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Ten Tips on Communicating with Your Manager

As a general rule, it is better to communicate more frequently than less frequently.  Make certain that your communications are precise. 

  1. Have substantive discussions in which you examine the good, the bad and the ugly issues involving credit and collections
  2. Remember that bad news does not improve with age
  3. Honesty is the only policy applicable to interactions with your manager
  4. Managers usually hate surprises, so try to provide advanced notices or simply ‘heads-up’ about potential problems
  5. As your manager for their preferred method of communication.  Some prefer face to face discussions, others emails or memos.  Use whatever method they prefer whenever possible
  6. Find out if your manager prefers stop in visits, or if you should make an appointment to see them
  7. Be prepared with all relevant documents when you meet to discuss an issue.  Otherwise, you appear unprepared
  8. Try never to disagree with your manager in a public setting
  9. Before sharing your opinion assuming that it differs from your manager’s point of view, make sure your manager does not view sharing differences of opinion as either a challenge to their authority or disloyal
  10. Never present a problem to your manager without also presenting one or more options / solutions.

© 2010 by Michael C. Dennis.  All Rights Reserved