This book is about managerial success, but let’s talk about failure for a moment. I’ve been writing about management for a long time, and I’ve held many managerial roles. I’ve sat across the table from managers who were having very bad days because they were being counseled or terminated. And I’ve coached managers who were struggling. I personally know of the circumstances involving dozens—if not hundreds—of managers who lost their jobs, and here’s what I’ve noticed. Managers don’t fail because they lack technical skills. The most common reason that managers struggle or fail is that they don’t work well with others. Hint: This is also why clarifying behavior expectations was the first thing we explored in step 1. It’s not just what we do that matters, but how we do it, and how what we do affects others.

Let’s define a few terms before we explore step 2 further. Managers work within organizations, and things get done because individuals and their teams know what to do and they do it. Most of what gets done in an organization happens because many people come together to make it happen. This may seem like an obvious statement, but think about its ramifications. If organizational success requires groups of people who are making things happen, then working well with others is a fundamental requirement for success. This is even more true for managers who, by the nature of their work, need to partner and influence several levels of the organization every day.

Working well with others means that you’re a pleasure to work with. People like working with you because you’re positive, pleasant, and responsive. Working well with others also means that you do your part and are dependable. When you say you’ll have it done tomorrow, you have it done tomorrow. It’s about integrity. It’s about relationships. It’s about teaming.

But please don’t misunderstand. Although I’m suggesting that being a pleasure to work with is critical for your success, I’m not saying that you should lack determination or deliberateness or hesitate to take initiative. Quite the opposite actually, since your initiative can also help you work well with others.

If you’re one of those managers who says, “I am who I am, and they can take me or leave me,” however, take heed. Maybe you’re naturally pessimistic or grouchy, or are unpleasant before your third cup of coffee, or work with your door closed to avoid interacting with people. Remember the observation I shared in the opening paragraph to this chapter—the most common reason managers fail is that they don’t work well with others. How well you work with others may be more important than your individual contributions to your organization.

This is some serious stuff, I know. And no pressure, but the answer to the question, “Do I have to be likable?” is yes! You have to be likable, responsive, and a great partner.

Management Is a Social Act

Do you have a whiteboard, chalkboard, or corkboard in your office? If so, put up this statement right now: Management is a social act.

Management is a social act; it occurs in conversations of all types—discussions, emails, texts, and gestures. Conversations are your currency for getting things done. As a manager, you are an engine for organizational results, and conversations are your fuel for making things happen. You can’t manage in isolation.

Management is a social act and to be successful, you need to be a great conversationalist. But that doesn’t mean chitchat or shooting the breeze or giving a TED talk. While those are all good things to do when appropriate, they’re not what I’m referring to when I suggest conversations are your engine fuel.

You also don’t need to be an extrovert to succeed. I’m an introvert, and I know many introverts who are amazing managers. I don’t care if you are the life of the party. Personally, I hate parties!

So what do I mean, then? Let’s break down the key words:

• social—relating to a society, a group of people who are together for a common purpose

• act—deliberate action, observable action, doing something

• conversation—messages sent and received between two or more people.

Being a great conversationalist in the workplace means that you help enable, facilitate, or initiate connections between people that help them move work forward. When you internalize and accept that management is a social act, it will change how you approach your work. This is a good thing.

Here’s a true story. I taught 25 sessions of a two-day management class to 500 participants who worked for a major metropolitan city. After one of the classes, a manager walked up to me and shared that the distinction, management is a social act, had been helpful. She managed a supply chain function and had been promoted from a line-level role in the same group. She was very comfortable with data, Excel spreadsheets, and reports. And while she loved the supply chain function, her love of the work was creating a challenge. She was spending very little time in conversation and therefore, very little time managing. She decided to write “management is a social act” on the top of her whiteboard, which she faced when sitting at her desk. She felt that seeing it several times each day would serve as a reminder to get up and out of her office and into conversation. To spend more time managing. It was an epiphany for her, and one that she felt would change how she spent her precious time.

We all have mile-long to-do lists and lots of things to get done that don’t involve management. And some of us enjoy the satisfaction of checking items off our list. Maybe—likely—we love the technical aspects of our function and find these tasks satisfying or more measurable. But make no mistake, doing those things is not management. That’s why I suggest that you write management is a social act somewhere in your workspace to help you remember to connect with people. Together, you move work forward.

