How to get what you want at work.

The work part of work is pretty simple when you think about it. I’m talking about the technical things—writing code, running payroll, building a website, or outlining a slide deck. These sorts of skills have rules and protocols. For the most part, they can be learned and replicated.

The far more difficult part of work involves humans. Specifically, managing expectations and knowing how (and when) to ask for what you need from your manager, your team, and your colleagues. These skills usually require a ton of real-world experience as well as trial and error.

As you progress through your career, you’ll find yourself in all of these situations:

Getting Support (AKA Managing Up)

I’ve found that the most important thing you can do to stay aligned with your boss is to set expectations and over communicate. That means regularly sharing progress on your projects before being asked, and asking for support/clarification when you need it. It’s the latter that gives people the most heartburn.

That’s because asking your boss for what you need—whether it’s your manager, president or board of directors—can be intimidating. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: Any leader worth their salt would prefer you to be honest and ask for what you need to be successful, rather than pretend everything is alright when it’s not.

Being vulnerable may not come easy to you, but as long as your request is coming early and from a good place, you shouldn’t have an issue. And if you do have a challenge, that may say more about your manager than it does about you.

Some of the best questions sound like this:

• I’m starting to feel overwhelmed by the volume of projects that are on my plate. Here’s how I’m prioritizing the work, I’d like feedback to make sure it aligns with our business objectives?
• I’m not familiar with the new coding language we’re considering. Could I get reimbursed for an online course so I can develop a point of view?
• I’ve never managed anyone before, but I’m eager to. Could I bring on an intern for the summer to support our team and give me a chance to start learning how to be a manager?

Supporting Your Team (AKA Managing Down)

You know your team looks to you for leadership, inspiration, strategic vision and subject matter expertise. But never forget that one of your most important responsibilities as a manager is that you remove obstacles to your team’s success.

Of course, the only way you can remove obstacles is if you know about them in the first place. And the only way your team is going to tell you about things blocking their path is if they trust you enough to be vulnerable when they’re struggling.

To build that trust with your team, it is imperative that you:

• Hear them. I mean it, truly listen. When your direct reports ask for what they need, it’s probably because they’ve tried everything they can think of to solve the issue and still can’t fix it.
• Make time to hear them. At Upside, everybody has weekly one-on-ones with their team leads. The reasons are simple: Having consistent conversations about work, issues and life builds trust. Plus, it helps small issues stay small and solvable. The longer things linger without being addressed, the harder they are to clean up.
• Think of yourself as an advisor/coach instead of a “boss.” If you react to your team’s questions or issues by barking answers at them, you’re doing nothing to develop your team’s ability to solve future issues on their own. When a seemingly trivial issue is presented to you, take a breath, and remember that there was a time when you didn’t know the answer yourself. Impart your perspective in a way that levels-up your team members.

Giving and getting support is a two way activity. When YOU ask THEM to work on something for/with you, you need to take a minute and make sure you give context to your request and set expectations. For example, if I’m tearing through slack on a Friday afternoon because I’m traveling, and I ask someone on my team for the latest sales report, I could accidentally ruin their weekend because they’re thinking, “The President of Upside just asked me for something. I need to do this right away.”

Next thing you know, they’re staying late on Friday to get me the information as soon as possible. However, if I provide context and the level of urgency in my request, I will manage their expectations more effectively. For example, I could say, “Hey, when can I see the latest sales report? Is Tuesday 10 a.m. a reasonable deadline?”

The point here is that if you can model ideal behavior for setting expectations, your team will learn to do the same when asking for what they need.

Supporting Your Peers (AKA Managing Sideways)

Asking your peers for support and partnership is important for you, them, and your team overall. The problem is that many people form only a few deep relationships with their coworkers, while keeping the majority of workplace relationships remain transactional. But that doesn’t have to be the case and it isn’t the most effective way to get the most out of yourself and your teammates.

You can and should strive to expand your internal network by building more meaningful relationships with your peers in the office. When you need something, you’ll have someone to call on, and when your coworkers are stuck, they’ll feel comfortable reaching out to you for support. Not only is it good for your own career trajectory—a strong, open workplace culture is good for your company’s overall cultural health.

Here are some ways to expand your network and build trust with your colleagues:

• Get to know people as people. One of the fastest ways of building trust and a relationship with someone is to find out who they are and what they care about outside of the office. Where’d they grow up? What do they do for fun? What motivates them? When you know more about each other, asking for advice or support comes naturally.
• Go outside your lane. Your group contains people with similar expertise. But that doesn’t mean you can’t build relationships with someone in accounting or operations or marketing. When I’m stuck, I love grabbing lunch with someone outside of my day-to-day routine. They give me the outside perspective I need to clear the fog and move forward. Consider setting up 1:1s with people in different parts of the company on a monthly or quarterly basis.
• Realize it’s really not optional - your success depends on others. For your company to scale or sustain momentum, everyone needs to feel comfortable speaking up when faced with issues they can’t solve. If it doesn’t seem like there are any issues in your office, then no one is talking. And that’s an even bigger issue because it’s shielding everyone from the truth, and potentially setting the team up for failure.

Business is a team sport - no one can do it all by themselves. To achieve great things, you need to be comfortable in asking for what you need. And you need to demonstrate to the people around you how to do the same.

What techniques have you learned to ask for for what you need from your team? Share your experience in the comments and pay it forward!