Every manager is hired for a reason. It is why he joins the company. You can call it his essential assignment (task) – job to be done. It may be written in his contract or just communicated at the beginning. Sometimes it is assumed. The assignment like help to grow this company, build a new team, disrupt the old ways, or complete/expand a project. Or something of that kind.
And sometime later, after lots of hard and dedicated work done, an unexpected problem emerges. It is visible as a discord between the manager and his superior. This gap tends to grow slowly, but steadily.
The situation is hard to understand, and no answers ready for what happens and why it happens. The initial atmosphere of an open collaboration seems to be lost and often replaced by growing concern. The different signs that are evident but hard to decode. It is like there is a reason for all that, but it remains unknown.
During this time, the manager can experience lowered access to the boss and decreased interest in what he is doing like it suddenly does not matter anymore. He is not invited to crucial meetings anymore, and his peers slowly distance themselves from him.
The requests to discuss the situation would be evaded or postponed. Soon the manager is moved to the sideline. It seems evident that some of the expectations were not met. The notice of termination is a matter of time. The manager loses the job. What had happened?
The explanation is – he followed the official assignment. But there is always another assignment – the informal one and these two are rarely the same. It is essential to understand the difference, because if you excel at the formal appointment, but fail the informal one – you will be gone. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be.
The effort to understand the informal (primary) assignment, it’s very crucial yet tricky since it is rarely stated boldly. Yes, it is communicated, but rarely directly, and usually not when you expect to hear it. The message is more subtle, often conveyed within another, in layers, like matryoshka. You need to be precisely tuned in to notice it. Till you don’t understand your real assignment – you are going to miss it.
What are these informal assignments from the boss? Here are a few examples but the list could be very long:
‘I want to be in total control (tell me about everything you do or hear).’
‘I don’t want to hear about or discuss any problems (it stresses me), please come only with the solutions (even if you don’t have the right one).’
‘I want you to help me oust my rival or the other manager/founder (stand on my side no matter what).’
‘Be loyal to me, always show it (your performance is secondary).’
‘Do your job, but never, never try to outshine me (I will present your work as my successes, live with it).’
In the long run, you have to observe them (yes, there may be more than one), and play according to the rules set within any particular assignment. Failing to do so will almost certainly cost you the position. It’s just a matter of time. The power play does not leave much space here.
Remember that the informal assignment can change and evolve with time, so you are not exempt from ongoing validation. Focusing only on the job will never work out if you forget the relational part of being a manager and understanding the core expectations, even non-explicit ones – is an integral part of it. The omission here is penalized the same way as when you forget to present and internally sell your work accurately.
What to do if there is no informal assignment? There is, there always is – you don’t see it yet, and therefore you are stepping on dangerous ground as a manager.
If you think you can survive without bothering, well, you may, for a while. There is no escape from this. Your only chance would be that your formal and informal assignments are the same or inline all the time. And that is a rare thing.
And one more thing – the same principles may be easily applied to a relation between a founder and an investor. The assignments may be different, but finding out the informal one is still an important task.