Do You Have to Be a Jerk to Succeed at Work?

to the show. Today. We have a bunch of shorter questions from people to answer, and our first question is from someone who is managing people for the first time and wondering what the hell she's supposed to talk about with them when she does one on one meetings. Hi, Allison, I'm a new department director, promoted to my position a little over a year ago. I manage a team of

around fifteen, out of whom are direct report staff. When I took over this department, it was a train wreck, and even our company president would agree with that assessment. I've spent my time trying to get everything back on track, meeting deadlines and getting some more in depth regulatory training for all of us, and now I'm pleased to say that the department is significantly improved. We're moving in the

same direction, deadlines are being met. I feel like I can take a step back and the entire department can take a breath. And one of your podcasts, The Talkative Intern from July eight, two thousand eighteen, you talked about the importance of regular one on one meetings with employees, and it was like someone turned the lights on for me. I haven't been doing that. You see, my background is project management, and this is the first time that I've

managed humans. So I had to do an internet search about what these meetings should look like, and of course I started with ask a manager. I literally have no idea. So I went ahead and started these meetings this week, even though I'm still fumbling in the dark sum But I would love your thoughts on what a typical check in meeting would look like. About how long should it last? Is there a standard length of time that we should spend in these meetings? Is there anything that should be

covered in every single meeting with each employee? Is there a good standard on frequency or does that totally depend on your staff and your business and what everyone does and what projects you have going on, etcetera, etcetera. I've learned so much about managing employees since i started listening to the podcast and reading your blog, and so I'm really looking forward to your input on these very important meetings. Thanks. I'm really excited to get this question because doing check

in meetings well. Doing them well can make a huge difference and how effectively you're managing your team and how much your employees themselves feel like they're on track. I know it might not sound like the most exciting topic to people listening, but I think it kind of is because doing these right can be the entire backbone of management. It's really really key, and so many people don't really

do them effectively if they do them at all. The idea is that having a regular time to touch base one and one with each of your staff people about their work keeps you both focused on the results that they're getting and creates a place for you to check on how projects are coming, serve as a resource to them, agree in priorities, and give feedback. They're really your core forum for management. They're the primary place where you do the work of managing. You asked how often to have them.

For most people, meeting weekly works well, but if you have more experienced staffers, or if you have people whose work just doesn't require weekly conversation, you could do every other week most of the time, though I wouldn't do less frequently than every other week, and usually they're going to be thirty to sixty minutes somewhere in there. I would start in the beginning scheduling them for an hour and see how they go. If you keep finding that you don't need that much time, you can always cut

them down. And something that's really key is always use an agenda so that you're both clear ahead of time and how you're going to be using the time. You can ask your employee to prepare that agenda and send it to you ahead of time, and you can ask that it includes specific sections each week, so things like a section for key project updates, a section for priorities for the coming week, a section for items that need your feedback, a section for anything that the person is

waiting on you for. And then don't just use their agenda, I mean use it, but add your own things to it. Jot down your own items that you want to raise, and actually before the meeting it's a really good idea to just take a few minutes and kind of reflect, ask yourself, what are you the most war worried about as it relates to this person or to their work. What do you really want to use the time to

focus on. It sounds obvious, but making yourself do that every time can make sure that you're focusing on the right things. For example, you might realize one day, Oh, the thing that I'm most worried about in Jane's realm is the question of what more we need to do to generate ticket sales for our upcoming event. So I want to spend some time with her brainstorming other approaches

we could use. Or you might realize Jane has seemed kind of off her normally very good game lately, so I want to ask her if she's doing okay and if there's anything going on that I can support her with. So it might be the stuff that you're most worried about that you most want to talk about, might be the day to day work, or it might be something a little bit more big picture when you step back

and really think about it. It's also helpful to keep a running list throughout the week of things that you want to raise at the check in, which could be like a piece of feedback that you want to give, or a reminder to yourself that the staff person was supposed to check into topic X, but you haven't heard any update, and so you want to follow up on

it or so forth. By keeping a running list all week long, that way, you won't forget anything when the check in comes around, and you also won't be bugging people throughout the week about things that can wait for your time together, and that can be helpful in making sure that people don't feel like you're sort of hovering. I would also consider having a section on the agenda for reflecting on what has gone well recently and what could have gone better, and you can ask the employee

to bring their own thoughts on that. You can make it part of the agenda that you're using every week. You can ask them to come prepared to share their thoughts on that, and you'll offer your own. And doing that is so useful because it makes feedback just a normal,

