BACK TO BASICS BOSS MANAGEMENT
It’s Okay to Manage Your Boss™: The Step-by-Step Program for Making the Best of Your Most Important Relationship at Work

Dozens of best practices to help employees get much better at managing themselves and being managed. After this program, participants will be better able to:
(-) Build relationships of trust and confidence with their managers.
(-) Seek appropriate guidance, direction and support from their managers.
(-) Take on new tasks, responsibilities and projects.
(-) Stay focused at work and moving in the right direction.
(-) Increase their individual work productivity and quality.
(-) Keep track of their own performance and report regularly to their managers.
(-) Reduce waste, inefficiency, errors, down-time, and conflict with other employees.
(-) Learn, grow, and go the extra mile in their jobs.

This program topic is available in all formats:
KEYNOTES
WORKSHOPS
TRAIN THE TRAINER
CUSTOM TRAINING INITIATIVES
EXECUTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING SESSIONS
BOOKS AND TRAINING SUPPORT MATERIALS

On August 13, 2009, Bruce was honored to accept Toastmasters International's most prestigious honor, the Golden Gavel. This honor is annually presented to a single person who represents excellence in the fields of communication and leadership. Past winners have included Marcus Buckingham, Stephen Covey, Zig Ziglar, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, Ken Blanchard, Tom Peters, Art Linkletter, Dr. Joyce Brothers, and Walter Cronkite. Click here for a complete list of past winners.

Program Description

Succeeding in today's workplace is more challenging than ever before: Employees are working harder and facing increasing pressure to work longer, smarter, faster and better. There's no more room for down time, waste, or inefficiency. Employees must routinely learn and utilize new technologies, processes, practices, skills and knowledge, all the while adjusting to ongoing organizational changes. At the same time, most employees receive less management guidance and support than they need; work in smaller teams with greater requirements; and have less time to rest, recuperate, and prepare.

In study after study, we find that the number one factor in productivity, quality, morale and retention is the relationship between leaders/managers/supervisors and their direct reports. Most employees think of their immediate supervisors as the primary representatives of their employer’s missions, policies, systems, and practices. The supervisor is the point of contact, but much more than that, on a daily basis, the supervisor defines the work experience. Every day, the supervisor determines assignments, work conditions, recognition, and rewards. Employees also rely on their immediate supervisors more than any other individuals for meeting their basic needs and expectations and dealing with a whole range of day to day issues that arise at work. These include the assignment of tasks, resource planning, problem solving, training, scheduling, dispute resolution, guidance, coaching, recognition, promotions and other rewards. It is the immediate supervisor an employee turns to, whether he/she is seeking a special assignment, obtaining necessary resources, pursuing a special work location, avoiding a certain coworker, looking for a good performance evaluation, or hoping for a raise.

Of course, every leader/manager/supervisor is different. Every single one has his/her own style, strengths and weaknesses. But most managers provide much less guidance, direction, and support than their direct-reports need in order to succeed in today’s high-pressure environment. Most employees spend way too much time on their own trying to figure out what is expected of them; trying to figure out what to do and how to do it; to avoid unnecessary pitfalls; to get their hands on necessary resources; to keep moving in the right direction.

How can employees learn to deal with these challenges every day?

In this program, Bruce helps non-management employees learn dozens of best-practices to better manage themselves, manage their managers, and help their managers give them the guidance, direction and support they need in this step-by-step guide to becoming the employee every manager needs:
(1) Get in the habit of helping your manager manage you every day. Best practices for having routine one-on-ones with your managers. What do you do if your manager actually starts doing this? How can you make the most of it? What do you do if your manager doesn’t take the lead in conducting one-on-ones with you? What do you do if your manager wants to meet more often than you think is necessary?
(2) Learn how to respond to good and not-so-good performance coaching. Best practices for helping your manager communicate clearly with you about both broad performance standards and concrete next steps.
(3) Take it one manager at a time. Best practices for identifying and syncing up with different management styles.
(4) Make accountability a real process. Best practices for anticipating obstacles to meeting or exceeding expectations and for working through or around them. How to keep your manager focused on reasonable expectations for concrete actions that you can control.
(5) Always know exactly what is expected of you. Best practices for helping your manager spell out expectations clearly every step of the way.
(6) Track your own performance every step of the way. Best practices to monitor, measure, document, and report to your manager on your own performance using time-logs and checklists.
(7) Solve small problems before they turn into big problems. Best practices for leading your own continuous improvement process by working with your manager to solve one small problem after another in your own productivity, quality, and behavior.
(8) Earn more of what you need and want. Best practices for linking your own performance to your own rewards. How to go the extra mile to earn the extra rewards you want/need.


FEATURED

BOOKS:

Bruce Tulgan's new book, IT'S OKAY TO MANAGE YOUR BOSS (purchase advance copies of the book at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, or Borders.com)

Bruce Tulgan's recent best-seller, IT'S OKAY TO BE THE BOSS (purchase copies of the book at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, or Borders.com)

Bruce Tulgan's book, NOT EVERYONE GETS A TROPHY: HOW TO MANAGE GENERATION Y (purchase copies of the book at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, or Borders.com)

TRNG MATLS:

29-minute Not Everyone Gets a Trophy™ training video on DVD featuring Bruce Tulgan

27-minute It's Okay to Be the Boss™ training video on DVD featuring Bruce Tulgan

It's Okay to Be the Boss™ printed training materials

10-part, 49-lesson It's Okay to Be the Boss™ video training program on CD featuring Bruce Tulgan

FREE NEWSLETTER:

The current issue of Bruce Tulgan's free video newsletter and all the back issues

RECENT AWARDS:

On 8/13/09, Bruce was awarded Toastmasters International's most prestigious honor, the Golden Gavel. This honor is annually presented to a single person. Past winners have included Marcus Buckingham, Stephen Covey, Deepak Chopra, and Tom Peters. Click here for a complete list of past winners.

In October 2009, Bruce Tulgan was named to the Thinkers 50 rising star list (also known as the Guru Radar). The Thinkers 50 is the definitive global ranking of the world's top 50 business thinkers. Click here to see Bruce's video interview for the 2009 Guru Radar.

WORKPLACE STUDY:

We released a new workplace study in March 2010. The study shows that the most effective business strategy in 2009 was increased supervision and management.