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What to do
when the boss visits
by Margot Cairnes
It must be that time of the year - so
many of my clients have been asking lately about
managing visiting brass. The common scenario is that my
client has been working to bring about major culture
change which involves getting people to relate more
honestly, treat each other with respect and work
together to achieve ambitious strategic targets. All is
going well until the boss from USA, Europe or Asia
arrives and behaves in ways that are totally
inconsistent with the message my client has been working
so tirelessly to get across.
I remember working very hard with a
grossly overstaffed department of one organisation. My
brief, set by the department head, was to get people to
realise that they were not doing meaningful jobs and to
reassess their priorities and options. We were
successfully on course, people were beginning to feel
good about moving on to new horizons when we were
visited for thirty demoralising minutes by the
organisation's chief executive. During this time he told
us that saving money and doing useful work did not
really matter to him. The organisation was just fine the
way it was. As he left I had an image that someone had
opened the door and poured cold water on everybody
present.
Time and again people ask me how to
stop such bosses from making site visits or how to
overcome the disheartening effects of poorly executed
"royal tours".
This of course is not easy. In
organisations where power has traditionally been
concentrated at the top, insensitive and reactionary
bosses have been major stumbling blocks to successful
change. However successful outcomes can be achieved even
in the most extreme situations.
The starting point is to realise how
much power you have over a visiting chief. To begin
with, if the boss is visiting you, he or she is on your
ground. You or your people have him/her outnumbered and
you are usually in a position to set the agenda. You
can, if you choose, see the visit as a wonderful
opportunity, not to get the boss' approval, but to
educate him/her to your way of seeing things.
I once worked with a group of people
who were awaiting arrival of the "big boss" with
trepidation. I was told that he never answered straight
questions, always strayed from the agenda, came late and
left early. I convinced these people to decide well in
advance what they wanted from this dignitary. They wrote
out their objectives and then devised a strategic plan
for managing the boss when he arrived. Instead of just
presenting what they had been doing and waiting for his
comments, they prepared a list of questions, things on
which they wanted his advice. They worked out ways of
including him as a working member of their meeting.
The exalted figure arrived and the
group swung into action behind their plan. When
discussion strayed away from the objectives, group
members took turn in bringing it back on course.
Not only did the group meet all its
objectives, but the boss stayed so long they eventually
asked him to leave so that they could move on to other
agenda items in which he was not involved.
So often we look up at our
organisational superiors as though we were children and
they were adult authority figures. Instead of dealing
with them sanely as we would with any other human being,
we regress and act out of old subconscious patterns
which greatly diminish our personal power and
effectiveness. How surprised people seem to be when they
realise that they can manage the boss by managing their
own thinking, making bold choices and cooperating with
their team members to achieve common objectives.
Copyright
ã Margot
Cairnes
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