Managing Up

Introduction

I often find that while we all are capable of exceptional work, we sometimes have trouble figuring out how to coordinate with our managers and ensure the work we are doing is properly aligned with the team’s and the company’s goals. This skill is called Managing Up and is key to success in every professional career. In this article, I will outline the Philosophy, Benefits, Aim, and How To of managing up. After reading, you will know how you can apply the practice of managing up in your work so you can not only make sure you are creating value for the company, but also getting what you need to be successful and grow in your career.

Philosophy

The Person Who Cares Most About Your Success is You

At the core of managing up is the idea that the best person to manage your work is YOU! Even though your manager might be responsible for making sure their team is successful, they don’t have the visibility into your work that you do, nor will anyone ever care about your own success more than you will. Therefore, if you want to be successful in your work and in your own personal career goals, it is up to you to take ownership and make sure you have the things you need. 

Your Manager Doesn’t Know Everything

It is your manager’s job to orient and enable your work: they need to establish clear goals and make sure you have what you need to achieve them. However, it is impractical for your manager to know everything. They will never know if you have blockers, are overworked, or don’t have clear direction unless you tell them. By managing up, we can ensure that our managers are aware of what we need to be successful.

Success From Communication and Visibility

If we want to be effective in our work, we need to ensure that we are aligned with our manager and the business on our goals, areas of responsibility, and the work required to accomplish them. To establish this alignment, we need to have strong communication and visibility between ourselves and our manager. The primary purpose of the strategies I will outline later are to facilitate this strong communication and visibility. If we can accomplish this, we ensure that we are working on what matters and proactively identifying and solving any issues or blockers that stand in our way. 

Benefits of Managing Up

Working on What Matters

One of the biggest mistakes we can run into in our work is not identifying and prioritizing the right tasks. We have all spent hours on a project only to find that we didn’t understand the objective as well as we thought we did, or our manager wanted us to deliver something else that was more urgent. These mistakes are best avoided by managing up. By establishing alignment and visibility, we can ensure that we are oriented toward the right work that will deliver the value our manager and company want. (And more importantly, not waste our own time on the wrong things)

Avoiding Future Problems

I know that it would be ideal if we never had to worry about things going wrong, but the reality is that even the best of us will encounter difficult problems. And if you are managing up, it can save your butt in a few ways. First, by taking ownership of your work, you are much less likely to let any responsibilities or tasks fall through the cracks. Second, if you are letting your manager know about problems you are encountering, you make them aware and give them the chance to solve the problem before it gets bigger. And finally, if you are keeping good notes and visibility into your work, you can use that documentation to understand the problem, figure out what went wrong, and make changes that will help avoid those problems in the future. (And also avoid getting blamed for the problem)

Demonstrate Competency

We all want to be successful and achieve consistent growth in our careers. One of the fastest ways to demonstrate your ability is to take ownership of your work. We should want to be someone who is not only good at executing the tasks they are given, but also takes responsibility for our work and delivers above and beyond expectations. By managing up, we can demonstrate competency and that we are capable of taking on a more senior position with greater responsibility.

Getting What You Want

Those with poor Frame often only think about what they can do for their company, and while that is important, we should also be thinking about what our company can do for us. Do you want better work-life balance, a promotion, or a chance to work on projects you find exciting? Well the best way to make that happen is to communicate that clearly to your manager. When you manage up, you can make sure that your personal growth goals are part of the conversation and that you know what you need to do to make them happen.

Aim of Managing Up

Alignment on Goals

Goals orient us and allow us to work more autonomously. If we know what we are trying to accomplish and how important those different goals are, we are able to make our own decisions on what to prioritize and focus on. Otherwise, we are simply following instructions and don’t really own our outcomes. A good manager will always make sure their team understands their goals and by managing up, we can ensure we have clarity to deliver the best value we can to the team and the business.

Visibility of Work

With management, the main problem you are solving is ensuring that your team knows what they should be working on and enabling them to do it. To do this, you need to have visibility into their work: what are they working on and what do they need to be successful. By creating visibility into your own work, you enable your manager to do their job more effectively, which means helping empower you!

Awareness of Problems

If there is a problem you are encountering with your work, it is rare that your manager will know about it before you do, and it is essential that you are proactive about identifying and informing your manager of these problems. Your manager can’t help you if they don’t know that you need it and by creating an awareness of problems in your work, you ensure you will get the help you need.

How To

Now that we understand the philosophy, benefits, and aims, let’s dive into how this is actually done. Everyone’s work structure is a little different, but here I want to outline the core practices you can follow to ensure you are managing up effectively.

