• If You Work At Home Are You A Problem For Your Boss?
Posted by Tom Harnish on April 3rd, 2008
The world has changed in the last twenty years. The pace of business is accelerating, it’s more competitive, and it’s more dependent on technology. We work harder and longer–people who work from home report it can easily become a 24/7 proposition.
And all that could be a problem for your boss. Indeed, if you telecommute and are more productive as a result (surveys back that up), you’ll create additional demands on your boss. You’re working more, getting more done; but you have less interaction with your boss. The number of people a manager has to supervise is a lot larger now too. So your boss has to oversee more work, accelerate planning and scheduling, and find some way to stay in touch with you and reality.
So what can you do? Manage your boss, before he or she has to manage you.
If you’re not sure how to that, read a copy of the 1980 Harvard Business Review classic article titled (what else?) How To Manage Your Boss by Gabarro and Kotter.
Essentially, it means understanding your manager’s world: the pressures, constraints, strengths, weaknesses they live with. Do you know, for example, what your boss’s boss is like–what the demands are on your boss are?
This all reminds me of what I used to teach pilots when they were learning to fly in formation. The flight leader’s job is to make it easy for the other pilots in the formation. The job of the other pilots, flying wing as it’s called, is to make the leader look good. Lead has to make sure there are no surprises, that directions are clear and changes are predictable. The other pilots then can anticipate what’s going to happen next and make adjustments so they whole thing looks easy–even if they come back drenched in sweat from the effort.
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