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How to say NO to your boss

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by Patty Azzarello

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What can you do when demands pile up so high that you and your team are constantly over-booked and the work just keeps coming?

I always talk about how you need to rise above the tactical workload and be more strategic — but what do you do when it’s your boss that is causing the problem?

The disconnect

There is a built-in disconnect that I find very interesting:

When you are working in the business, generally speaking, your job is get work done.

But when you are running a business, generally speaking, your job is to go out into the world, learn things about the customers, the competition, and the market and figure out new stuff to do.

Then you come back all excited about what you’ve learned, and share your ideas with your team about how to improve the business — and they are exasperated. You see it as great new ideas. They see it as more work, changing direction, or fire-dirlls.

There will always be a disconnect between what the boss thinks up and what the organization can deliver.

The secret

Here is the secret. Your boss wants you to push back. Your boss is expecting you to think through the business strategy and the workload an offer advice – not to just try and do everything.

“Oh, no. She’s back…”

I know that when I would come back from a trip, my staff would brace themselves and think “Oh, no, she’s back. Now what? What else is she going to want us to do? We are already too busy, why does she keep piling it on?”

As the boss, I wanted my team to listen and internalize what I had learned. But I did not want them to treat all ideas and requests equally and immediately.

I did not want my team to just try and take on all the work and have it kill them. I did not want or expect them to do everything.

What I wanted was for them to catch all the work, analyze it, make judgements about business priorities and come back to me and negotiate.

Advise your Executive

Big Idea: You need to CATCH all the work, but not DO all the work.

I wanted them to stay focused on the strategic stuff we were working on, but be aware that key triggers were occurring in the market.

I wanted them to think it though and recommend to me how we could stage out all the work. How could we keep focused on the right strategic stuff, but then also come up with a way to prioritize the new ideas and take some of them on over time?

I wanted them to suggest ways of streamlining or stopping things to make room for something new.

I wanted them to debate with my about what is most important and why, and suggest how to re-work the plan to do the most important things first.

Who stands out?

The people who would come back to me with a thoughtful proposal for what to do, in what order, that would be good for the business, and do-able for the team were the ones that stood out as high performers.

The ones who didn’t just accept all my ideas and requests, and helped me think through the strategy and priority stood out as high performers.

The ones who tried to take on all the work and do everything, resulting in everything slipping were not so impressive.

The ones who simply ignored my inputs, kept their heads down, and did not step up to the strategic thinking and debate were not so impressive either.

How to negotiate the workload:

  • Keep a list of everything your boss asks for
  • Keep a list of the top strategic priorities you are working on
  • Have regular meetings with your boss where you take out these lists
  • Make recommendations about what to prioritize based on the context of business and the content of these two lists.

When you show your boss these lists several things happen:

  • They get embarraseed not realizing they have aksed for so many things. When they see it spelled out right there in front of them, they can see it’s unreasonable.
  • You win lots of credibility for keeping the list, catching everything, and not dropping anything. You make them comfortable that you’ve got it covered. They trust you.
  • You can ask them “Is this still important”? You will find they have forgotten about several of the requests and have decided that others don’t matter anymore.
  • You will realize that you are not beholden to everything on the list!
  • You will be able to negotiate timelines and suggest priorities.

Your boss forgets

There is a tendency to treate all requests from the boss equally.

You need to resist this because they don’t intend them all equally.

They can seem equally excited or serious about a wide range of ideas. Some are vitally important, others are just musings. It’s hard to tell. They will often forget things that asked for, or change their mind without telling you.  You need to check. They need you to help them with their thinking.

You are being paid to judge and decide, not just to do everying you are told.

What do you think?

How have you pushed back successfully? How have you found ways to reinvent your workload to add more value. Please leave your thoughts in the comment box below.

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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advior. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life

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Are You A Cookie Cutter Writer Or Something Else?

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By Terez Howard

I am a writer. If you stood over me while I type at my computer, you would wonder how anything discernible is going to come from what you see. I don’t normally write from sentence to sentence and then follow up by writing one paragraph after another in sequential order. My mind processes information in a somewhat scattered manner.

