Welcome to Edition #31 of Ask Gorick Anything. This AMA is part of Gorick's Newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.
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→ Read time: 4 min
ASK GORICK ANYTHING
“How to deal with short sighted manager?”
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Subscriber’s question:
“My manager and skip are both short sighted bean counters. I work in analytics and often times they are not mentally flexible to my initiatives. It's hard to jump ship in this economy so I have to hunker down in the short run. Any suggestions to get those two aligned?”
— “Seratonin” (Honolulu, Hawaii, USA)
Gorick’s response:
Hi “Seratonin”,
Ugh, sorry to hear about this frustrating situation.
Here’s what I’d do:
Step 1: Ask myself: “Is their behavior circumstantial or dispositional?”
Circumstantial is a fancy way of saying that their behavior is influenced by the context—or the circumstances of the situation. So, as much as it may seem like they’re short-sighted, maybe the company isn’t doing well and only has a six-month runway (defined here!)—so they have no choice but to be short-sighted… at least until the situation stabilizes.
Dispositional is a fancy way of saying that this is just how they are. So, maybe…
1. Data isn’t their love language—but stories are
2. They are data people, but they’re more convinced by visuals instead of numbers in a spreadsheet
3. They trust a certain person more than you (or what any data suggests)
4. They’re just plain stubborn and no amount of data or discussion can convince them
Step 2: Do something about it (or don’t)
If you believe their behavior is more circumstantial, then you may find it helpful to take a step back and fill in the following blanks:
1. “Now that I’m realizing that their top priority is _______ instead of _______ (as I originally thought), I could/should…”
2A. “Give them more insights that [prove / justify / support / speak to / help them] _______.”
and/or
2B. “Share my idea of doing _______ instead of _______ since it actually helps us more efficiently achieve the goal of _______.”
- E.g., “Now that I’m realizing that their top priority is financial sustainability in the short-run instead of finding new customer segments to expand to (as I originally thought), I could/should (A) give them more “low hanging fruit” (defined here in my jargon dictionary!) and cost cutting ideas that don’t take away from the customer experience and (B) share my business case for investing in abandoned cart recovery software on our ecommerce website since it actually helps us more efficiently achieve the goal of short-term financial sustainability without spending a ton of money.”
If their behavior seems more dispositional, then consider filling in the following blanks:
1. "Since they are more easily convinced by _______ instead of data, let me give them more _______ as much as it pains me as an analytics person.”
- E.g., "Since they are more easily convinced by anecdotes instead of data, let me give them more real customer stories and feedback as much as it pains me as an analytics person.”
2. “Since they like seeing data presented in the form of _______, let me transform my data into _______ and see if it resonates more.”
- E.g., “Since they like seeing data presented in the form of charts pegged against industry benchmarks (defined here!), let me show our performance in terms of industry percentiles and see if it resonates more.”
3. “Since they seem to listen to _______, let me see if I can convince _______ who can then, in turn, subtly _______.”
- E.g., “Since they seem to listen to Scott, let me see if I can convince Scott who can then, in turn, subtly call on me to speak in our next all-hands and then back me up afterwards.”
4. “Since my manager is just plain stubborn and no amount of data or discussion can convince them, I’m just going to go along for the ride for now but keep my eyes open for other opportunities inside or outside of the company because I can’t see myself growing here long-term.”
- Hey, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do!
Hope this gets you started!
See you Tuesday for our next story and unspoken rule,
Gorick
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