regular part of your meetings, and it's super helpful. When you normalize feedback like that, it doesn't feel so scary to people, and you ensure that there's this constant flow of both positive and developmental feedback, which is a really awesome thing to have. Now, what you don't what to do with these meetings is have them turn into just a big list of project updates where the person just runs down everything they're working on and where it stands,

and then the meeting ends. The point of these meetings is not to make the person document where their time went that week. It's to see how the person is progressing towards their big goals, ask probing questions, spot any areas of concern, serve as a resource to them, help problem solve if needed, help balance priorities, debrief projects, and give feedback. So make sure that you're not letting these just turn into like a report on how the person

spent their time in the last week. That's not what you're doing here. And actually you can even ask people to include short, bulleted updates in the agenda that they send you ahead of time, so that you can read those before the meeting, and then that way that's out of the way and you can spend your face to face time on the stuff that really requires conversation. And then I'm also going to point you to my book and management, because there is a whole chapter in are

on how to do check in meetings. Well. So the book is called Managing to Change the World, The Nonprofit Manager's Guide to Getting Results, and as you can tell by the title, it is written for nonprofit managers, but like of what's in there is going to apply in any sector, so hopefully that will be a good resource too. We will take a quick break here and come right back. Hi, Alison. First off, thank you for your great podcast on work

questions in the like. I found myself off in relating to a lot of the issues that come up in somewhere or another, and it has definitely helped me navigate my office culture, so thank you. I wanted to email you about an issue that has come up often in my career in regards to doing the right thing. I'm a late twenties male who has been working in a

technical environment for the entirety of my career. I don't know if it has just been the companies that I've worked for, but there seems to be a prevailing issue of image versus actions in guards to people's behavior when working in an office environment. When things go wrong, which they inevitably will, because nobody is perfect, there tends to be a flurry of finger pointing and claims of innocence

with no accountability of the issue. Accountability has brought up a lot, and what I mean by accountability is the person holding themselves accountable for their own quality of work. I find myself to be a person with integrity who does not like throwing people under the bus. I will also readily admit when I have made a mistake. The thing I have an issue with is that if I'm the only one who does these things, I end up looking like a screw up instead of building a reputation

as someone who is honest with themselves. Even worse, those with machavelli in tendencies can achieve a lot before someone sees the person behind the curtain if at all, and will steamroll over people like me if I wait for the higher ups to quote unquote see through what is happening. Office environments are full of these types of people who will kick and claw and tear others down to look useful to their boss or others. I want to succeed, but I want to do so honestly, and I want

to earn it. Am I just not cut out for working in an office. Thanks. I wish I knew what field you work in, because I don't actually think that this is typical. There are certainly people everywhere who are just out for themselves and who are willing to step on other people in order to advance, but they usually stand out as pretty unusual. They're not typically the majority of people in an office, unless you're in a dysfunctional

office or a dysfunctional field. So I'm very curious about what work you do, because some fields are definitely more populated by jerks than others. But so often this kind of behavior is because the organization's culture allows it. You don't find it in offices that prioritize transparency and integrity and where leaders are modeling those things themselves. If I were in your shoes, I would try to get a read on is this just your industry or have you

worked at particularly bad companies. One way to do that is to seek out a mentor someone who works in your field but is a bit more experience than you and talk to them about what you're seeing. Ask if they think it's just the nature of the work that you're doing, or if it sounds off to them, or if you have friends who also work in your field at different companies, you can bounce this off them as well. My hunch is that it's about the companies that you've

been at. You said you're late twenties, so that's probably something like one to three companies, I'm guessing, and that's not a huge sample size to draw conclusions based off of. But certainly by the time you're seeing it for the third time in a row, you're naturally going to start to wonder. So talk to someone who's in the same field, who has a more senior vantage point on it, and see what they say. But to answer your broader question, no,

this is not just the way offices work. It might be the way your offices have worked so far, but it's not a normal thing. So the next time that your job searching, I would really dig into the culture of anywhere that you're can that are in taking a job, and really prioritize cultures that do emphasize transparency and learning from mistakes, and try to talk to people who work there before you take your next job so that you can figure out if it's just going to be the

same thing all over again. And actually, one other thing that can help with this is having a really good relationship with your manager. I would really lean into developing that, like building trust and credibility with your boss, because that will pay off in two different ways. One, you say that you feel like being really upfront about your mistakes is making you look like you're a screw up because

no one else is doing it. But if you have a really good, strong relationship with your boss, that is less likely to happen because your boss will know you and will know that you're very upfront about that kind of thing, and if they're at all a decent boss,

