Managing Up! WTH is that?

Management is traditionally thought of as a tops down structure. There’s a team of people and they report to one person who in turn is responsible for what the team does. Management basically looks like a pyramid. But spoiler alert: managers don’t always know what they’re doing because they’re not always doing the hands on work. That’s where managing up comes in to play.

Managing up is basically defined as teaching your boss how to manage you. Or, if you want to change the language, making your own life easier under a boss. I personally like to think of it as making myself the easiest person the boss has to manage.

Managing up comes down to doing two things in tandem: providing information, proactively. I find the more successful I am at managing up, the more successful my relationship with my manager.

You’ll be introduced to the concept of managing up when you feel like your boss is asking you a billion questions, “micro managing” or in general, wants to help you but doesn’t know how. The best way to help them help you is to provide them information without asking.

• Pick up on patterns. If you know every week your boss on Tuesday is going to ask you about X, well tell them about X the on Monday or at the top of the day on Tuesday.

• Ask them how you can help. If you notice a big organization shift or a project that’s going to affect your team, bring it up to them. Talk about how you noticed and you’re wondering how that will impact them and how you can support them.

• Send end of week summaries. This works best for a micro manager and eventually you wean them off of it but helpful at the end of every week to shoot them a message about what you accomplished that week, what you’ll be working on next week and how you can use their help next week.

• Send agendas for 1:1s in advance. Listen, you need to control meetings with YOUR boss because the meeting is about what YOU need. You do this by being proactive and sending agendas in advance. I usually structure my agendas into two parts: Inform and Discuss. The inform is literally for them to consume in advance and isn’t discussed in the meeting while the discuss is… discussed.

What are some of the ways you manage up with your boss to make your life easier?