Managing Skip Manager

In the 1990s, employees could view the organization only through the manager as their lens.?Conversely, the organization also viewed employees through the lens of the manager.?Now, while employees have access to the leaders and the rest of the organization through social media or direct reach, organizations are still dependent on managers as the only view of employees. This makes employees very vulnerable, especially if the employee is better than the manager. An insecure manager makes sure that the intelligent employee is either not hired or if he is hired, he does not survive. This is dangerous! This could lead to mediocre organization in a few years.?Mediocre organizations over time wind up or get acquired at a low value. On a separate note, we will address how companies are impacted and what they should change to address the problem. However, today we will talk about what people should do to take care of their interests.?

The solution to the problem is visibility at the skip manager level. The problem is compounded in large organizations and worse where skip manager is in a different office or city. ?

Continuing with our example from the previous article, Shaunak was getting along very well with Uday and had received a promotion recently. Clearly, Shaunak was more intelligent compared to Uday. Shaunak knew that at some stage Uday would not like him and he would be in trouble. He decided to build a relationship with his skip manager Srinivas who was in the USA.?

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Key question: How should you build a relationship with the skip manager without disturbing your equation with your manager??        

• Find Opportunities to Present Your Work or Point of View?

When Uday was on leave, Srinivas asked for a detailed plan for transitioning the processes from the USA to Bangalore. Shaunak volunteered to present Calibri (Body) on behalf of Uday while Uday may not be disturbed during the vacation. Uday gladly agreed.?

1. Ensure that the manager is not anxious?

Shaunak insisted that Uday logs in for the meeting while Shaunak?takes care of the presentation. Shaunak shared the presentation with Uday only a few hours before the meeting leaving him little time to get to the details.?

1. Build the rapport?

Shounak answered all the questions as Uday was not prepared. Srinivas understood that the real brain was Shaunak and not Uday. Subsequently Srinivas started reaching out Shaunak for any questions and for small help.?

• Create Opportunities to Socialize?

When Srinivas was visiting India Shaunak found opportunities for water cooler discussions on work and Srinivas’s hobbies that Shaunak had figured out from social media. ?During the team dinner, Shaunak was the center of attraction as he was cracking jokes and mimicking politicians. Srinivas thought he could be a good manager.?

• Seek One-on-One Meeting?

After being visible and socializing, Shaunak started having one-on-one meetings with his skip manager. He positioned these meetings as mentoring meetings to improve his learning. In the meetings, Shaunak found opportunities to share his ideas for improving the business impact of their services?which would enhance the image of Srinivas in the eyes of the Vice President.?

• Participate in Special Projects?

Srinivas created a special project to assess and improve the business impact of the processes in his organization. Guess what? Shaunak was the project manager for the special project. Shaunak was given the opportunity to present the outcome of the project to the Vice President.?

• The Result ?

Two organizations were merged to expand the scope of work of Srinivas, making him more powerful in the company. Srinivas in turn promoted Shaunak and gave him a larger team to manage with significant processes. Shaunak was now at par with Uday.?

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CHECKLIST TO MANAGE SKIP MANAGER:??

• Wait for your turn and seize the opportunity to showcase your skills and knowledge?
• Keep your manager in good humor while making sure that you are positioned well in front of the skip-manager?
• Socialize to build rapport?
• Build enduring relationship?
• Create or seize opportunity to help your skip-manager improve his position with his manager?
• Look for special projects and volunteer to improve visibility at senior levels?
• Strike at opportune time to get your due?

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Please let me know how do you manage your skip manager? Share your experiences or thoughts in the comments.??

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