Most bosses suffer from the delusion that they are smart. Perhaps they feel that their years of industry experience and managing people somehow give them special “knowledge” that others don’t possess. As the hot new manager with the MBA, it’s your job to set him straight.
Here are five tips for doing it right:
1. Exude confidence. State your opinion firmly. If that doesn’t work, continue to repeat your point, but louder. Some management gurus claim that a more productive way to persuade someone is to provide compelling data to back up your opinion. But that requires effort, and research shows that 90% of the time, appearing to be right is more important than actually being right. (The other 10% of the time you will cause your 150-year-old company to implode. But that’s only 10% of the time.)
2. Stick to your guns. These same gurus claim that you must be willing to relent, accept your boss’s decision, and work with him to make his plan succeed; that is part of teamwork. A better option is to go on the offense: “I know this is how you did things back in World War II, but times have changed, Grandpa. You need to be more flexible.” It may be necessary to remind him that you have an MBA, while his dinky undergrad college isn’t even in the latest U.S. News rankings. He’ll relent at this point with a good-natured “Ha-ha, I guess you’re right.”
3. It’s the principle. Some weaker members of the team will claim that it’s unproductive to be pedantic over little things that really don’t matter: after all, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Remind them that skinning a cat is illegal outside of certain counties in Montana, but even more important, there’s probably only one really good way to do it without spilling cat guts everywhere, and that’s your way. That’s called “best practices,” and you learned it at business school, so it must be true.
4. Escalate the debate. You can almost always get others to agree with you privately, even if they don’t mean it. This includes not only your colleagues, but your boss’s colleagues, and occasionally even his boss if he is distracted or drunk. Use this to your advantage at the next department meeting. “I’ve spoken with everyone up to the EVP, and everyone agrees with me.” Even if they awkwardly backpedal, you’ve made your point.
5. Remind, remind, remind. When your boss finally agrees to do things your way, remind him each morning how smart he was for listening to you. “I told you, dude, you just have to listen to me.” “Good thing we didn’t do it your way, huh?!” “So was I right or what??”
In the worst-case scenario, your boss will be so dumb that he simply refuses to see things your way. If this ever happens, subtly remind him of the consequences: “Jeez, don’t blow an artery, dude. Just trying to help save your job. But whatever. I hear real estate prices are good in Boca Raton right now.” Then quietly sabotage the project to prove you were right all along.
Remember, as Emerson said, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Or was it David Hasselhoff? The point is, anything worth doing is worth doing your way.
[Photo: Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock]
