管好自己的领导（三）

Joseph

偶然看到今天LinkedIn上所发的一条小文，跟我的想法一样，全文如下：

原题：Prioritize Your Life Before Your Manager Does It for You
作者：Greg McKeown

In their several years of working together, Jin-Yung had never really negotiated with her manager. She would simply say yes even if it threw her life into temporary turmoil, as it often did. She had given unknowable hours to executing every request and task, diligently delivering them in neat and complete packages, no matter the sacrifice.
After attending a workshop I was teaching on “essentialism,” or the disciplined pursuit of less, she decided to create a social contract to draw some boundaries at work. Specifically, it outlined how she could increase her productivity at work while also having five days off of work to focus entirely on preparing for her upcoming wedding. Jin-Yung’s manager agreed to the terms she presented and was surprised and delighted when she put in several especially-focused days and completed her usual work ahead of schedule. This allowed Jin-Yung the chance to immerse herself in the uninterrupted days of wedding planning that her boss had agreed to.
However, in the midst of her wedding planning, her manager asked her to take on an additional project prior to an upcoming board meeting because someone else on the team had dropped the ball. This time, instead of capitulating to pressure from her manager, she pointed to the social contract and said words to the effect, “I would love to help with this project and I can see that this is a problem. However, we came to a clear agreement on this and I have completed my side of the bargain. I have planned for this time, I have worked hard for it and I deserve to have it…guilt-free!” She then spent five days immersed in preparing for her big day.
At first, her boss was fuming. But after laboring over the task herself for days, she saw all sorts of flaws in the way she’d been managing the team. She soon realized that if she wanted to be a more effective manager, she needed to pull in the reins, and get clear with each member of the team about expectations, accountability, and outcomes: basically to set up a social contract with every member of the team. Jin-Yung not only opened her manager’s eyes to unhealthy team dynamics and opened up a space for change, she did it in a way that earned her respect.
Jin-Yung was so affected by this experience that she decided to incorporate the experience into her vows, promising that she would prioritize her relationship with her husband above all others.
Many of us are faced with similar high-stakes negotiations with our managers when we want a raise, a stretch assignment, flex time, or the ability to work from home. Here are three rules for negotiating for what you need more effectively:
Rule 1: You can’t negotiate if you don’t know what you want.
It never ceases to amaze me how often I ask people, “What do you really want?” and they look at me blankly, unable to articulate the answer. It’s not that they don’t want things, it’s just that they don’t have a high level of clarity regarding the matter.
This matters because our work life doesn’t take place in a neutral vacuum. What we spend our time doing is the result of a dynamic interaction between internal clarity (what we want to do) and external pressure (what other people want us to do). Indeed, our era is distinguished not so much by information overload, but by opinion overload. To ensure that our own voice is not lost in the noise around us, we need to know what we really want. If we don’t get really clear about that, then other people will fill the void with their agendas.
Rule 2: Clarity is the beginning of all empowerment.
Key to Jin-Yung’s story was creating a social contract which clearly articulated what she would do, by when, and what the positive and negative consequences would be for compliance and noncompliance. By getting clear about this, she was able to better negotiate what not to focus on both before her five-day leave and while she was on it.
Here are the six most important questions to answer when writing out a social contract:

• What is the most important, mutually beneficial, desired result over the next X period of time?
• Why is this important?
• What needs to be eliminated, deferred or reduced?
• What resources need to be reallocated or increased?
• When will we get together to review progress?
• What are the consequences (positive or negative) for performance or nonperformance?
  

Rule 3: Speak in terms of your manager’s agenda (not your own).
Especially when working with busy executives, there is little point in simply talking about what you want. They are often so focused and burdened with their own agenda that an additional request, however valid, can feel like an additional pressure or a burden. With a little preparation, you can express the same desires in a way that is aligned with your manager’s agenda, thus significantly increasing the chance that you will be heard and that the negotiation will go well, as shown in the chart below.

None of these examples is perfect, but each illustrates how much better it is to start with your manager’s agenda. The truth is that to get anyone to act, we have to create an eager desire in the other person by speaking to what he or she wants most.
By following these three rules, we can be better negotiators at work, we can make that critical shift from “order taker” to “trusted advisor,” and we can learn to better balance our lives.

Joseph

在我写《管好自己的领导》这个系列之后碰巧在LinkedIn上看到这篇文章。

故事中的錦泳（진영）也跟我们身边看到的大多数的职场人一样奋力接下了全部的工作和临时任务却不知道拒绝，直到她的个人生活几乎被工作粉碎掉。我不好说这是东方人的特征，但是跟更加自我的西方人比较起来，确实这情况更容易在东方人身上发生。

錦泳不仅仅是参加了一个培训，她是真的从培训中习得了一种能力，她把她自己抓了回来。真是值得庆幸的事情。

我自己也曾经遭遇过类似的情况，领导都会安排一些不是我希望去做的工作。我的做法有两种可能：如果这个安排严重偏离我来这家公司的目标，我就会直接拒绝；如果这个安排偏离我的基本目标但是领导愿意给我在一个应许，在合适的时间帮我找到我设计方向的角色，我就会帮他全力以赴。

一般这种情况，我的同事会认为是我的能力导致我跟领导有了谈判的砝码。但是，我从进入国企的时代就一直是一个目标性很强的人，如果领导不给我安排我喜欢的方向，我就会自己找出路坚持去做自己要做的事情。碰到合适的领导，他就会最大限度给我这个空间；碰到不合适的领导，我就会寻找新的工作机会。

其实目标明确并不需要能力来支撑。而且领导也多半都是目标明确的人——那种完全靠裙带发展起来的领导你基本可以忽视，你迟早会轻松超越他们的高度，——他们总是会给同样目标明确的人以空间。

最近在读《伊达政宗传》，日本战国后期的一个独眼怪。他因为传说是一个高僧转世而被世人以为聪颖异常，他所有的行为也就被理解为超越世人的智慧。也许其它的事情我并没有看那么清晰，但是他心里觉得自己是高僧的热情让他有了征服天下（日本）的愿望，他的所有战略设计都基于这样的思考。为此，他曾经跟丰臣秀吉对抗、跟德川家康周旋、跟很多同时代的卓越的战将厮杀。但是他并未因此迷失自己或者惨遭屠戮。我想，政宗在特别年幼的时代肯定也不会就超越同龄的孩子很多很多，就算他再怎么聪明他仍然需要生活的历练才能把他的修行转化为一种生命的智慧。但是，在生命的历程之中，他因为抱持着一个战略目标而行动，这让他一方面规避了很多不必要的纠缠，另一方面也让比他年长的领袖都给他更多的空间。

学习固然无止境，目标更需早早的跟自己的主管领导确定下来。