Are you easy to manage?

Most of us complain about our managers. Some of us all the time. But what if we were to flip the coin and ask ourselves the reverse question "Am I easy to manage"? Take a moment to digest that question >> Are you an easy person to manage? Are you 'manageable'?

Did you just have an 'aha' moment?

I wonder how many of you have asked yourselves that question before. In fact, I wonder for how many of you it's ever even crossed your mind to think about what it's like to manage you.

Below I describe some difficult-to-manage personas. Let's see how if you relate to any of traits below. Follow me…

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The Insistently & Incessantly Ambitious

Being ambitious, disciplined & determined are virtues usually very welcome and valued in a corporate environment. When applied with caution, it all usually works out well. But then there are those who just don't know when to stop. Being a continuous nag to your manager about your next promotion, and then the promotion after that is just pushing the boundaries. Even if you are truly super worthy of all these promotions lined up, if you push too much, too hard, too often it will in fact boomerang. You're becoming a nag and a drag! No one will want to manage you, no one will want to support you. In fact they are likely to want to get rid of you as quickly as possible.

Many of these 'nag and drag' ambitious personas, often think a bit too much of themselves in the sense that they have no real self-awareness, clearly not comprehending the organization they work in nor how they can successfully grow within it. They believe they 'deserve' a promotion, that the company 'owes' it to them. Really!?!

So it's important to raise your self-awareness, seek feedback and listen to it…no, don't just listen, process it and find the truth within, be prepared to ground yourself to the true reality around you, know where you stand in your organization, assess your experience and achievements in comparison to your peers and ONLY THEN lay out your plan fittingly, appropriately & accordingly.

Push but don't be pushy. There's a huuuuge difference.

The Drama Queen

Ah yessss! The Drama Queen. They're performers, they're definitely loud and even amusing. But they are all about drama, over reacting to the little things that someone said or wrote in an email, over analyzing e-v-e-r-y l-i-t-t-l-e t-h-i-n-g and over articulating every single worry they have.

And what about you? Are you the one who while working in an open space, working at your PC, mumbles and grumbles out loud, dramatizing every single thing going on, even making ironic remarks about co-workers (without necessarily naming them)? Are you the 'oufff, pfff…' kind of person every time you get an email?

Drama queens over amplify even the most smallest of issues and simply drain so much of everyone's energy especially that of their manager.

So Stop!! Enough already! Enough drama. It's exhausting.

The Annoyingly Opiniated

Before we all became politically correct and inclusive in the workplace, there used to be an expression I used to love (still love it btw). "Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one". We all know one of 'those'. But are you perhaps that person who just has to say something just for the sake of saying anything to be heard? Is your true intent to constructively contribute to the conversation or is it in fact just to be heard?

Now flip that coin and put yourself in the shoes of the manager managing this person who ALWAYS has something to say but in truth brings very little value. Aha! Not an easy person to manage eh?

I have a personal theory that I would like to share…he/she who talks a lot is statistically likely to start talking shit at some point ( ∑{Shit talk} / ∑{Total talk} ). So my advice to you, choose when to speak wisely. Choose your words wisely. Try to stay silent, to think before you speak, to think about whether what you are about to spit out to the world is of value? Is your input helping to drive the conversation forward? If not, stay silent. Sitting back when nothing valuable is to be said is often very much appreciated by others.

The Victim

Psychologists have been much occupied with such mentalities. In the business world, many articles have been written about managing people with the Victim mentality. Basically, these are employees who constantly think that they have been disadvantaged. (Drama queens are often 'victims' - they're just typically louder). These are the people who always have an excuse for anything and everything, the 'it's-not-my fault-it's-something-or-someone-else' type of people. The classic example is someone who is ALWAYS late but hey...guess what!? It's never their fault - it's the traffic, the kids, the coffee machine, the car wouldn't start etc.

When it comes to feedback, a victim is very unlikely to listen with the intent to process and understand because before they even register what you're telling them, they are already counter arguing 'Yes but…'.

If you believe it's always the fault of something or someone around you, expect your manager to soon reach the stage of 'oh I don't even want to bother with this person' and that's not a good place to be! Stop blaming everyone and everything else. Take control of your actions and take control of how you react to the environment around you! (or go see a therapist).

The 'nope, not possible, no can do'

We've all met the 'no-can-doers'. In a corporate culture of growth mindset, this person is the exact opposite - the fixed mindset, the one who will always present a problem, a blocker and is not even interested in seeking a solution. They'll give you the 'I-know-because-I've-been-in-this-job-forever-and-it just-doesn't-work-that-way' look.

From your manager's point of view, the time and effort needed to help groom and develop a fixed mindset into a growth mindset is a handful. It's time & energy consuming and if one has shown no signs of wanting to change, the whole effort may not even be worth it. Make yourself worth your manager's time & effort. Leave your no-can-do fixed mindset behind and become that person everyone wants to manage.

The Intelligent Mind

And finally these guys. Yes! Even these guys can sometimes be tough to manage. Managing a superfast and intelligent mind is IMO a one-of-a-kind experience, a blessing and unique chance to experience first-hand how intelligent brains operate. However highly intelligent minds often lack structure, they're often chaotic and all over the place. They are too many steps ahead too fast, too soon.

To you intelligent minds I say slow down, try to convey your ideas in a structured way because not every manager can 'keep up' and that may not turn out to be a good thing. Think of the situation when you are looking for your next role and your current manager (how has never managed to extract structure and clarity from you) is asked by the new hiring manager for a reference "Very intelligent person, but chaotic and very difficult to manage". How likely are to get selected for this new role?

You have such a magical superpower! Leverage your intelligence to be the guide, the eye-opener, the visionary towards others.?Think structure and clarity. Think in boxes and bullet points. Bring it down a notch.

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There are more personas, but if I go on, this article will become too long (if it isn't already) and you'll stop reading (if you haven't already).?

Now…having read the above, did you somewhere deep deep deep down relate to any of the above? Perhaps not entirely to the specific personas, but perhaps relating to some of those traits across the personas? For those of you who say "no, not in the slightest did I relate to any of what you mentioned" I will ask you this:

Do you believe that you are at least coachable? Are you 'feedbackable'? Are you easily approachable, easy to work with, a valuable team member, do you help others succeed, are you truly a team player?

And finally, to cut to the bone…Are you a delight to work with? Wouldn't you like to be that colleague that everyone remembers as delightful to work with?

Let’s think about the 'experience' we offer as colleagues in terms of 'customer experience'. Many companies use what is called NPS - Net Promoter Score - a customer experience metric where customers are asked if they would recommend the products or services to a friend. The scale is 0 to 10 and 'Promoters' i.e. those you will actively recommend your products/services are those who give a 9 or 10 rating (and that's pretty high). Have you ever thought of what your NPS might be?

What if I were to survey your manager and colleagues and ask them "On a scale of 0 - 10, would you recommend X (that's you) as a colleague to work with?"

Would you achieve an average score greater than 9?

And to close, here's one more metric that I just made up - the EMS - The Employee Manageability Score => "On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is super unmanageable and 10 is so easy and a delight to manage, where do you stand?"

Anxiously waiting for reactions and comments