Misdirection

Sidd told me he’s so frustrated because his manager will tell him to work on one thing, he’ll start to work on it, and then his manager will say he wants something different the next day. Sidd doesn’t know what he’s actually supposed to work on.

Managers (Directors, CXO) are people too, and they don’t necessarily know what they want. It gets easy to tell when there’s no plan and they’re making it up as they go. This is not to be confused with the manager asking you to do something and they want you to fix it.

There are a few different options that you have depending on your relationship with your manager:

1. Provide them feedback. A lot of the reasons why a manager continues to act the way they do is because no one has had the courage to tell them they need to fix something. This is why 360 feedback is so important.

   1. If you’re going to take this approach, you need to ensure you have a good relationship with your manager and that you’re expressing the impact their actions have on you. A good manager will learn from it.

2. Confirm the request. When you’re told you should do X, Y, Z repeat it back to them and ask if you should start working on it right away or if it’s still being fleshed out. This will allow them to think about what they’re asking of you and confirm it’s the right direction.

3. Ask Questions. This approach should be used with the appropriate tact. It’s valid to ask, “What if we did it this way instead?” or “Why are we going in this direction?” This allows them to explain their logic. Maybe the request changed because of an outside factor and you were just not aware of it.

Ultimately, you have to assume everyone is well-intentioned. While it’s really annoying to have to change something 10 times, there’s usually a method to the madness. Take some time to reflect why you’re resistant to the changes so that you can see it as a learning opportunity. If you genuinely don’t respect your manager, that’s a different story for a different day.

Let me know if you like this article or have any topics you’d like to request. I’m determining if I should continue writing The Mentor Mission.