Check out Tool 2-1, which lists several cues you can use to ensure that you are spending time in catalytic conversations (catalytic meaning making things easier or better).

Review this list at the beginning of each workday and add your own common cues. Make decisions about how you spend your time based on the results. This simple practice will improve your managerial effectiveness and help you work better with others. I promise! But there’s more to step 2, so let’s keep discovering.

Show That You Care

I have a feeling that some of you are rolling your eyes at the title for this section. I get it; “show that you care” sounds a bit like “floss your teeth” territory, but please stick with me for a moment. Remember the opening observation of step 2: Managers who fail often do so because they don’t work well with others.

A number of these failures occur because peers and employees don’t like to work with the manager. I recall one situation where a team of about 18 employees marched down to the VP of human resources’ office and declared they did not want to work for their manager. I’m going to call her Sally. Can you imagine being Sally? What about being an employee on Sally’s team? How long had the employees been unhappy before they decided to complain? The answer is many months. This is a true story and not all that uncommon, albeit it is less common that employees complain en masse to HR.

I was assigned to figure out what was going on and recommend how to resolve it. This included getting to know the manager. Sally had worked for the company for nearly 15 years and had been promoted from within several times because of her technical knowledge and attention to detail, eventually reaching the role of manager. After spending that long with the company, what are the odds were that she did not care? Very low. In fact, she cared deeply, she was just terrible at showing it. Case in point, she:

• barked at her employees

• spent each morning reviewing errors and quality problems

• rarely walked around the department unless she needed something

• did not present herself as cheerful or positive

• never asked how people were doing or how she could help.

Why did Sally act this way? Partly because she was too busy with to-do list tasks to pay attention to her employees, partly because she was socially awkward and had not practiced showing care (her husband and kids likely got similar treatment), partly because she did not understand that management is a social act, and partly because she was scared and intimidated. I remember that when the investigation was complete and I reviewed the findings with her, Sally asked me point blank, “Are you telling me that I need to be liked as a manager to be a manager?” Yep, Sally, that’s exactly what I’m telling you and much more.

Let me contrast this story of struggle with an example of success:

I recently spent an afternoon with a business colleague and friend who is also a manager who “works well with others” better than anyone I know. When he’s around others they know they have his full attention and consideration, and they do (it’s sincere; not an act). He notices people and situations and takes the initiative to be helpful and caring, more so than most of us.

I’ve always known this about my friend but was vividly reminded during our walk that afternoon. Those we passed received a smile and hello. When we saw a baby bottle someone had dropped, he picked it up and put it on the cement wall so the owner could find it and no one would trip over it. When we came upon a couple taking pictures of each other, he asked if he could take their picture together and then had some fun with them to make sure they got a great shot. He interacted with people on the street, in shops, and in the restaurant where we had lunch in ways that made each person smile and brighten.

You might be thinking that I am silly for calling this out because these human acts are quite normal—or they should be. None of these moments were significant or extraordinary. I’ve done things like this and I’m sure you have, too. But here’s the distinction. He showed care in every moment. He was aware of others, noticed others, and proactively cared for others; and he did so while remaining fully engaged in our conversation.

And this translates to his work, too. My friend is someone people love working for. He brings out the best in others with his attention and interest. We can and should do this, too. You don’t need to take a training class or embody a particular behavioral style. We can relate to others by:

• choosing to be a powerful and positive influence

• taking the time and attention to notice others

• being gracious, kind, friendly, and helpful.

But you don’t need to add these expectations to your performance review or create a management competency called “caring.” Just try being more demonstrably caring and see what happens. Manage from a basis of positive care for others and you will find that your days, weeks, and years are more fruitful and that your good vibe spreads.

You’ve likely heard this saying: If a tree falls in a forest but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, I wonder if caring really exists if no one experiences our affection and goodwill. Most people, especially managers, care deeply. Why especially managers? Because management is a tough gig and one that we choose and take because we want to help others. However, even though most of us care—remember, Sally cared—we don’t always demonstrate that care such that others know and feel our positive intent. When it comes to your impact on others, perhaps it counts only when observed, received, and understood by them. That puts a lot more pressure on us, but it’s appropriate pressure.

