Advice Column #1: Will My Manager's Expectations Return to Earth?
Diana's manager is loading her up with an ever-growing list of projects. It never seems to end! How can she get the situation under control?
Dear Bizlet: I've been in a new role for about two months. I get along with my manager pretty well. My problem is her extremely high expectations. Since the day I started, I have been her solution to every problem. When we're in a meeting together, my name is on her lips. It's good to know that she respects my abilities, but I am starting to feel overwhelmed. There is no way I can live up to her expectations! My list just keeps getting longer and longer. I don't feel like I can say "no" to her. I'm terrified that I'm going to be huge disappointment. Help me out before my cover is blown! –Diana
Diana:
Do you belong to a superhuman race imbued with immortality, imperviousness, the power of flight, and other supernatural capabilities?
In the moments before its untimely destruction, were you sent from your idyllic home planet to ours, where adoptive parents wisely assigned you the mission of protecting the human race?
Are you currently, by any chance, clad in head-to-toe spandex? No?
Then your real problem may be your own expectations for yourself, not your manager’s. Let’s start there.The inescapable fact is that you cannot do it all. No one can. This is not about falling short of your potential.
A really excellent, first-rate contributor does not even try to do it all. She prioritizes, Diana. She puts her greatest efforts into the assignments that are the most important. That’s what your manager really wants from you.
Here’s a suggestion. When your manager barks out a new idea, write it down. Put it on a list. Every week or so, stack-rank the list in order of priority from “Must Happen” at the top to “Cannot Happen” at the bottom.
Somewhere in the middle, draw a line.Everything above the line gets an estimated completion date. Everything below the line, the date is “LATER.” The LATER items get attention when something above the line gets done, delegated, or dropped.
Share this list with your manager a few days before your 1:1. When you meet, you can walk through it together.
We all want to please our managers and nobody wants to be a disappointment. Remember what “great” looks like to a manager. They want an employee who will take the instructions they’re given, improve them with their own insights and context, rank the assignments by priority, and make a disproportionate investment of the items at the top.
The manager is not hoping or expecting for somebody who will silently absorb every assigned task, then execute them without further investment of resources. She doesn’t think you have discovered a new state of matter. She doesn’t believe you are working outside the laws of thermodynamics. She has high hopes for you, Diana, but not Seth Rogen high.
Talk to your manager about your feelings of whelm. Get her feedback about our strategy for managing this plotline back from Krypton to Planet Earth. Walk through the list with her. See if the process gives you both a sense that expectations and outcomes are aligned with your mortal capabilities.
If this doesn’t work, I have another idea. It involves a golden lasso.
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