Work Coach Cafe

If only you could order a boss from a menu. At least then, you could send him back if he isn’t what you want! Reminds me of an old joke:

“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!”

“That’s OK, ma’am. There’s no extra charge.”

Sometimes a boss you didn’t order and have no use for comes with the job. And just like the soup, you have two choices: to keep it or give it up. Of course, there’s no guarantee there won’t be a fly in the next bowl of soup either – or the next job.

So what do you do if you wind up with a boss who just flops around helplessly mucking up a job that would be pretty good otherwise?

It depends on what type of fly…er…boss he is. There are lots of categories of bosses, but for this particular post I want to focus on Fly-in-Your-Soup Bosses. These aren’t the boss-from-hell types like Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. These are the ones who somehow landed in the job despite their mismatch with the tasks at hand. Often, these are fairly nice people who just don’t belong where they are. But nice as they may be, they’re adding to your own work load and not fixing the real problems – and you still go home wanting to scream.

So is there anything you can do? Maybe.

Let’s first look at the possible ways this type of boss can complicate things for you:

• They feel they need to contribute, so they make you use methods that aren’t necessary to get the job done
• They come up with new projects that are interesting to them but only add to your workload
• They ignore critical issues that need to be dealt with because they aren’t interested in them
• They get caught up in cool glitzy technology that isn’t needed and only uses up critical resources
• They miss out on important interdepartmental alliances and networking that could help make your job easier
• They put you in uncomfortable situations without the proper support and back-up you need
• They create a big bulls-eye for the department because others know how vulnerable and defenseless you are
• Even if they see problems, they’re too afraid or incompetent to meet them head on
• They allow others to manipulate them in ways that hurt you and your other co-workers
• They really can’t understand basic elements of the work or related office politics
• They aren’t able to hear what you’re saying because they have brains that can only focus on what they’re interested in – and it’s usually not what you’re talking about
• They make poor decisions influenced by one or two people or maybe just a need to show they’re in charge

Do you recognize any of these? Is your current boss a fly in your soup? And, if so, how do you get him out?

Although you weren’t hired to be the boss and may resent that you have to deal with these things at all…unless you want to keep screaming, your best hope in a situation like this is to manage up. That means you need to figure out how to help your boss do a better job of running the place so that all of you benefit in the end – whatever it takes.

Until things change and you get another boss, you are stuck with this one. And since he’s not going to change who HE is, if you’d like to help things for yourself you need to think of ways to divert him from interfering with things he only mucks up and also assist him in paying attention where he needs to.

One way to keep him out of your hair is to encourage him to get involved in his own soup. Meanwhile, he won’t need to mess in other areas if you do your best (with the help of co-workers) to divvy things up such that the shop starts running itself – leaving him more and more out of the mainstream and able to focus on his own interests without hurting anything.

Seriously…he’s not all that interested in the real work anyway and would probably enjoy getting involved in something diversionary that he’s good at and where he can finally shine. The trick is figuring out something that won’t involve much or any of your time or that of your co-workers but is still useful – ideally to the larger organization (if the company is big enough). In fact, the more useful it is to the outside, the more likely he might get bumped up to work on similar things.

An example I know of is a boss who was not great at dealing with the real issues at hand but loved making attractive charts that were extremely detailed. She was great at it. So the rest of her staff pulled together and figured out how to run the place, feeding her requests for help with special charts and graphs and presentations of all kinds. Soon she became known for this skill and her boss began to rely on these for his own presentations. In addition, her staff encouraged her to pursue an interdepartmental project that needed a leader. She was happy to get out into new things that she was better at. And it soon became apparent to her boss that the department didn’t need her. So, since she had other useful skills, she was put in a new job that helped make her own boss look better and left her old department to a much stronger manager. A win win win.

But, of course, things don’t always work out this neatly. What if the boss can’t be diverted and keeps feeling the need to meddle where he isn’t needed? Well…this might involve some finesse on your part, but the key here is your boss wants to participate. So you have to build your work process in a way that helps him do just that while limiting his participation in what he doesn’t do as well.

You can accomplish this by training your boss to wait for you to bring him some pieces of what you’re working on that you’ve already had time to think through. He can feel involved if you figure out ways for him to have input that can’t hurt anything and maybe – if you’re clever – can even help. Only you can know what he’s good at or interested in. Take care of everything else and let him give you advice that makes sense for him. In the case of the woman above, you’d ask for help with a chart or presentation format.

With someone else, it might be something as simple as “Do you think these steps (of the steps you’ve already carefully thought through) are in the right order? Might it make better sense to handle 4 before 3? (Choose one you know doesn’t matter but have a good reason for asking or it will appear obvious.) Or…do you think Harry or Sally would be better to handle step 5? Or…do you think this paragraph works? Would it be better if I said…(come prepared with a second choice.) Or simply…this is the way I think it will work. Can you help me think it through out loud?

The main thing, is finding ways to involve your boss that can’t divert the project in a direction it doesn’t need to go or add lots of extra work for you. This takes some practice (don’t get frustrated if it doesn’t work the first few times) and can best be accomplished by keeping his input to yes/no or multiple choice answers. And it also helps to keep him informed to show how useful he’s been to the process and that he is involved. Bosses need to know that they have value – even if it’s just as a sounding board.

But here’s a crucial piece of advice in general about communicating with bosses or anyone: Make a point of presenting things in words or concepts that connect to the other person – don’t rush into the explanation with lots of jargon that makes sense only to someone who knows what you do. Some people get frustrated with their boss, but they haven’t taken the time to explain things in a way that could make sense to him. You’d be surprised how much smarter someone can seem when they actually get what you’re saying!

If all else fails: If you’re in a place where you can’t comfortably enlist the help of co-workers or where your boss is still insistent on being where he doesn’t need to be and managing up has proved futile, then (assuming you want to stay where you are) your best bet is probably to develop a niche for yourself. Become so knowledgeable in an area – the resident expert if possible – that you are diverted to handle more and more of the specialized work that your boss couldn’t hope to flop into.

True, this won’t help the rest of your co-workers, but if managing up fails with a fly-in-your-soup boss, then it’s every man or woman for yourself!

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New Work Coach Cafe Policy:

Although I had to stop answering individual questions (to preserve my sanity), as always your thoughts and stories are VERY welcome here.

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