Being Effective and Liked in the Workplace

A couple weeks ago, I wrote an article about how to be liked by service employees and blue collar workers. I wasn’t writing about “in the workplace” or “as a manager,” but most commenters read it as both.

Today, let’s actually talk about being effective (and yes, liked) in the workplace. I’ve been out of a corporate environment for years now, but my last corporate gig was at a large insurance company. It wasn’t managerial, though I led the occasional team and was responsible for one large departmental reorganization. Instead, I was a senior line employee: responsible for getting stuff done that required the help of many other people, but without the authority to just make them do things. By my count, at one point, up to 16 other specialties, spread across almost a dozen different departments, could be required.

I had no authority, but I needed other people to get my job done.

Until I went off the rails in my last year or so, I was very good at this job. And I’ve held line authority positions elsewhere, including being a dispatcher and a managing editor.

So, here are Ian’s guidelines for getting folks to do what you want, at work, and having them like it. To be clear, these never worked on everyone, but they have always worked on enough people.

First, find something to admire. A couple years into that corporate gig, I was talking to a friend who was complaining about our co-workers and how she could never get them to do anything for her.

I said, “Most of the people you’re complaining about are happy to help me. It might be that I like them.” The co-worker she found a persnickity snob, I found precise, knowledgeable, and willing to share his knowledge. The boss she disliked (our mutual boss) was one of the best bosses I ever had, understanding and kind, who never failed to give me the material support I needed. And so on.

Most people go through life with very little admiration. Their families take them for granted at best, nag them at worst. Their bosses pay them attention only when something goes wrong. Their coworkers are concerned only with themselves. All of this is natural– people’s first and second concern tends to be themselves, and they are interested in others only as those people reflect them.

But it’s not hard to find something to admire or like in most people. Maybe they work hard, maybe they’re reliable, maybe they’re really precise, maybe they’re insightful. Find something and genuinely admire it. Don’t be a flatterer, your admiration and appreciation must be real. Faking it is endless work, and unless you’re really great at being fake, you’ll screw it up.

Remember, you don’t need everyone, you just need enough people.

People can tell when you actually like and admire them. And they want to keep that admiration, so they’ll be generous with their time, advice, and help. This isn’t enough by itself, but it is the essential foundation.

Next, treat them right.

I had a few rules I followed at work.

1) If I ask someone to stay late to do something for me, I don’t leave until the job is done, either. It’s my job to be there to help them if they need it. In seven years at that job, I only left work once before someone who was doing me a favor. I apologized and she forgave me, but if I had made a habit of it, she wouldn’t have stayed late for me.

2) If someone helped me, I cleared the way for them. If I asked them to do something, I ran all the interference I could; I got their bosses permission if necessary, if anyone else was needed to help, I was the one who ran them down. If they needed anything else to get it done, I got it.

3) If they were doing me a favor and something went wrong, I took the blame, even if I could have shifted it onto them, even if they made a mistake. They would never lose from helping me if I could make it so they didn’t.

4) If something went right, I made sure they got the credit, and that meant to their boss, to their face, and publicly to others. They got praise, and that praise went where it would make their lives better. Including in writing when appropriate (usually) and in terms of my nominating them for workplace prizes and whatnot.

5) In general, I acted like they were great people, and I meant it. My gratitude was not fake or bombastic, it was real. I was glad to see them, I smiled at them. I thought they were great people. (Note, I did not socialize with my co-workers, with very few exceptions.  This is not based on being their out-of-work friends.)

Did everyone like me? Hell no, some people hated my guts. But enough people liked me. I was able to get many people to do favors for me they would not do for actual management. I was able to get people to stay late, for example, who would simply not stay late for their actual bosses. (It was the sort of workplace at which the boss could not just order someone to work extra hours.)

I was also always on very good terms with my immediate boss, which has been the case in almost all my jobs, simply because I delivered.

Unfortunately, I can’t give any advice on managing up beyond the immediate boss level. As a rule, I’ve always been terrible at dealing with upper-upper-management. Perhaps because they’re used to people saying what they want to hear, and I don’t do that.  Remember, my admiration was real. But I don’t blow smoke up people’s asses: If something can’t be done, I say so. If something is illegal (I handled the compliance for the area), I say so. If there will be negative effects from a decision, I say what they are. And if more resources are needed to get something done properly and in time, I let them know.

Or, perhaps, I was just kind of a jerk.

But the jerkiness was, in most cases, predicated on protecting my people. I can’t override management, especially senior management, but I can put my body in the way, and I can say, “If you do that, it’s going to go wrong in the following ways.”

A few senior management types appreciated that, my direct managers almost always did (a couple exceptions aside), but the more senior the management was, the less I found they were interested in the real world consequences of their decisions, and the more they wanted to be told “we can do that,” even if their ideas were terrible.

So, that’s the Ian Prescription for getting shit done at work, and being liked by enough people, but pissing off the wrong people. Will you be loved? I can’t say I was. Not really my personality at the time. But when I asked for help or favors, I got them.

The same general strategy worked when I was in leadership positions, if combined with strict fairness. When I was a dispatcher, for example, I did not play favorites. The person who could do the delivery fastest got the delivery, even if it was an easy, well-paying one; I didn’t give it to my “favorites.” You only got sidelined for important deliveries if you’d proved, again and again, that you were unreliable. Most dispatchers I dealt with had favorites. I, being human, did too. But I didn’t let that affect my dispatching.

In leadership: fairness. People are treated in accordance with their demonstrated abilities and are given chances to show what they can do. Their successes are celebrated, publicly, their failures discussed in private unless an example needs to be made (which, on occasion they did; justice must be seen to be done).

All of this, in my opinion, is just an extended example of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; combined with some common sense (no, I’m not going to let you do shoddy work).

Treat people right, and they’ll treat you right. There are some people with whom “right” treatment doesn’t work. If I’m a manager, I get rid of those people. If I’m in a position, as I was in my corporate gig where I didn’t have the power to do so, I’d sideline them to the extent that I could; nothing “mission critical” or “Ian critical” went through them if I could avoid it.

Treat people right. It isn’t hard.

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