OG Tuesday Issue #183

✅ Today’s checklist: 

• Should you try dependency mapping?
• Manage up your disorganized boss
• TA subscriber Mallory Rothstein shares the best career advice she’s received

🤔 Riddle me this: What is it that no one wants, but no one wants to lose? (Find the answer on the bottom).

QUICK LINKS

💼 Employee Retention: Ditch the corporate ladder and lattice and push for career leveraging.

💡 Soft Skills: Your ultimate guide to grit and mental toughness.

🧠 Brain Power: Training to reduce cognitive bias may improve decision making after all.

🤔 Job Search: Beware of “ghost jobs” causing major time sinks for job seekers.

💁🏻‍♀️ Confidence: A writer’s inspiring journey to claiming her seat at the table through podcasting.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

PRODUCTIVITY

Map dependencies to make stronger plans

The best-laid plans of mice and men!

People use this proverb to lament the seemingly inexplicable failure of their pristine plans. (Fun fact: The saying comes from To a Mouse, a poem written by Robert Burns in 1785.)

The saying, while fun and all, suggests most plans are doomed to fail.

We’re not interested in accepting that, are we?

Instead of lamenting failed plans, let’s ask why they failed.

Many of the best-laid plans fail because of the massive gap between how we make plans and how we execute plans.

• We make plans in the controlled environments of our minds.
• We execute plans in the uncontrollable chaos of reality.

Dependency mapping can help us close this gap.

By mapping dependencies in our plans and projects, we can better prepare them for the real world.

Say what?

Dependency mapping refers to the process of visualizing (using elements such as diagrams and Gantt charts) all the ways your plan and its components may interact with or be affected by the environment or system in which it will be executed.

It’s evaluating your plan’s strengths and weaknesses in a more realistic context.

Dependency mapping is to a planner what a flight simulator is to a pilot.

It’s not reality but it provides an opportunity to more clearly visualize reality and figure out what you might need to work on before launch day.

It can help you notice problems, vulnerabilities, and needs.

It provides contextual understanding that you’ll need to make smart decisions when you have to adjust your plan and make difficult choices.

Give it a try! Precursive has a simple how-to that’s not just for coders and designers.

If you want a more intensive team exercise, then take a look at Atlassian’s comprehensive Dependency Mapping Play.

TRAINING

Intro to AI and Automation for Admins 

BIGGEST CHALLENGE

Help ME help my indecisive boss

One TA Subscriber needs help handling a disorganized boss:

My biggest challenge is a disorganized boss who overthinks, over-talks, finally makes a decision, and changes her mind a few days later. Best part: Complains about being so busy. She is also a lovely, smart person.

This is a tough one, indeed.

It can’t be easy to watch your potentially stellar boss self-sabotage herself day after day, especially when it seems like she means well.

Her overthinking and indecision, more than likely, stem from her fear of making the wrong decisions.

Put another way: Her problems come from an earnest desire to do the right things.

That’s good news for you, dear reader. A boss who’s simply struggling to deliver on her good intentions is an ideal candidate for managing up.

This is a formidable challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to make yourself indispensable while leading from behind the scenes and perfecting your ability to influence.

The fact that you recognize your boss’s overthinking suggests you might not be as susceptible to it, that you might have opinions on the topics she’s being indecisive about — that you and your ideas might be her solution and yours.

Here are two strategies for managing up with grace and respect:

1. Manage up by asking strategic questions

Start by determining what you think your boss should do or decide.

Work backward from this end goal, asking questions to help your boss arrive where you did hours ago.

For example, if you’re rooting for option A because it has way more “pros” than option B, then you might ask her what she sees as the benefits of each option. Sit back and see if she arrives at a similar conclusion to yours.

Even if she arrives at a different conclusion, at least you’re still accelerating her travel time!

2. Manage up using the art of repeat exposure

This strategy is similar to strategic questioning.

You still begin by determining what you think your boss should do or decide, but instead of asking questions to get her onto your page, you present ideas and suggestions gradually and repetitively until they sink in.

(Advertising relies on repeat exposure all the time, as you’ve probably noticed if you have a base-level Hulu subscription.)

For example, you could bring up, every day for one week, one benefit you see about option A.

With hope, this leads to a decision, or a conversation at least.

TOGETHER WITH BONUSLY

Managers: Your Secret Weapon for a High-Performing Culture

 

 

We used Bonusly at the last company I worked, and everyone LOVED it.

How it works: You have a set amount of points each month (in my case it was 100 pts) that you can award to teammates along with a message.

What I personally loved about Bonusly:

• Your points don’t roll over so it encourages you to use them before they expire; you celebrate your team’s wins, big and small
• The feed is public so everyone (including C-suite) can see how awesome you are
• Points can be redeemed for rewards (I always redeemed mine for cash and bought flights to Cabo once!)
• Set up is a breeze & easily scalable; our company grew to 1,000+ employees, and the plans were easy to switch as we grew.

Have more questions? Feel free to reply to this email or, better yet, set up a quick free demo here.

— Joanna (Co-Founder of The Assist)

SUBSCRIBER SPOTLIGHT

What’s the best career advice you’ve received?

STAFF PICKS

Stuff we’re loving this week

JUST FOR FUN

SPILL THE TEA

Before you go…

⭐ Answer to the riddle.