they should respect or at least understand that. And then the second way that it can help is if you develop a good enough for poor with your boss, potentially you can ask her about this too, and she will be really well positioned to talk to you with much more nuanced than I can about what you're seeing in your company and whether you're reading it right. So I would really work on building that relationship. Good luck. Okay, here is our next question. Hi, Alison, thanks so much

for taking my question. I am a teacher who started a new program with another teacher last year. We worked together really well and we're generally thought to be successful by the administrator supervising the program. There is one issue I had, though, that I'm curious about how you would suggest I approach. Part of this program requires frequent record

keeping about his progress. One agreement that my colleague and I came to is that we would split up the work to make it easier to great students and to keep up with all the paperwork. However, my colleague often waited over a month to update his share of the paperwork. At one point I offered to do it if he was having trouble peping up with it, but he insisted that he could do it and wanted to handle it and didn't want to place an unfair burden on me.

I also feel a little weird about continuing to make that offer, as I'm worried about gender dynamics. I'm a woman, he's a man, and I know often in these situations women get stuck with the clerical work. On the other hand, to measure our progress, it's important that the records are kept up to date, and I'd rather do it myself and have access to the information we need than to wait for him. We're about to finish our training process, with our new set of students, and I'm worried about

this happening again once the paperwork increases. The hope and goal is that our program is going to expand, which means that the record keeping will only get more intense. We don't have hard deadlines for this, which I think maybe makes him feel like it's fine if he puts it off. However, there is an expectation that we are keeping our records up to date in a timely fashion. Am I being a control freak about this? How do you suggest I approach him about it again? Since the

last time I tried I wasn't successful. I do not think you're being a control freak about it. It sounds

like the record keeping has to be done. I think it's good, though, that he did not take you up in your offer to do it for him, because he really should be doing it himself, and because you're right about the gender dynamics where women often step in and do more than their share of the sort of office housekeeping type work, because we're socialized to care about it more and to be bothered by it more when it's not done, and to be somewhat comfortable with just stepping

up and doing it so that it is done, even if we're annoyed that we have to do it. So, yeah, it's not good for anyone when you step in and do that because someone else isn't pulling their weight. The exception to that can be if you agree upfront to divide the work that way, and in exchange he takes on something roughly equivalent in terms of time and energy

that you would prefer not to do. But even then you have to be careful that you don't get the short end of the stick there, because if the thing that he takes on in exchange is more high profile or is seen as more valuable, then you're at a disadvantage, even if you would otherwise be pretty happy with the arrangement.

So it's important to think about that aspect of it too. Anyway, as far as what to do here, I think you've got to get really clear in your own mind about exactly what the impact is on you if he doesn't do the paperwork in a timely way, if it's mainly annoying but doesn't actually have a real impact on you and your ability to do your job. I would try very hard to let that go, and believe me, I am all about being annoyed by things that are just

annoying on principle but don't actually affect me. So I would get it if that was what was happening, But you would be better off forcing your brain to accept that it's not your problem to solve. But it doesn't sound like that's the case from what you're saying. It sounds like you really do need his records up to date because need access to that information. If that is correct, then that's the piece of this to focus on. Now.

When you talk to him last time, it's not clear to me if you talked through why this is a problem and how it's impacting you, or if you just made the offer to take it off his plate. Form. My hunch is that you might have focused more on that second piece, just offering to do it, because that

is often what people do. So I would go to him this time and say something like, you know, last year I had trouble getting information like X, Y, and Z because you aren't updating on our records very frequently, and I really want to be able to do blank. So can we agree that we'll both update at least every week or whatever? I'm just making up a time

period there, but whatever makes sense. The idea is to be really clear about why it matters, what the impact is if he doesn't do it, so that it doesn't sound like you just care about paperwork for paperwork's sake. And I say that because when you're someone who is really on top of the stuff and you're nudging someone who isn't, there can be this dynamic where it starts to feel to both of you like you're just the nag.

You know, you're just nagging the other person to do some pitoly thing that you only care about because you love order and you love paperwork. So the more that you can ground this in the actual impact that it's having on you or on your students, the better. And then if he agrees to that but still ends up not doing it, then you can approach him about it again at that point and again ground it in the impact.

So at that point you could say something like, hey, I was looking for X piece of information yesterday and I couldn't find it. Could you get your records up to date sometime this week so that I've got access to that stuff? So again it's not do this because you're supposed to be on top of it, even though that's true, it's do this because it's causing this specific work related issue that we need to take care of. We'll do one ware break here and come right back.