The mess going on in mind has to be sorted, processed and regurgitated in an intelligible way. That means, I think of a thought and type it. That sentence, paragraph or even single word might get moved all around my blog post before it finds a home.

I start a sentence, and sometimes I finish it. (This sentence happened to be the second sentence of this post, and I think it’s going to stay here now). I like to attribute this writing style to my journalism background. When you write for the newspaper on deadline and you’re sorting through notes and remembering key ideas in all sorts of orders, you realize that you better get what you know on paper fast. Organize later.

I’ve maintained that style when I blog.

Writing with a template

This was new to me. I recently purchased an e-book that actually was about building AdSense websites, and the author spoke about using a template to write articles. I appreciated these simple template ideas, like Q&As, Myths vs. Facts and 10 (or whatever number) Reasons For Something. I said to myself, I’m going to do this. It will make writing much easier.

About two or three articles into it, I totally forgot about the templates and went back to my old ways. I’m not cut out for templates. (Ha, pun).

For people who aren’t much for writing or who have a difficult time coming up with ideas, I find templates to be a fabulous spring board. You fill in the blanks and voila. You have a well-thought-out, organized, helpful blog post.

Some possible template ideas that I’ve noticed on other blogs using, besides the ones I listed above, are:

  • Tutorial. A step-by-step guide of what to do.
  • The interview. You ask questions, and someone important answers.
  • Pros and cons. You say what is good and what is bad about a certain issue. You take a side, or you don’t.
  • Review.You review a product, service or other website in your niche.You review your own blog.
  • A blend. Blend some of the template ideas I listed here. For instance, write a review based on a pros and cons list.

Still not for me

Writing against a template is not for me.I feel like my freedom of expression is inhibited in a cookie cutter post.I can definitely see how a template would be beneficial to people who do not like to write or struggle with what to write about.But for those of us that just want to get our thoughts on the page, we don’t do it.

I guess it’s more of a matter of order. I put writing first and organization second. A template writer puts organization first and writing second.

One is not better than the other. Templates are for some, and free writing is for others. Which do you prefer?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She has written informative pieces for newspapers, online magazines and blogs, both big and small. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas. You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger.

Thanks, Terez!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Be a Magnet Not a Missionary

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When Your Values Are Baked Into Your Value Proposition

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At SxSW this year, I enjoyed a deep conversation with Dave Fleet @DaveFleet about the new offer that Terry St. Marie (@Starbucker) and I are launching. I was telling him how we’re applying the SOBCon models and masterminds method to build high-performance leadership influence teams who

  • guide their decision making with high loyalty customer values and a high ROI value proposition.
  • get to innovative ideas through that balanced customer-company foundation.
  • can make that innovation reality through influence — by showing the benefit of doing it to peer employees, senior managers, and customers

Needless to say I was quite passionate. I’ve been working on getting this enterprise offer exactly right for about 3 years.

Then Dave said something like this to me, “So who will be your key market? I would think that with so many companies in Chicago you might never have to leave.”

I said, “My market will be people, like you, who get what I’m saying as quickly as you did.”

Be a Magnet Not a Missionary

What being in an emerging market like social media and building an event like SOBCon has taught me is that I’d rather be a magnet than a missionary.

According to Dictionary.com, a missionary is “a person strongly in favor of a program, set of principles, etc., who attempts to persuade or convert others.” He or she has to educate, evangelize, relay information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs.

A missionary considers every person in a given group or location a possible client and thus, has to turn disinterested folks, nonbelievers, and skeptics into converts. The very nature of disinterested, nonbelieving, and skeptical folks is that they don’t value or trust what the missionary does. They aren’t likely to pay for what they didn’t want, don’t trust, and didn’t value from the start.

The missionary has to offer a new belief system that gives disinterested folks, nonbelievers, and skeptics a reason to want to convert. At the same time that missionary has to establish a relationship of trust and communicate the value of his or her work. If the missionary succeeds, it’s a sale, but that’s only the first battle. Converts don’t always stay converted especially in times of stress. When a crisis occurs or difficult decision crops up, the missionary has to do the conversion work over again.

A magnet has a much easier time. According to the World Dictionary, a magnet is a person or thing that exerts a great attraction. We find people who think in the same ways we do attractive and smart (and those who don’t think as we do are less attractive because they seem to be not so smart or are being difficult.)

