1.Mar.2011 | Jules Shapiro
Learning How to “Be the Boss” in a Tough Economy
When fans turn on “The Office” Thursday evenings, they can expect boss Michael Scott, played by comedian Steve Carell, to once again lose the respect of his employees by unleashing all sorts of shenanigans, such as dating his boss Jan, engaging in sexual and racist jokes and fake-firing his employees.
While Scott’s offered escapism and plenty of laughs since 2024, especially for the 9 percent of Americans who are still unemployed, the hit television show also makes its viewers re-evaluate their own personal careers as managers and executives.
The Vook “Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader,” in partnership with Harvard Business Review Press, tackles the great question of why managers can get stuck motivating their employees and themselves to be the best.
Authors Linda A. Hill (Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School) and Kent Lineback (co-author of best-seller “The Monk and the Riddle”) spoke with us about how people can realign their thinking to become more successful.
Q. What advice would you give to those who are unemployed right now?
A. Look for opportunities to develop new networks and skills in volunteer organizations until you can find employment again. Take advantage of any opportunities that might come up to do part-time work in your specific or adjacent area of expertise.
Q. How would those in the Millennial Generation go about “being the boss” in a recovering economy and expanding their skill sets?
A. As companies keep costs down and ask people to do more with less, you should seize opportunities to demonstrate your nascent skills as managers and leaders. The best way to establish your value and to advance is to take on managerial responsibility before you have the formal title. Learn what managers do. You’ll discover that much managerial work doesn’t require formal authority—that is, it doesn’t require the ability to impose what you want or think on others. Volunteer to lead a task force, or create a task force yourself, that focuses on solving a persistent problem. Lead a planning effort or a segment of one. Create a network of ongoing relationships with those outside your group who are crucial partners in your group’s work. Look for ways to demonstrate your competence and your character.
Q. Do you have some favorite managerial tactics you would like to pass along to readers?
A. The book is full of tactics that we hope bosses will find useful. One we particularly like is an approach we call “Prep-Do-Review.” It’s a simple practice we urge on all managers that sounds obvious but that many of us too often forget. Instead of looking on an activity—an unanticipated problem, for example—as something to be resolved and done with as expediently as possible, we encourage managers to respond always with three simple steps:
1) “Prepare” by thinking “How can we solve this in a way that either makes us better (e.g., helps someone improve her skills) or helps us make progress toward our goals?” This is how effective managers use the daily work—the unplanned activities, problems, unexpected changes and the like that fill their days—to do their work as managers. With a few seconds thought, they convert, for example, required attendance at a meeting into an opportunity to connect with a seldom-seen colleague regarding a product improvement their group is considering. They expand a chat with customer service about a specific customer complaint into a brief but fruitful discussion of a change in the product guarantee that they’ve thinking of making.
2) “Do” means you do what you planned to do, along with seizing any other opportunities that present themselves.
3) “Review” means you spend a few moments after the event thinking about or discussing with others involved what happened and what can be learned from it. We know from lots of research that if you want to consolidate the lessons of your experience, you must take the time (even a few moments) to reflect on that experience to identify key lessons.
Q. Anything else you would like to add?
A. Effective managers take responsibility not only for what they and their groups do but also for their own development as bosses. Becoming fully effective requires a journey of years, a journey that is primarily driven by their own conscious efforts to improve. In “Being the Boss” we provide the basic information you need to make progress on your own journey.
“Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader” is available in the iTunes App Store and iBookstore.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Linda A. Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, chairs the HBS Leadership Initiative; headed the team that developed HBS’s required MBA leadership course; and has chaired several HBS executive education courses, including the High Potentials Leadership Program. She is the author of Becoming a Manager and numerous Harvard Business Review articles and Harvard Business Publishing corporate learning modules.
Kent Lineback, now a writer and collaborator, spent nearly 30 years as a manager and executive in business and government. He is the co-author (with Randy Komisar) of the best-seller “The Monk and the Riddle.”
 Linda A. Hill |
 Kent Lineback |
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