Managing Up
What a manager is actually paid to do
Most friction with a manager comes from a wrong model of their job, and the real one is narrower and more…
· 4 min read
Julien covers first months, managing up, money at work and the questions readers actually send in and would rather show the working than assert the conclusion.
20 articles
Managing Up
Most of what your manager knows about you arrived secondhand
Believing that good work speaks for itself misunderstands how information about junior employees actually…
· 3 min read
Managing Up
Some managers are simply bad, and that changes the calculation
Advice about managing up assumes a competent counterpart, so it is worth being able to tell an overloaded…
· 3 min read
Money At Work
A salary band is set before anyone has met you
Compensation for a role is usually decided as a structure months in advance, which explains why individual…
· 3 min read
Skills
Nobody assigns you a curriculum after your last exam
The structure that told you what to learn disappears entirely at the point where learning has the highest…
· 3 min read
Managing Up
When your manager has less experience than you do
Reporting to someone who knows the work less well than you is common, awkward and mostly navigable…
· 4 min read
Money At Work
What you cost your employer is not what you are paid
Every salary sits inside a larger number that the organisation actually budgets for, and knowing what is in…
· 3 min read
Money At Work
What extra hours actually buy, and who they are bought from
Consistently working beyond your hours is a transfer of value that may or may not be reciprocated, and the…
· 3 min read
Moving On
What a reference check actually is, and what it can say
The reference stage is far more constrained and far less mysterious than candidates imagine, and knowing…
· 4 min read
Moving On
How a restructure decides who goes
Redundancy decisions look personal from the inside and are usually made a level or two above, using…
· 3 min read
Skills
Working with a colleague you did not choose and do not much like
You cannot select your peers, the friction is usually structural rather than personal, and there is a…
· 3 min read
First Months
Joining a team that is already in trouble
Arriving somewhere with a backlog, a departure and low morale is a specific situation with specific traps…
· 3 min read
Money At Work
What an equity or share scheme actually is, in plain terms
Share-based pay is offered widely and explained badly, and the mechanics that decide whether it is worth…
· 3 min read
Skills
Handing work over so that it survives you
Most handovers transfer the instructions and lose the reasons, which is why the receiving person is fine…
· 4 min read
Money At Work
Sick pay, leave and the entitlements you only read when you need them
The provisions covering illness, bereavement and family leave are the parts of a package nobody compares at…
· 3 min read
Moving On
Leaving a job you like for a reason that will follow you
Some problems are attached to the employer and some are attached to the work itself, and only one of those…
· 4 min read
Moving On
Turning down an offer without closing the door
The way a decline is handled is remembered longer than the application itself, and the industries most…
· 3 min read
Skills
Telling a client they are wrong
Disagreeing with someone who is paying is a different problem from disagreeing internally, because the…
· 3 min read
Skills
The months after a visible failure
Containing a problem takes a day; the reputational part takes considerably longer, and most of what…
· 3 min read
Skills
Using a number in an argument without misleading anyone
Figures carry more weight in a workplace discussion than the reasoning behind them usually deserves, and…
· 3 min read