Friday, October 17, 2008

Dealing with an Unorganized Boss III



 
 

Sent to you by Gigi via Google Reader:

 
 

via Productivity501 by Mark Shead on 10/17/08

Bosses who don't communicate

Many managers with no previous leadership experience are poor communicators.  This isn't surprising, because the communication skills required to be a good manager are generally only learned through experience.

One common situation you'll find yourself encountering under this type of person is working on a team of people who are out of sync. For example, your boss may tell you about an important upcoming project, but no one else hears about it until the last minute.  On the other hand, you may also find yourself in a position where everyone else knows some crucial piece of information except you.

The best solution is for your boss to learn how to communicate as a
leader.  You can try to encourage them to communicate better by
suggesting weekly meetings, memos to the whole team, etc.  However, if
you can't change your boss, here are some things that might help
improve the situation.

  • Create a group email address for the whole team.  Sometimes, giving
    your boss a mechanism to communicate with everyone just as simply as
    communicating with an individual, will help improve the communication.
  • Notify everyone on your team of critical information.  Don't assume
    that your boss will tell people what they need to know.  This can be a
    simple matter of summarizing what your boss has told you and emailing
    it to the entire team, including your boss.  Your boss then has an
    opportunity to clarify themselves if you misunderstood something or
    they changed their mind.
  • Create informal weekly meetings with your coworkers to go over anything
    important.  Obviously, it is better if your boss is driving these, but
    even if it is just you and a few co-workers, a few minutes spent
    communicating can save you hours of work later on.

Other posts on dealing with an unorganized boss:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Originally published on December 18, 2005.

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:


Visit the Productivity501 Webstore. Free Tool for RSS Subscribers: Click here to download the Brook Ambient Sound file.


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

No comments: