A few months ago, I wrote that I’d love to read more books on how to be a great employee - and was lucky enough that a friend recommended one - thank you! Influencing Up is all about how to work more effectively with one’s boss and other senior members of your company. I found the book very useful and wish I had read it at the beginning of my career.
Influencing Up by Allan Cohen and David Bradford
The problem: many work relationships are dysfunctional
Managers and their reports often don’t work together effectively. Subordinates are often hesitant to give feedback or report on reality as they want to avoid confrontation with their bosses and fear retaliation. Bosses, oblivious to how their teams feel, will sometimes micromanage or create unnecessary work
There is a cost to not speaking up: when subordinates keep their feelings bottled up inside, resentment can grow, with them viewing everything as their bosses’ fault. Even if they don’t express any of this to their boss, it’s likely their feelings will “leak” out and influence how they interact with their boss.
Relatedly, people often view their boss as an adversary or someone to be “managed,” which makes it a win-lose relationships
There are often negative feedback loops at play. For example, a boss makes small edits to a work product. The junior person thinks “they will make edits no matter what, I shouldn’t take this task to 100% completion so they have something to do.” That makes manager think “this person can’t do by themselves,” leading to more edits, and even more unspoken frustration.
Many of these problems are due to power dynamics
In any work relationship, there is a power gap. If the gap is too large – with the boss having much, much more power – it creates issues. As mentioned above, their team will be less likely to raise issues, whether pushback on the boss or important “bad news” for the business. And giving people power tends to make them listen less to others and regard their own views more highly. This results in the boss being further removed from the day-to-day, which makes their decision making worse
The solution: Partner with your boss, increasing overall power
Partnering with your boss means working with them, as opposed to working for them or against them. Your job is to make them more effective, which in turn will make you more effective
And given you’re a (junior) partner, you are also entitled (and obligated) to be honest with them, speaking up when disagree or even about the relationship itself
OK, how do I actually do this?
Attitude
It’s very easy to “decide” that your boss is lazy, or mean, or incompetent. What’s much more effective is trying to understand things from their point of view and accept that their behavior is rational to them and they’re solving for things which might not be visible to you
You want them to succeed, as that will open up more opportunities for you
You are the junior partner – the burden of the relationship falls on you. You are responsible for building a better relationship with your boss – they have their own boss to deal with!
Currency
You also need to find ways to influence your boss (and others within the organization). The authors introduce a concept of “currency”: what is it that somebody values? Hard work? Fast responses? Support on a key project? Intellectual engagement? Intel on what’s happening at the junior levels of the organization? Junior people often underestimate the currencies they can offer
Speaking up
Junior people also often underestimate their power and / or overestimate their bosses power. This leads to the “Wizard of Oz” issue, where we give somebody power simply by assuming they have it and automatically deferring to them. While potentially scary, partnering requires you to speak up
Thoughts and reactions
This was exactly what I was looking for. I wish I had read it 10+ years ago when I started my career. Even if you don’t immediately start speaking up more, there is still a lot in here on how to work with people and make your boss’s life easier. A few thoughts and reactions:
I liked the language of currencies. One framework I’ve heard is “what is the other person solving for”? The idea of “currencies” is similar, but maybe more about them in general and less situation-specific.
Everybody can offer currencies. One underrated one is showing interest and enthusiasm for what your boss is working on. Years ago, I read an article that said one reason companies hire consultants is that executives like having people around who are super interested in their businesses and ideas (unlike the average employee). While it might have been tongue in cheek, there is an element of truth in it. You can never go wrong by being interested.
The idea of being the junior partner is powerful. It recognizes that 1) you are junior, and many things fall to you but 2) you are partners and working together toward a bigger goal.
It reminded me of the idea of “fault vs. responsibility.” If you don’t have a great relationship with your boss, it’s easy (and maybe our default) to say “this isn’t my fault, I’m not going to do anything about it.” But high performers think in terms of responsibility: “It’s my responsibility to make sure this relationship works.”
The emotional undercurrent of work relationships. Work relationships can carry a lot of emotions, but it isn’t talked about much. For the average adult, the 2 relationships which have the biggest impact on their quality of life will be 1) their marriage and 2) their boss1. I appreciated that this book spoke about some of the work dynamics.
Different types of relationships. At this point, I’ve read 10-ish books on marriage, friends, and bosses. While different, there are some commonalities worth noting:
Personal responsibility and other-focused thinking. In all of these relationships, you need to take responsibility for improving it - you can’t force your boss or spouse to change their behavior, and you can’t assume your new friend will initiate 100% of your interactions. But you also need to be attuned to what they value and how it might be different from you (“Love language” for marriage, “currencies” for work).
It’s important to accept who the person is and view them in the best light possible. You can’t change your spouse or boss’s personality. Even if there are things that frustrate you, the value-maximizing move is to view their actions generously and with best intent
Patterns of behavior: many relationships take on patterns. Some can be positive (e.g., you commit to giving your spouse a hug when you come home from work every day) and some can be negative (like the boss example above, or when you say something negative to your spouse, which triggers them to say something negative back to you)
Other pearls of wisdom
The book also had a bunch of smaller interesting insights, which I’ve put below as quotes:
We believe in what we call the 15 percent rule: be just a little more open, or direct, or vulnerable than the other party expects. Not so much that it makes the person uncomfortable, but slightly more than he or she might expect from a stranger. This may require being tougher, blunter, more concise, more deferential, or something else that isn’t automatic for you. But usually you will have it somewhere in your repertoire.
What is so fascinating is that experienced executives want the unvarnished truth from their direct reports, but have difficulty giving it to their bosses.
Decisions are made too high in the hierarchy in most organizations. One reason is that managers bring along the tasks they are comfortable with at a lower position as they climb onto the next rung on the ladder. Although these tasks may be easy to complete, they lack the excitement and growth that would occur if someone one or two levels down completed them.
It is better to follow the Platinum Rule rather than the Golden Rule: instead of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” it is often more effective to “do unto others as they want to be done unto.”
Furthermore, like many upper middle managers, Doug appears to desire total autonomy from his boss—not partnership. He can’t fathom moving from independence to interdependence.
When he or she agrees with the boss, the direct report usually makes declarative statements and moves closer (psychologically and even physically): “Jim, I think this memo is an excellent idea.” But when disagreeing, the direct report uses a cautious tone and gives an opinion as a question: “Do you really think presenting it that way will work?” The employee actually means, “I don’t agree that the memo as written will work, but I am too worried about your reaction to say that directly.” Not only is this a low-power statement on the direct report’s part, but it actually can make the boss suspicious (“I wonder what he is really saying?”). At worst, the manager takes the statement at face value and answers by saying, “Yes, I think that presentation will knock them out.” The employee goes quiet, saying to himself, “Sure glad that I was indirect—look at how adamant the boss was,” without realizing that his pseudo-question actually caused that response.
Instead of making negative attributions about the boss, consider that “my boss is acting reasonably from his/her point of view”—no matter how unreasonable the behavior appears to be. It helps to come up with at least two reasonable alternative explanations for your boss’s behavior. Here is a starter list: He is getting pressure from his boss. She is more worried about the long-term (or short-term) effect. There is an unannounced big strategic move about to happen. In a previous job, that action worked well. She wants to demonstrate her competence. He feels uncomfortable with uncertainty and is asserting his view to feel better.
Excluding children as not everybody has them.