When we have an offer we believe in our bones that we can deliver with highest standards to the benefit of the people we serve, the folks who understand their needs and value what we offer will recognize it immediately. No conversion necessary. If you take the magnet metaphor seriously, it’s our unlike poles — our solution to their need — that forms the true bond. However it’s the magnetic field of immediately clear communication, like values, aligned standards and goals that attracts the ones that fit and repels those that don’t.

A magnetic person only shares his or her offer with people he or she respects and trusts. When someone of value joins the conversation it’s easy to mention there’s a new offer and let the other person open the door. Then the conversation isn’t about conversion or education, it’s an invitation. The magnet can learn more about the valued friend’s needs and goals, and the valued friend can learn more about what the offer is. The trust and open communication leads to a variety of connections that might be moving forward on that offer, new introductions and referrals, or entirely new ideas that spark in the moment.

Magnets Win

If you have to convince or convert someone to work with you, you’ll be convincing and converting every time you make a decision. If you have to explain why what you do is valuable and worth the price more than once, move on.

It’s easier, faster, more meaningful to be a magnet. And the people attracted to what you do actually value your work. A magnet starts with a bond of trust that a missionary doesn’t. The client who values and trusts you will value your work and trust your decisions. That’s why the client who doesn’t value and trust you is always more work (and never worth the price of admission no matter where you set it.)

Is your business thinking like a magnet or a missionary?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Why Our Heroes Will Always Be More and Less Than the Pedestal We Put Them On

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All the Stories Are True and Un-True too.

I was 13 when my grandmother died. I never got to know her well. My experience of her was a tall, loving woman who smiled often and spoke only Italian. So you can see the gap.

However, I grew up with a wealth of stories about her to add to my small set of interactions. And because she was and is a hero of mine I was a always curious to know more to fill in the picture of this person I wished I knew better and more deeply as a person.

Now as each day brings closer to the age she was when I knew her, I realize she was more complicated and had more experiences and feelings than I’ll ever know. She will always be more and less of the hero she’s come to be defined in my mind.

It’s important to realize that stories and small sets of meaningful interactions can’t reveal a person to us.

Why Our Heroes Will Always Be More and Less Than the Pedestal We Put Them On

Stories and meaningful interactions are powerful things. But the very essence of what makes a good story or a meaningful interaction is that it highlights one quality, one action that reveals something about the person in question. But no person is only one quality.

Ask my son what he knows about me.

What I’ve learned is that, like great characters in movies, we’ve all got our great strengths and weaknesses. We’ve all got our stellar qualities and our deep flaws. And any one of us that gets put on a pedestal is destined to fall. Here’s why and why I never want to be on a pedestal myself.

  • The heroes we put on a pedestal don’t really know what qualities or traits got them there. They can guess, but they didn’t define the “character” who was raised up and so they’re destined not to live up to the definition.
  • The people who put the heroes on the pedestal can only see the heroes from far away. The closer we get to people the more we see their complexity, the more likely we are to change that hero-worship into friendship. True friends see a whole person and accept the humanity — what’s great and what still needs growing about them.
  • Sooner or later every hero will be human and step outside of pedestal definition. Suddenly the hero-worshipers will feel a betrayal that the hero was less than they thought, but really he or she is also more … the more that they couldn’t see.

So let’s give up the Pedestal mentality. Heroes are only infallible from faraway. It’s unfair to make them one-dimensional and expect them to live up to a definition that no human could possibly be.

I love the stories of my grandmother. I’ll always keep her high in my heart, but I also know that she had to work for what she got and that she faced real decisions and couldn’t have possibly always chosen right. No human ever does.

If we truly want community, it’s our job to remember and protect our heroes as the humans they are so that they can keep growing and showing us what they’ve got. What kinds of fans would we be if we made all of the protection go one way and left all of the heroism to them? Where would Harry Potter be without his band of friends who have his back? No pedestal takes the place of a community of friends.

I think I like her better knowing that. It makes it easier to imagine she’d also be proud of me.

How do you protect your heroes and see them people not characters on pedestals?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The People Standing Around You

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Can we talk about . . .

friends?