One on Ones

The best opportunity for managing up and making sure you and your manager are aligned and communicating clearly is one on one meetings. While many professionals might go into this meeting expecting their manager to lead, if we are proactive about managing up, we want to come into these one on ones with our own clear agenda as well. This is our chance to ask questions, clarify goals and tasks, bring up blockers, and express our own goals for growth.

Coming into a meeting, we want to make sure that we know what is on the agenda and are prepared. In the meeting, we want to be efficient at covering the agenda and make sure we have a clear resolution or next steps. When we finish a one on one, we should have a clear understanding of what our goals are, how to prioritize our work, and our plan for getting it done.

Shared Meeting Notes

One of the most powerful tools I use to manage up is keeping meeting notes in a shared doc. I recommend structuring your notes by putting the date as the first header with three subheaders: Agenda, Notes, and Actions Items. I also use this for meetings with stakeholders as well as my manager, and it is a great tool if you are managing a team yourself.

Agenda

In each meeting we want to have a clear agenda of items to tackle. Not only does this make sure that everything we need to talk about gets covered, but, as this is a shared doc with our manager, they can always peek in and have a chance to prepare to address the agenda themselves.

We can populate our agenda starting with ongoing projects and responsibilities. In recruiting, I want to make sure my manager has a good sense of the health of each of the roles I am responsible for and any issues that might have come up, but the idea is to make sure your manager is up to date on your main responsibilities in each one on one.

We should also add any ad hoc issues that need to be addressed. Anytime I run into one of these issues in my day to day, I immediately open my meeting notes and add it to the agenda for my next one on one. This way, when we have our meeting, I don’t have to recall from memory whatever I needed to discuss.

Notes

Modern work can have a lot of moving parts, it can be difficult to remember everything said in a meeting. Taking notes ensures that you don’t forget anything important and that you have a source to check when you do. You don’t need to write down everything, but you should make sure that at least a short note for each agenda item is logged.

Action Items

One of the most powerful ways to ensure alignment with your manager is defining clear action items at the end of the meeting. Not only does this ensure you are aligned with your manager on what you are working on, but if any issues arise in the future about what you should have been working on, you can always go back to the action items.

Work Management Systems

There are many types of work management systems. Some like salesforce (for sales) or Greenhouse (for recruiting) enable you to do your work more effectively and also track your process at the same time. Others, like Jira or Trello, need to be managed in conjunction with the work. But either way, these systems provide you and your manager with insight into your work: what is on your plate, what are you working on, and what have you gotten done. The important thing is that you can provide visibility into your work such that you and your manager can make sure that work you are prioritizing aligns with your goals.

Communication

You will often need to communicate with your manager outside one on ones. It is important that you are keeping your manager informed on any issues that come up and making sure you are aligned on how you are approaching your work. 

Establishing Clear Methods for Communication

One of the most important things about managing up is making sure that you have clear methods of communication. This is usually dependent on importance and urgency. If you need an answer quickly, how should you be communicating with your manager? The important thing here is to know what is the best way to get what you need to be effective at your work. Sometimes it will mean using an email, the company chat, a phone call, or, if you are in the office, swinging by your manager’s desk and connecting in person. 

Identifying The Problem and Offering Solutions

One of the most powerful strategies for good communication with a manager is a strategy called “Problem Solution”. If you run into an issue with your work, you should not only identify the problem, but, if you want to effectively manage up, you should also be offering possible solutions. This goes back to that idea that you want to be taking ownership over your work, make your manager’s life easier, and be proactive about solving problems. You can also apply this strategy to the agenda items you have for your meetings.

Sometimes, it even makes sense to offer what I call a “reply optional solution”. If I encounter an issue in my work, I will let my manager know about the problem and what I think is the best solution. I will tell them I will implement that solution inside a given time frame (usually end of day or 24 hours) and if they want me to do something else, they can let me know before then. This is great as it doesn’t create a blocker and gives my manager a window to request a different plan of action. Most of the time, your manager will be happy to go with your solution and if not, they have a timeframe in which to respond. In the suboptimal case that you solved the problem the wrong way, well, you gave them a time to respond and as long as you used an appropriate communication method, they can’t be too mad that you were trying to be proactive about getting the problem solved.

Conclusion

And there you have it: Managing up! By taking ownership of your work, managing your manager, and being proactive about solving problems, you can not only be more effective in your work, but also set yourself up for success and personal growth. I hope you found this article helpful, and as always, feel free to leave comments and feedback. Would love to know what people are interested in having me write about next.