How to Talk with Your Manager

How do we speak with our managers?  How do we start?  How do we keep going?  What do we do when we get a new manager?  

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Let’s assume you report to someone, either a manager inside your company or a board or a major client.  There are three aspects to talking with your manager effectively that I address here. They are all about speaking WITH YOU MANAGER about:

1. Your manager
2. You and your manager 
3. You

I'm going to give you six tools, two in each of those categories. The goal is for you to walk away ready to start a meeting with your manager, ready to say, "I'd really like to talk with you about this."

The goal is for you to walk away ready to start a meeting with your manager, ready to say, "I'd really like to talk with you about this."

1.      Speaking about Your Manager (with Your Manager)

Here are the two tools for speaking with your manager about what's important to your manager:

(Tool #1) Most Needed  

The most important thing to know about your manager is what your manager most needs to be successful.  If you don't know your manager's main goal, you don't know whether you are contributing to it.  In my experience, if your manager's big goal is X and your job is a Y that has very little to do with X, your job is not as critical to your manager as other people’s jobs.

For you to be important in your manager’s eyes, what you do on a daily basis has to contribute to what the manager most needs.  So, in your regular one-on-one meetings, it makes sense to ask, “What do you most need this week (or this month)?”  One of the people on my team sends me a survey every Saturday to determine my priorities, and I reply to it before Monday.  That way we stay aligned for the week. I find this wonderful.

(Tool #2) Big Rocks

One of our coaches, Kathryn Britton, has an excellent article about talking to managers about big rocks.   The analogy, big rocks, come from the idea of filling a bucket from a pile of big rocks, pebbles, and sand.  You could fill the bucket with sand first, then pebbles, then big rocks.  But if you put in the big rocks first and then the pebbles and then the sand, the sand can filter in between the big rocks and the pebbles.  You’ll get more into the bucket. I'm sure you're familiar with this analogy. 

You can literally use this language with your manager.  At the beginning of every one-on-one meeting, you can say, "Here are what I consider my big rocks.  Do you agree?” It's a way of speaking directly about big priorities.

2.     Speaking about You and Your Manager (with Your Manager)

Here are the two tools for speaking with your manager about your relationship with your manager:

(Tool #3) Roles and Goals

I first heard this from Gordon Parry, who's been a Silicon Valley Change coach.  This is a good discussion to have at the beginning of your working relationship with a manager, and periodically whenever greater clarity is needed.   You discuss the roles and goals that each of you have right now.  This discussion opens room for negotiation. There may be things that you want to take off your manager's plate that would both help your manager and move you forward because you’re particularly interested in them.  This can be such an above-board and welcoming discussion.  You could periodically ask,  "Could we have a discussion about roles and goals?”  If your manager agrees, follow up with questions such as “What role do you most want me to fill? How has your role changed? What are your top goals?" Managers often appreciate your willingness to make sure the two of you are still aligned. 

(Tool #4) High-Low-Trenches-Need 

This is my name for covering the following things: 

• High:  The best thing that has happened since we last talked. This could be an experience with a client or a department achievement or a personal accomplishment. 
• Low: Something that hasn't gone well and what you’re doing about it.
• Trenches: What you are hearing in the trenches that your manager may not have heard yet.
• Need: What you need from your manager, such as a decision or resources.

3) Speaking about You (with Your Manager)

Now we get to the two tools to help you speak to your manager about you moving forward in your career.  As a preface, many managers love it when you take charge of your own career.  If you go to a manager and say, "I've been thinking a lot about my career and what's important, and here’s what’s on my mind," you're likely taking a load off their shoulders. If you have a strategy, it's helpful for them to work inside that.

Most managers are open to you speaking about your career - not every day or even every week - but at regular times. 

(Tool #5) Next Steps in Your Career

When leaders talk with our coaches about how to speak to their managers about getting a promotion, we ask, “What discussions have you had so far? What does your manager know about what's interesting and important for you?”

You could send your manager an email requesting time to talk about next steps in your career. It doesn't even mean you're leaving the department or that anything is changing right now. It just means that you want to develop.  Here are the experiences you're arranging to build skills, and here's where you hope these experiences will take you down the road.  The more you can talk about timing with your manager, the more likely you’ll get either agreement or pushback, which can also be useful to know.  

Definitely before you have this discussion, prepare your manager. They may be really busy with the tasks of the day. You could say something like, "Could we have our next conversation be about my career direction and some things I've been thinking about?"  When that meeting occurs, you can lay out what you're already doing, and where you want to move.

(Tool #6) Experiments You Are Running

In my experience, managers love this.  You might say, "Here are the experiments I’m running to manage a team that's in conflict,” Or you might say, “I am running experiments on ways to speed up our delivery. Here's what I'm trying, and here's what I'm seeing." When you speak with a manager about your  experiments, you're inviting them into your head and letting them see you grow over time.

I'll give you a personal example. My son plays chess. When he's playing chess online, he'll speak out loud if I'm in the same room. He might say, "Oh, I see that threat." Or "I know what's going on," or "I can beat him next," about his opponent.  He's speaking out loud about what he's learning. As he speaks, I'm following his progress and seeing his advancement as a chess player.

Similarly, when you talk about your experiments, your manager knows what you are trying and how to help you.  When I’ve done 360 feedback interviews, sometimes I hear, “Person X isn't coming to me with challenges.  I only hear about successes and good things. I want to know about the challenges too.  I want to know what Person X is trying.”   Be vocal about your challenges and your experiments.  This helps your manager see how you’re working to be a better leader.  Talking about thing that feel uncertain lets your manager see signs of growth.

What will you try?

Discussions with managers and career discussions can be both useful and difficult. You have six tools here to start a conversation. Think of it this way: the more you can come to the table and discuss what’s happening in work and in your career openly, the happier your manager is likely to be.

Photo by Lindsay Middleton on Unsplash

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