Thankfully, it’s not hard or burdensome to make caring for others a more deliberate part of our daily regimen. Tiny actions—smiles, pictures, gestures of help—add up to make a big impression. Try including some of these into your daily routine:

• greeting staff and co-workers warmly

• remembering important days or milestones

• offering support

• removing a persistent barrier that’s standing in the way of or slowing an employee’s or peer’s progress

• showing interest

• expressing encouragement

• acknowledging strengths and accomplishments

• being available

• informal rounding in person or virtually for the purpose of checking in (not just asking for something).

But the benefit of being more well-liked should not be the reason that we choose to live a more generous (of ourselves) life. In other words, the caring must be genuine. This is not a management technique that you should track on a check sheet, although you might put ticklers on your calendar that prompt you to round or MBWA (manage by wandering around) for a few minutes. The friend I mentioned earlier does not wake up in the morning and plot how he will win people over. He simply cares about people and takes the initiative to show it.

Build Strong Relationships

Working well with others supports your ability to influence them. For managers, influence is critical to moving work forward and making things happen. Influence comes from others being willing to listen to you. Are you being heard? Are your ideas being considered? Are your concerns taken seriously? Are you included in discussions? Management is a social act, and influence is what happens when your conversations make a positive difference.

Building strong workplace relationships will help you improve influence. Peers, team members, bosses, and others are more likely to consider and be influenced by your input or suggestions if you’ve built a relationship with them. In the workplace, a relationship is a bond between you and another person you work with. Having a relationship requires you to know something about the other person and for them to know something about you. Your relationship needs some common interest or goal or circumstance. Why? Relationships exists when we relate.

Relationships help you manage. You’ve heard about the danger of first impressions and snap judgments, right? They’re often wrong. Sometimes way wrong! When we first see, hear, or observe someone we make up stories about what we’re seeing to make sense of it. But we don’t know the real story until we get to know that person.

Building relationships is doubly important for managers. You need to take action using good information based on accurate assumptions, and to do that you have to go beyond first impressions and surface-level acquaintances and get to know people for who they really are, what they’re trying to do, and why they’re doing it. I know that you have some great relationships at work; we all do. But many of us are lopsided when it comes to building relationships. We:

• have a few friends that we spend more time with than others

• let relationships just happen, or not

• hang out with people who are like us, in our same function, or with similar interests.

These natural selection methods are fine when developing friendships, but they’re inadequate when it comes to determining the workplace relationships that you’ll need to succeed. Working well with others means all others, especially those we work with regularly, such as team members, peers, bosses, key stakeholders, mentors, and support functions (for example, finance, human resources, or the supply chain).

Busy managers often don’t spend the time or effort needed to build and maintain relationships at work. And I get that. You’re already feeling like your to-do list is too long and growing. Working well with others is a priority, however, and building relationships is a core part of this step. Take a few moments to complete Worksheet 2-1.

Building relationships is not just about meeting with people, of course. But one-on-one discussions are often a great place to start. The getting to know you meeting—where you each share a bit about each other, your goals and priorities, and ways that your work overlaps, collides, or differs—is still one of the best ways to kickstart this process. Building and maintaining productive relationships enables you to create an effective partnership, which is the next part of working well with others that we’ll explore.

Be a Great Partner

Partnership is one of those words like communication and collaboration that gets tossed around a lot but often isn’t clarified to the point of being actionable. For managers, partnership requires mutual trust, shared purpose, shared ownership, critical thinking, shared success and failure, and effective inclusion and communication. That may sound like a lot, but simply boils down to having a foundation in place such that you do great work together. That’s our job: to do great work with others and to be an amazing partner so that our managerial engine drives the forward movement of goals, initiatives, projects, and people development.

Who should you be partnering with? Everyone will have a different list of key partners, but most managers focus on peers, fellow project team members, and support group personnel (for example, finance and HR).

What does partnership look like in action? It’s a beautiful thing when talented professionals work well together as partners. They co-create, co-lead, co-own, and co-control. Let’s explore what partnership looks like in more detail. Tool 2-2 lists several techniques you can use to develop and demonstrate partnership.

How are you doing? Are there practices in Tool 2-2 that you should add to your managerial regimen? Keep them in mind as we continue learning how to work well with others.

Dysfunction Reverberates

It’s a regular part of my management training courses to discuss the downsides of generating dysfunction. In fact, participants cheer and give me high-fives when they see we’re going to be talking about dysfunction. Kidding! I’m more likely to see eyerolls and disappointment. But once we get into it, we always end up having lively and important discussions.