This next color is someone who wanted to respond to a previous episode of the show, the episode called My Boss is a Jerk to Me, where the color on that show had a boss who was really snippy with her and constantly seemed frustrated with her. The person we're about to hear from is a manager who feels like she's in that situation, but from the boss's side, she is the boss who is annoyed with her employee. Hi, Allison, I want to start by saying I just discovered this

podcast and I love it. I have many questions that I will get to email into you, but I wanted to start with some feedback from the My Boss is a Jerk to the episode. While I don't condone being snappy or short with someone, I have to share that I'm sharing a sort of similar experience from the boss's side. I'm sort of a manager slash supervisor to the person

who filled my last position. I've explained many times since you started, and during the interview process that the site has not done a good out of documenting job processes. But I tried documenting as much as I can while I was doing this position, which was a lot. I'm pointing her in the direction of those to learn, but also explaining things that are not documented and encouraging her to edit the script or create a new one. Take as many notes as possible so that it makes sense

to you the next time you do it. Review the notes you took a day or two after you completed the tests, refer to them when something similar happens. No matter what, though, I'm getting the same exact questions about things that are simple and that I would have expected her to learn by now. One interaction that stands out to me is that after her return from a vacation day, she stopped in my office. When she got in and

asked me what I wanted her to do. It wasn't the end of the month or anything where we would need to prioritize those activities. I said, she can carry on with her normal day. When she left my office, I wanted to screen It's made four months that she

in here. I expect that you have working, know that you should be doing, and that you as are working professional, instructured your day around anyway, this is a moment where I could have been short with her, like the caller's boss, I just wanted to share the feedback and I look

forward to asking more questions. I really appreciate this Color sharing this because I think that we don't hear enough from the manager's side of these types of interactions, and managers aren't always self aware enough to realize when they are being short with someone. So it's good that this person is spotting it. I know this Color isn't asking for advice, is she's just sharing her perspective, but I

want to offer them anyway. I think as a manager, when you are at the point where you're really frustrated with an employee, and definitely when you're at the point that where you can tell that you're on the verge of snapping at someone, that's a flag to you that there's a problem that you have to address. You're the boss, after all, you say what goes and what doesn't, And in this case, it sounds like it's tie him to

sit down with her and have a hard conversation. Tell her that you're concerned that she's not retaining the training that you've given her, that she's asking the same questions over and over and that she's not picking up the job as quickly as you need her to, and ask her what's going on, because who knows, there may be something she will share with you that will give you some context that you didn't have before. But either way,

the important thing is to start talking about it. Let her know what you need to see her doing differently, and let her know that the issues are serious ones, and see if you can come up with a plan together for how she'll approach the work differently, and that might help, But if it doesn't help, and sometimes it won't, then you will know that you have been very upfront and straightforward and given clear feedback and that she wasn't able to make the improvements that you said you needed,

And at that point you'll have enough information to conclude she's not the right person for the job and you can make a change and get someone in who is and know that you were upfront and candid with her and gave her the chance to meet those expectations. But it sounds like you're at a point where you're really frustrated, and understandably so, but that you haven't yet done this step of having the serious conversation and moving toward resolving

it one way or the other. And always when you're this frustrated, it's a sign that you've got to sit down and address it, whatever it is that's going on. Sometimes managers get stuck in the part of the process where they're seeing the problems and they're frustrated by them, but they haven't moved on to the part where they talk about them. You don't want to forget that you're the manager here and you have the authority, and really, I would argue the obligation to say, hey, this isn't

going the way that it needs to. Let's sit down and talk about what's happening and what I need to see you doing differently. And then if you don't see those changes, you have the ability to decide that you need to make a change. And I know that's hard to do, but it's definitely no kindness to the person, or to you or to your other employees to stay my heard in this place where you're really frustrated, with good reason for that frustration, but not to speak openly

about it anyway. I know that's a lot In response to a call that was just intended as a comment on a previous episode, but I wanted to get into that a little bit because I think that type of frustration is so common as a manager, and it doesn't need to be Before we wrap up, I want to put out a call for office holiday stories. I am working on an upcoming holiday themed episode, and I want

to include your stories about holidays at work. Gift exchange has gone terribly wrong, holiday party disasters, the time your boss got drunk at the Christmas potluck and passed out

on the copier. Whatever funny or weird stories you have about holidays at work, I want to hear them, and also any questions that you have about holidays at work, whether or not to give your boss or your coworkers a gift, how to get out of working New Year's Eve, whether you really have to attend the office holiday party, whatever your one ring about. Send it in. There are

two different ways to submit your stories and questions. You can record them on the show voicemail by calling eight five five two six work That is eight five five four two six nine six seven five, or you can record a sound file on your phone and just email it to podcast at aska manager dot org. That is it for today, Thanks for listening and I will be back next time with more questions. M