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How to boss without being bossy

jeffwofford.com

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Re: How to boss without being bossy

#31

Post by quickthrower2 »

IsaacL wrote: post #8

This is a terrible article that rambles on for far too long without offering an actually polite way to tell/request someone to do something. These are the best approaches: 1. "Please take out the trash." 2. "The trash needs to be taken out. Can you do it?" 3. (If there are several people around). "The trash needs to be taken out. Who can do it?" Extra consideration: I'm assuming this refers to a context where there's…

Yeah the there is an abstraction level. Even “take out the trash” is an abstraction. A lot of this minutiae can be handled with coding standards, policies, automated checks and so on. It gets “bossy” when say you need someone to do something out of the ordinary. Take support calls when they usually don’t. That is where emotional intelligence needs to kick in. Depending on culture and context it could be anything from “You are on the phones Frank” to “Sorry guys we don’t normally ask this but…”

Re: How to boss without being bossy

#32

Post by quickthrower2 »

User23 wrote: post #20
cmclaughlin wrote: post #4

Here's how my wife does it... "Do you want to take out the trash?" My engineer mind interprets it literally every time :) Usually I don't mind taking out the trash... but occasionally I don't really want to. I have to always translate this to "She wants me to take out the trash".

“No.”

Is the answer from those not yet brainwashed. Aka kids!

Re: How to boss without being bossy

#33

Post by quickthrower2 »

cmclaughlin wrote: post #4

Here's how my wife does it... "Do you want to take out the trash?" My engineer mind interprets it literally every time :) Usually I don't mind taking out the trash... but occasionally I don't really want to. I have to always translate this to "She wants me to take out the trash".

Or. “It’s OK i’ll take out the trash”

Re: How to boss without being bossy

#34

Post by jmye »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #19

Anybody who says 'I need you to...' goes on the list, even if they are not actually talking to me myself. But more seriously: Ensure people know what and why something is important, ideally by arriving at that conclusion jointly and as part of an overarching plan that everyone can feel involved in - thus requests shouldn't be a surprise, they aren't coming from you so much as from the plan (nebulous though it may be)…

I think the article’s advice to think about and notice phrasing is good: we should all be aware of the words we use, and how they sound.

But I think your suggestions mirror my experience in actually getting the person to do the thing. The other benefit is that the same steps, more or less, work well when managing up as well as down.

Re: How to boss without being bossy

#37

Post by ndespres »

cmclaughlin wrote: post #4

Here's how my wife does it... "Do you want to take out the trash?" My engineer mind interprets it literally every time :) Usually I don't mind taking out the trash... but occasionally I don't really want to. I have to always translate this to "She wants me to take out the trash".

What she truly wants is for you to notice that it’s full and to take it out without being asked.

Re: How to boss without being bossy

#38

Post by shusaku »

I’m learning how to delegate these days, and it’s teaching me that I’m a bad communicator. I appreciate the clarity discussion, but in the real world it’s even harder. At least everyone knows what taking out the trash involves! But when it involves delegating a complex task, concerns about being bossy means you might fail to explain the precise requirements of the task you’re delegating.

Re: How to boss without being bossy

#39

Post by jancsika »

cmclaughlin wrote: post #4

Here's how my wife does it... "Do you want to take out the trash?" My engineer mind interprets it literally every time :) Usually I don't mind taking out the trash... but occasionally I don't really want to. I have to always translate this to "She wants me to take out the trash".

Upshot: you are supposed to take out the trash using a realtime scheduler, and the common question means you have missed many deadlines!

It's as if you are forcing your spouse to somehow smell a janky web page.

Re: How to boss without being bossy

#40

Post by kevinmchugh »

ska wrote: post #5

This seems a bit superficial, because it concentrates only how you communicate an instruction to people. I suspect, especially in high competence and nominally high trust environments like (much of) tech, mostly when people consider a superior "bossy" it's not because of the way they communicate (though that could contribute) but because they do not trust the communication or the motivations behind it, or question wh…

Similarly (and at risk of focusing too much on the example), in a high competency and high trust environment, identifying a task as quotidian as taking out the trash ought to be pretty rare. If you have a bunch of highly capable professionals, they shouldn't need commanding and they should be pretty capable of keeping their workspace functional.
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