How to Manage Your Boss

Make "Keeping the Boss in the Loop" a Regular Activity

Goal: Reassure your boss that you know what you're doing.

The secret fear of every boss is that employees are screwing up and either not telling anyone or (even worse) aren't aware there's a problem. To reassure themselves, bosses may sometimes pick an aspect of an employee's job and begin randomly asking penetrating questions about the details. If you answer these queries with grace and aplomb, the boss assumes you're competent. Hesitate or evade, and the boss may assume all your work is slipshod.

Since you don't know in advance which questions your boss might ask, be prepared for every contingency. "One of the dumbest moves you can make is to walk into the boss's office unprepared," says Jack Cooper, the former CIO of Bristol-Myers Squibb. "For every hour that you'll spend meeting with your boss, you should spend ten hours making sure you can answer any questions that the boss might ask."

Ten hours of prep? For a one-hour meeting? Okay, that's probably overkill for a typical employee who interacts with his boss on a daily basis. But for senior managers at big companies where meeting with the CEO is an event on par with a presidential visit, Cooper's 10-to-1 formula makes sense.

Create a Core Message for Your Boss

Goal: Bosses are forgetful. Make sure yours knows just how valuable you are.

When you're working your butt off, it's easy to assume that your boss knows exactly what you're doing. But even though she may have assigned your work to you, in the crush of daily pressures and changing priorities, your contribution easily gets lost in the shuffle. Worse, you could end up pursuing goals that no are longer important priorities.

According to Spencer Clark, a former general manager at General Electric, the cure for this creeping invisibility is to become a one-person marketing group, constantly positioning your contribution. "Your most important task is to market your services to your immediate boss," Clark says.

To do this, create a "core message"—a brief summary of exactly what you're doing and why it's vital to the boss's success. A core message might be, "My team is designing the follow-on products to our most successful product line," or "I'm recruiting the hard-to-find technical personnel required for the new R&D facility." Then, Clark suggests, find a way to work that message into every conversation that you have with your boss—even hallway chats.

Tap a Vital Resource: The Boss's Influencers

Goal: Enlist others to spread the word about your importance to the company.

You may think you have a one-on-one relationship with your boss, but you're actually part of a crowd of people—from your peers to your boss's peers to your boss's bosses—who influence the boss's decision-making. Their comments and gossip will inevitably affect your boss's opinion of you and your work, so you want to be certain that, if they're not actively singing your praises, at least they're reading from the same hymnal.

Create a list of everyone who carries weight with your boss. Include their job title and whatever you know about their background and role inside your firm. Now craft a variation of your core message that positions what you're doing as helpful to each person. Then use that to frame any conversations you have with them. "You want a consistent message coming from the entire organization, not crossed wires that might confuse the boss about your importance to the organization," says Ken Evans, former North American VP of sales and marketing at Waste Management.

Learn Everything You Can About Your Boss's Career

Goal: Understand where he came from in order to know what he expects.

Now that you've convinced the boss that you're competent, it's time to make yourself invaluable. To do this, you deliver what the boss wants—even before he knows he wants it. Over time, of course, you can observe and learn, but fast-track the process by researching the boss's career and asking questions that will help you understand his way of thinking. This activity has a side-benefit—your boss will be flattered that you're interested.

Use the Internet, the grapevine, and the boss's admin to learn about the boss's work history. Then, when appropriate, find opportunities (such as during lunch or offsite meetings) to express a healthy curiosity about your boss's experience. Apart from the fact that most everyone enjoys talking about themselves, bosses find this kind of inquiry valuable because it provides an opportunity to explain the logic of their decision-making processes. "Understanding somebody's background always helps illustrate how that person might approach a situation," says Mike Fister, CEO of Cadence Design Systems and a former senior vice president of the Enterprise Platforms Group at Intel. "I often find myself drawing on my experiences at Intel to illustrate a strategic or tactical point."

Cultivate Compatible Personal Interests

Goal: Do you play golf? Love football? If not, it may be time to start.

The ideal situation is to have a boss who looks out for your interests during difficult times. This protectiveness is nurtured when the boss thinks of you not just as a competent contributor but as a kindred spirit. If you want a more expansive and resilient relationship with the boss, cultivate an interest in something that also interests the boss. Ideally, this should be an interest or activity that segues nicely into the work experience. For example, if your boss likes to talk business while playing golf, learning to play—and enjoy the game—will inevitably bring you closer.

"To really understand your boss, you need to see him or her as a person, not just as a business contact," explains Dilip Phadke, Hewlett Packard's director of business development strategic initiatives. "My current manager is a big soccer fan, and although I was never particularly interested in soccer, I keep up on the topic because it gives us something to talk about that's not directly work-related but can be used to illustrate the value of teamwork, planning, and so forth."