think about rolling this out to this one team so we can see how it goes?
We can gather the data and then we can iterate from there, rather than saying this isn't going to work with anybody.
Maybe give him the benefit of the doubt and also contain potentially what you see as the risk.
That's the first thing I would say.
The second thing if your boss isn't listening to you, I would be thinking about who else might they listen to?
Because positional power is real.
And because you are below your manager, they may be of the mind that well, you should be executing on what I want to do.
But who are the other people that have both high interest and high influence in this project?
Maybe it's one of their peers.
Maybe it's a sponsor or another senior stakeholder.
But you building a relationship with them, trying to feel out what their thoughts about this are, building that trust.
You can get to a point with them to say I have some misgivings about this and I wanna make sure we're doing what's best for the company at the end of the day.
What do you think about where this is going?
And your manager may be more likely to listen to that person than to you.
And the last thing I'll share is also we need a little bit of CYA, which is cover your you know what.
And I think here that after you have meetings with your manager, you send recaps that say, based on a discussion we talked about proceeding with X.
I also wanted to flag that today I brought up this dependency on Y, or that the data is showing Z.
I'll continue to track that on our end as we continue to move forward with that, so that it is documented somewhere that you have brought up these concerns, should anything come to that.
There is so much i love about this, so much so, first of all, one of the toughest things to do is just redirect somebody's emotions, because if the person is so feeling, so good about it, if you end that excitement, then you're going to be the bad person.
It's like i was happy a second ago and then this dark cloud came into my office and rained on my parade right.
So i love the fact that we just lean into it like i can tell that you're excited about it And we can actually give them an opportunity to share more.
Well, tell me what's so exciting about it.
Let them share so you can show that you're empathizing and understanding.
But then breaking it down and being incremental is one of the most powerful negotiation techniques we have.
So instead of going all or nothing, let's go all in on this project.
How about we just break it into phases, do it smaller so we can make shifts if necessary?
So you're not saying no, you're saying hey, let's continue to do this, but it might even be better if we take it in smaller steps.
I love that.
And then we have the other approach, which is and I think it would be good to do these in tandem as well where we have essentially the old school negotiation technique of coalition building.
Yeah.
So what we're saying is okay, let me talk to somebody else who might have more influence and let me, over time, influence them.
Because you didn't just say I'm going to slam the door and say listen, tell him He isn't doing this the wrong way.
First, we have to build that relationship, which goes back to something you said at the beginning, where we're saying hey, managing up is not just with your direct manager.
It's with everybody around them, too.
So you should already have this relationship.
Figure out what their perspective is.
Build that trust.
And then when you feel safe in that relationship, you can share some of those misgivings.
Right.
So there is an incremental approach.
And what we're seeing with both of these situations is that the negotiation should have started as soon as you got hired at this, at this job, because if you have an established relationship with your boss and this other potentially powerful person, it makes it so much easier for you to have more influence.
And then, for me as a lawyer, I love the fact that you included the CYA, where you're creating a positive paper trail to this is a masterpiece of negotiation within a company.
Yeah.
And let me also just add, I love that idea of going with the emotion instead of against it.
Brilliant.
What I would say is, with this type of excited type, of visionary type of person, two phrases that are great to use, what if?
And I wonder.
So what if we tried this?
Or what I've noticed is companies that are really succeeding in this AI space are doing this.
What if we followed that same playbook, right?
They're rolling out small-scale experiments or they're paying attention to this sort of data.
And I wonder, is also a great phrase to say, You know, I wonder what you see about this in terms of what would success look like one year from now?
What would you imagine and what might be what might get in the way of that?
So those two phrases, what if and I wonder, can also be very magical to go with the emotion.
All right, Melody, I could talk to you forever about this.
This has been a blast.
But before we wrap up, I want to make sure that we leave our listener with something powerful.
So if the person listening today was to remember just one thing from this conversation, one idea that could truly change the way that they navigate their careers, what would it be?
You teach people how to treat you.
That is a phrase that comes from my therapist days.
You teach people how to treat you.
When you show up differently, how people respond to you changes.
And every interaction you have is a chance to shape how you're perceived.
I will gently drop my mic.
So good.
Oh, man.
This is great.
And for the listener, when they listen to this episode and they want to connect with you, what is the best way for them to do that?
You can find more information about my work and the book at managingup.com.
Pretty simple.
Amazing.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
If it's all dried with you, can I jump in and ask Melody a question?
Simone, the show is yours.
Man.
I have a friend whose boss wants him to stay late often but he needs to live on time for his family.
Since he has less power at work, how can he negotiate this?
Yeah, such a good question.
I love this.
In the boundaries chapter, there's actually an assessment called gauging your pushback power.
And it's right along the lines of what you were saying, that we have to understand what is our leverage here.
In any managing up conversation.
What's the leverage we have about how directly or how often we can bring something up?
And so things that add to your leverage are things like your tenure, your seniority.
What's the strength of your relationship with your boss?
What's the culture of the organization?
What's the state of the organization?
Are things in chaos?
Are we in a period of stability?
And If you're newer to the organization, if you're more junior in your role, your pushback power is on the lower side.
That doesn't mean you're completely powerless, that there's nothing you can do, but you do have to be more deferential in your approach than you might be able to be if you're someone that has higher pushback power because you have that social capital built up.
And I think in terms of building that pushback power, some of it is also your performance, right?
This ties to the visibility conversation.
If you are someone who can be proving actually in those eight hours that I have I'm getting really solid results and your manager is aware of that and you are seen as a high performer then you are going to have more leverage to say, at the end of the day, I'm done at the end of the day.
And I think this also comes back to that styles conversation that we were touching on that.
Yes, you want to understand your manager's style, right?
What are their work preferences and how do they communicate?
But you also need to be able to share and assert your own.
And so this is where there's an exercise in the book called the me manual, which is all about what are some of the boundaries you have around your work hours.
I leave at 6 p.m. so I can be with my family, for example.
But that should be something.
You have the courage to have an upfront conversation with your manager about to say I'm getting mixed messages about the work hours here.
And so I wanted to take a chance to clarify.
My understanding is that when I am done at 6, I go home.
Is is that has that expectation changed or am I off base on that?
And then again, you're approaching it with curiosity.
I love that Kwame use that word.
And then you can understand.
You know, your boss may say actually I stay later because that's the only quiet time I get to think.
And that's what I'm in meetings all day.
That's the only time I get to actually do my work.
It's no problem if you go home or your boss may say you know officially yes, we end at 6 pm, but you stay until the work is done.
And that opens up a negotiation conversation to say, all right, I hear it's important that the work gets done.
I'm hoping we could find another alternative.
Could I come in an hour earlier?
Or if I'm able to get you a report about what I've done about the end of the day.
Would you feel comfortable with me leaving on time?
So there are lots of ways to navigate those power differentials.
I hope that at least gives you some ideas or is a bit helpful.
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