Managing Up
Politics at work is information, not a character flaw
Refusing to pay attention to how influence moves is usually described as integrity, and it mostly functions…
· 3 min read
Managing Up
The things your manager is not allowed to tell you
Some of what reads as evasion is a genuine constraint, and knowing which categories are closed changes how…
· 4 min read
Managing Up
Praise is feedback too, and most of it arrives unusable
Positive comments are pleasant and rarely actionable, which means the most valuable thing you can do with…
· 3 min read
Managing Up
When the colleague you sat next to becomes your manager
A promotion from within the team changes what can be said in both directions, and the people who handle it…
· 3 min read
Managing Up
How work gets handed out, and how to change what you get
Allocation looks like a judgement about you and is usually a scheduling problem solved in a hurry, which is…
· 4 min read
Managing Up
Asking for something that is not money
Requests for time, scope, training or a change in how you work are decided by a different mechanism from…
· 3 min read
Managing Up
When the brief changes after you have started
Requirements move for ordinary reasons, and the damage comes almost entirely from the change going…
· 3 min read
Managing Up
Reporting to two people at once
Dual reporting lines are a structural arrangement rather than a passing muddle, and the question that…
· 3 min read