I walk into an event. I’m looking forward to seeing you. I look across and there you are.

I start to walk over. Then I notice the people standing around you. They’re a few folks you sometimes hang with. You call them friends. I’m not so sure they live up to that title where you’re concerned. One’s a whiner. One’s a complainer, One’s a slacker. All three are takers. You give them your best and all they seem to give you is more of their problems to solve. They don’t see you, only what you can do for them.

You haven’t noticed that you keep giving your energy to folks who don’t energize you.

I was set to have a great “let’s catch up” conversation, to find out what you’re doing, to tell you about some people I’ve met who might be able to help you move forward. I value what you know, what you can do, what you’re willing to invest in learning.

But I’ve been part of the group you’re with on other occasions. Those three around you always talk about the same things — mostly gossip and what’s unfair about the world. If we try to talk about the future, they will hijack the conversation with negativity and distractions.

I reconsider. I’m not ready to share my contacts if they will have to navigate through that group.

I say a brief hello and keep moving. You never know that I’m waiting for you.

Are the people around you helping you grow or holding you down?

It’s not loyalty or friendship, or even business, if the the energy and positivity isn’t coming back to you.

Surround yourself with folks who can see you and value you.
You’ll have more energy, more confidence, and more positive people who want to spend time with you.
Please do.

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Dealing with annoying people

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by Patty Azzarello

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I often say that your job is your job description AND dealing with all the crap that gets in the way of getting your job description done.

Stupid obstacles often come in the form of people’s opinions, corporate policy, changes of direction, fire drills, conflicting goals, delayed decisions, unclear strategies, shall I go on?

It’s always important to remember that you can’t blame your failure on other people being stupid.

Six months or a year down the road, if the reason that you didn’t get something done is because someone else has or hasn’t done has something, or someone else has blocked you, you are still the one who has lost.

1. The right language

Clearing an obstacle that is being put in place by another person or policy has everything to do with language.

And there are two language techniques I have found to be really useful to get things going your way again when you are confronted with difficult, rigid, indecisive, or stupid people.

What is the NAME of the Meeting the other person would WANT to attend?

For example, If your requests for a program change in other organization are going ignored, the name of the meeting YOU want to have with the manger is called something like,  “You are doing this wrong and I need you to change it, because it’s killing me”.

But would they really want to attend that meeting?

Change the name of the meeting to name their problem, not yours.

When you are trying to get someone to do something for you, you need to name the meeting something that is relevant and motivating to them.  “I want  to discuss how my team can solve your most critical competitive issue, with no increased cost on your part”.

Then when you have the meeting, make sure to stay relevant to them.  Describe your problem in the context and actual vocabulary of the business problems they are facing right now, and how the action you are requesting is directly beneficial to them.

If you don’t use the right language, you will not be relevant to them, and you will continue to go unheard, and un-helped.

2. “I’m hoping you can help me…”

The angrier and more frustrated you are, the more you are likely to start a conversation with something like, This is all messed up because [of something you, (or the people you represent are doing)]

Do you really expect their reaction to be helpful at this point?

Wow. thank you for telling me how stupid and wrong I am.  You are so smart, please tell me what do do next? I am at your service.

Even if it is all their fault, if you need to influence them to do something better or different, a far more useful approach is to open with, “I’m hoping you can help me”.

I use this not only colleagues, but with utility companies, hotels, and health insurance providers all the time.  It works like a charm.  I guess, because you are using some charm…

Engage people to WANT to help you

When someone says to me,  “I’m hoping you can help me…”, I always think, “hmmm… I wonder what this challenge might be?  Can I really help? I’m kind of hoping I can help …

This approach builds people up instead of cutting them down.  They have power to help if they choose to.  Giving this small bit of respect makes them want to help you.  People generally like to help.

If you don’t attack them first and tell them how wrong and incompetent they are,  you stand a far greater chance of getting what you need from them.

I know it is frustrating when the people you are dealing with are actually wrong and/or stupid, but if they are indeed creating an obstacle, it’s your job to clear the obstacle and get the job done, not to prove that you are right and demand their support.

How have you persuaded difficult people or adversaries?

Leave your ideas in the comment box below!

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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advior. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…

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