And here’s the most important distinction. Dysfunction reverberates; it echoes and expands. Like the water droplet that causes ripples covering the entire puddle. There’s always some dysfunction in an organization, but as managers we should aim to reduce dysfunction where we can and not add to it. When people fail to work well together, many are affected. Here’s a typical sequence of events that will occur after something happens within a team meeting to cause tension or conflict:

1.   Conversations are less fruitful, and members move toward the meeting room door instead of digging deep to clarify or resolve the issue.

2.   Upstream and downstream internal customers are affected because those differences spill into team member discussions and affect their quality of work.

3.   Those around the team feel the pain, as the stress and tension are shared like hot Hollywood gossip.

4.   Bosses and bosses’ bosses get involved. Sometimes they help; sometimes they perpetuate or magnify the tension.

5.   Even those with no direct involvement hear about the issue and take sides. And even if they don’t take sides, they’ll certainly feel tension about the tension.

6.   Something that started small causes a major mojo malfunction (that’s the technical term for bringing down the vibe in the workplace).

Now imagine that the team members are managers instead of individual contributors. The reverberation of their dysfunction becomes much wider, and “goes viral” very quickly. Managers cannot expect their employees to be any more committed and passionate about the business than they demonstrate. The same adage goes for teaming. As a manager, you cannot expect your staff to work well together if you and your peer team don’t seem to care enough to role model the desired behaviors.

Dysfunction is often a symptom of inadequate relationship building. This is a topic I feel strongly about, and I’m going to assert something that you might find brash or bold. Management team dysfunction is irresponsible and immature, and I cannot fathom what is going on in someone’s head that rationalizes why it is OK to waste their time and their peers’ time because (for example) they don’t like someone’s style. You don’t like someone’s style? Are you kidding me? Managers should hold themselves to a higher standard and have similarly high standards for the team members who report to them. Clashes in style or approach or opinions should never get in the way of working well together. Never. It is well worth the time you need to invest to build strong peer relationships and well worth biting your tongue on occasion (or putting your ego temporarily aside).

I’ve observed peers who generate dysfunction, while others partner well in spite of their differences. The distinction between these two groups is often that the latter took the time and energy to build strong relationships. This takes some work, of course, and you might not learn what’s amazing about your peers until the third or fourth time you partner with them. We are all amazingly talented and terrifically flawed, and the more we can get to know one another the more we can appreciate what’s amazing and support each other’s growth. And perhaps, just perhaps, we can make amazing things happen together.

We’ve covered a lot in this chapter. Your success has more to do with your ability to work well with others than almost anything else. Of all the steps shared in this book, this one could have the most profound effect on your ability to manage well.

Building ACCEL Skills

The management techniques we’ve explored in step 2 will help you build the following ACCEL skills:

• Collaboration: Building relationships, showing that you care, and demonstrating partnership will support your efforts to collaborate more fully.

• Communication: We explored communication techniques and barriers in all five sections of this chapter. Effective communication is an essential part of working well with others.

• Engagement: While there might not be a direct or obvious connection between this step and employee engagement, the two are quite interdependent. Working well with others creates a positive and purposeful energy that will serve your efforts to increase employee engagement.

• Listening and assessing: To work well with others—to show care, build relationships, partner, and reduce dysfunction—you must listen well. As you practice the techniques presented in step 2, you will notice that you’re spending more time listening and that the conversations you are having are more substantive.

Your Turn

Working well with others is a practice you’ll hone and cultivate your entire career. Here are a few things you can do now to focus your development:

• Reflect on the five sections within this chapter. Review the tools, exercises, and sidebars. Jot down a short list of actions you think might benefit you most.

• Discuss the topic of working well with others with your manager and mentor or coach. Ask for feedback about your strengths and on which areas they believe your development should focus. Keep an open mind and be coachable. This area of performance—our teaming behaviors—tends to feel more personal, so it could evoke an emotional response.

• For one week, focus on showing that you care. However, don’t be over-the-top or creepy about it. Be visible, walk around more, and greet people with a kind word. See how you feel at the end of the week and adjust your plan for the following week.

• Notice how dysfunction starts and spreads. Think about changes—actions or behaviors—that could’ve prevented disagreements or miscommunications from creating dysfunction within your team. Use these observations to better manage the situations you face each day.

The Next Step

So far, we’ve focused on building an effective overall approach to your work. In the next step, you’ll use what you’ve learned in steps 1 and 2 to better manage your team.