You and your boss don’t agree on what you do, or how much you do, making it difficult to set a standard

One of the jobs of a leader is to set clear expectations. There are two implications here. The first is that she must understand, very clearly, what she wants her team to do. The second is that she must know what her team is actually doing. And, of course, the manager and employee must be in alignment on the expectation. That’s not to say that they will always agree on whether the expectation is fair or valid. But they should both at least have the same understanding of what the expectation is.

In some cases, expectations become complicated when measurement is introduced. A common problem is that the qualitative expectations, such as keeping customers satisfied or maintaining timely communication, don’t match the qualitative expectations related to the core tasks a person is expected to accomplish.

Problem

You and your boss don’t agree on what you do, or how much you do, making it difficult to set a standard.

How this affects you

Offices pose an interesting challenge, since it is hard to tell exactly how much each person does. You know that you are working hard, but your manager may not see that. Take a look at an order entry team. Entering three big orders might require more work than ten small orders; however, if the number of orders is the only thing being measured, the ten would appear to be a bigger workload.

Or, someone may not enter any orders for a period of time while he is answering customer inquiries about order status. It may appear like he hasn’t gotten anything done, if he has no complete orders during the measured period. If his boss does not understand the workload, she may not appreciate her team’s entire contribution to the company.

Action to Take

The first big step in defining what you do is to examine, and record, all the work you actually do each day. What are the duties you perform? How can they be categorized? Consider your phone calls. Are they incoming or outgoing? How much time do you spend on each phone call? What are the calls related to?

Once you have accurate information about all your duties, and how much time you spend doing each activity, you and your boss should make sure that you tally that work in a consistent way. Together, you should standardize how you take measurements and you should agree on how you count what you do.

Should you count the number of e-mails you answer, or should you only count the tasks the e-mails refer to? What’s the difference? Let’s say you are assigned to Accounts Receivable and one of your duties is to do credit checks on new customers. Your team averages ten new customers a day, but you also receive twenty e-mails from previous customers who have credit approvals pending. Do you count just the ten new credit checks that day, or do you account for the twenty e-mails you had to deal with as well?

Whatever you and your boss settle on for your standard, make sure the decision clarifies your role and your priorities— and that your ideas match your manager’s. If you and your boss each have a different understanding of your work and different definitions of your success, you’ll have a problem, especially when it comes time for your evaluations.

Why this works

The Why this Works section is only available in print copies of Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean?