What Does My Boss Want?

A guy I play video games with asked me for some feedback about work. This is his first corporate job and he's grown in the ranks of an IT help desk for a call center. But often, he sees things that he can't quite understand, and wondered if maybe I could shed some light on some of that, based on my experience and my role where I am now. This is helpful if you're maybe new to working at a company. Or maybe if you just want the perspective.

Do the Thing

At the core of every single role in an organization (no matter the size), there are basic expectations of "can you perform the tasks I'm paying you to complete?" I've had people tell me that they're great at making friends internally and really getting everyone on the same page, but when I ask about their core execution, they smile politely.

I suffered from this a lot. I was kind of a "voice of the company" in one role, but what I wasn't doing was being especially reliable in my primary job function. I sort of thought that A really offset my misses in B. (Narrator voice: it did NOT.)

I think it's silly to point this out in some ways. It seems obvious. But I just got done telling you that I didn't always "do the thing." I figured, "I can be creative and do all these other things and who cares?"

Reduce Friction and Promote Flow

Zero bosses out there want someone who adds layers of complexity and process to what should be a straightforward execution. The moment you see the fabled "TPS reports" (see also: Office Space, movie, circa 1999), the gig is up. Some folks think that a lot of process is awesome. It's the opposite of awesome. "Just the right amount of process" is awesome. How fast can I get to the "do the thing" part while keeping everything in alignment is the goal.

But there's a balance, too. If you execute, execute, execute without guard rails, that's not so great, either.

Here again is somewhere that I've erred in the past. I tend to do things, then wonder if they were the right things after I exerted lots of time. Couple with that my prior lack of anything measurement-related and you get a recipe for mediocrity. You have to have some process. You have to have measurements. But the minimal viable process is the goal here. Until you need more. Not before.

Bosses want people who get the job done, not people who talk about the job they're going to do. They want flow.

Play Nicely

If I were to take everyone I speak to in any given day's opinion on face value then EVERY department in every corporation "doesn't get it." It's always another department that's just ruining everything.

We're all at work to try and accomplish hopefully somewhat interlocking goals. This is always about communication. Team A needs Team B to do something before they can do their thing, and there are expectations, but someone might have not communicated why Team B has to go first.

Maybe replace the assumption that the person or team you think are complete idiots with one that suggests they are just working from a different priority list than you. How do you fix it? Find alignment. Bosses want all teams to play nicely. And they want all the people on the team to feel like they are contributing in a meaningful way. (That's a great spot check question, by the way: do you think your boss empowers you to contribute to the company goals in meaningful ways?)

Manage Your Availability

Ah, work/life balance. Your boss cares in the abstract that you have a life outside of work. They like it when you're happy, but they don't tend to care about the details (unless they do). I like to look at it in a very binary way: are you on station (ready to work) or not.

Yes, you have a life. Yes, a boss is a very important part of helping you have the flexibility and autonomy to attend to your life, and a boss is also important in making sure you work a sane amount of hours and not work beyond the parameters of a reasonable day.

This is about communication again. If you have something going on at home, this is worth bringing up to the boss, especially if it might impact your ability to work during expected hours.

But What If Someone On My Team Really IS a Problem?

Okay, this one is complicated. There are times when five out of six members of a team operate with similar goals and energy and quality, but that last person is what I call a clunker. They're just not the right person on the team.

In an ideal world, the boss will handle this situation through performance management. If it's a training issue, that's easy to fix. If it's a motivation issue, there are steps one can take.

But if the boss doesn't want to be bothered, what should you do there? I'm not an HR professional nor is this any kind of official Appfire answer. If I were an employee and I had a poo poo head coworker, I'd do my best to execute my work in spite of the jerkface jerkyhead. I'd build workarounds. I'd complain appropriately to my boss, I guess (that's me the employee, not Chris Brogan, Chief of Staff). But I'd spend most of my time performing at such a level as to make the contrast even more stark.

Beyond that, what CAN an employee do? Not as much as I wish I could tell my friend who asked.

Why Do We Have to Work With Poo Poo Heads?

His question, in case you were curious, was because there were people at work who seemed like they were dragging on the quality of the teams he served. He asked me "Why would bosses let this go on?"

The whole structure of a modern corporation counts on everyone playing their part towards achieving company objectives. If you're trying to raise the overall revenue of a company, you can imagine that there's no senior or executive or board-level meeting where someone's saying, "Man, that Johnafer always shows up late, and you know what else? They leave early on Thursdays for some reason."

One way to answer the question (this isn't an official Appfire-blessed opinion - Hi, Bob and Jagdish!) is this: because bosses try to focus on the most important parts of the execution of the business plans in hopes that we can provide a great organization that serves its employees, its investors, its customers, and the world at large in the best way possible.

The system-level answer is: it's not painful enough that Donnathan is a bitch. It's just annoying for you.

What do bosses want? For you to help everyone win. Easy peasy!

Right?

Chris...