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By Donald P. Orlando

This year, why not extend one of your New Year's resolutions to your boss? Whether you'll be working with a new boss, or continuing a professional relationship with a supervisor you've known for years, this article lays out strategy and tactics you need to move ahead in your current firm or start looking for other opportunities.

Familiarity Breeds Assumptions; Assumptions Breed Disappointment
How easy it is to see our work as a series of projects that come from our boss. You do them as best you can and hope that she is pleased. When you do, you make lots of assumptions that can lead to problems later. There is a better way.

If you can learn more about where your boss fits into your organization, you can plan your own contributions with greater confidence and even pave the way for raise. Here's the step-by-step plan:

1. Pick the right time. When you start a new job, get on your boss' calendar immediately. If you wait for even a day, you'll find yourself distracted with the nitty gritty of learning "how we do things" at your new company. Your boss will appreciate your initiative as well. It's so much easier to talk about common goals and preferred methods when there is no crisis that brought both of you together for your first meeting.

   If you've been on the job for a while, pick a time when you will both be free from interruption. The morning of the afternoon staff meeting or the day your boss is to meet with an important client are not the right occasions. Old boss or new, they'll both appreciate having this brief, informal meeting over coffee close to the office.

2. Set the right tone. If you're new, tell the boss you want to hear the ground rules and goals in his own words. If you're meeting with a boss you've known, let this be a time to align goals. This isn't a performance review because there should be a separate channel for those discussions. Of course, you'll treat every part of this discussion as confidential.
3. Ask the right questions: Your first goal is to understand how your boss sees the straight line that connects what he does with corporate profitability. Consider asking your boss these questions to help you reach that goal:
   • "What is the one priority that drives what you do each day?"
   • "Which objective measures do you apply to judge our success in contributing to our mission?"

   Your second goal is to smooth the workflow between you and your boss. What pet peeves does he have? How does she prefer to communicate as you work together? The time to find out your boss hates email and rarely reads them is before you send one to her.

   Your third goal is to know how and when she will review your performance. Chances are your company has a performance review form. Look it over before this meeting. If you don't know which indicators of performance in each area tie to an outstanding rating, there is no one better to ask than the person who will sign that important document. And you certainly don't want to experience that sinking feeling when you boss reminds you that your one-year performance review comes up next Monday.

4. Trust, but verify. You should see direct parallels between what your boss finds important and what senior leadership finds vital. If your company is publicly traded, download the SEC Annual Report from the corporate website. Read the first few pages very carefully. That's where you'll find what the CEO and President hold most dearly. You should see the same consistency throughout the website (in the "Who we are" section), in press releases, in internal memos you've read, and in the corporate newspaper. Even what you hear around the water cooler should be consistent with your boss' thoughts. (I know you won't confuse the normal griping and rumors with confusion about what the company stands for.)
5. Document your ROI. How quickly we let the press of business keep us from recording our own progress. Add a resolution that you will, three times a week, jot down the following information.

   What problem did I solve? No matter your job title, you are paid to solve problems. Take care that you focus on the problem and not the symptom. For example, if you noticed an increase in scrap rate at the plant you supervise, that's only the symptom. When you trace the rising scrap rate to a lack of preventative maintenance, you are much closer to the actual problem.

   What did you do to solve the problem? This is not the place for a set of generalities. Make your actions clear. Continuing the example above, you may have compared the PM records with the manufacturer's recommendations, found a shortfall, analyzed the production schedule to find the least intrusive time to complete scheduled maintenance, coordinated with production managers so staff was available and with inventory control to be sure the parts were on hand.

   What were the results? Quantify if you can. Compare if you can. Place your actions in context if you can. Here's an example: After we implemented my new preventive maintenance schedule scrap rate fell from 4.0 percent to 2.0 percent in just 30 days. We saved $150K in material costs as well.

6. Offer your company a great ROI. Polish your year-long list of problems solved and send it to your boss about a week before your performance review. The cover memo explains there are many things you do that don't require your boss' time, but you wanted her to see examples of your work. You hope these examples will be the foundation to increase your value to the company. In other words, you are about to ask for a raise. Now cinch the deal by offering a great rate of return on your contributions. Continuing the example from above, I can hear you say: "I love what I do. And I want to be sure our company gets a great return, something close to 90 percent on things like that $150K I saved in materials cost this year alone." In other words, you want the company to get $148,500. You get $15,000.
7. Know when it's time to go. Good help is hard to find, but should be easy to retain. When companies treat top performers well, when they compensate them fairly, people drive themselves to new heights. When companies don't do this, they shouldn't expect the best to stay. In other cases, it's a matter of outgrowing the opportunity. Do you find yourself solving the same problems again and again? Are the positions you should be promoted to occupied by capable or immovable incumbents? Those are good indicators that it's time to go.

The best New Year's resolutions are rooted in good outcomes. In this article, I've suggested ways to spread those good results beyond yourself to include your boss and your firm.

Don Orlando helps senior and very senior professionals win the careers they have always deserved, get paid what they are worth, and have fun in the process. He can be reached at 334.264.2020 or yourcareercoach@charterinternet.com.

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