I remember working for someone who wanted to know updates on what I was doing each day. It made it difficult to get anything done with all her requests and I wondered if she had lost trust in me. She was a bit of a micromanager, but I also understood that she was under a lot of pressure from our management. We were working on a high exposure program that had high expectations and impact for the organization.
My manager had received the message loud and clear, “Failure is not an option.”
Now, this wasn’t a life and death situation like it was for NASA and the crew of the Apollo 13 capsule to get them back to earth after they had issues with their ship. However, this program was still a big deal and it had to go well.
When my manager came to me about something else one day, I realized that I needed to do something different. She wouldn’t come to me if I proactively gave her more information. I think I was so busy, that it didn’t occur to me before that moment to be more proactive. It wasn’t great for either one of us when she had to come ask me for the next thing. I changed everything from that point on about how I communicated with her.
Things were moving really fast on the program, so I sent a status report at the end of each day. I included updates on the deliverables that we had, the decisions that were made, the issues/risks that were uncovered, plans to solve them, and what was planned next. I thought about what else she had asked me for in the past and what she might need next. I knew that many of the requests were coming from her managers.
My goal was to give her visibility to everything that she might get questions on so she was prepared.
Sending a status report is so simple and easy to do, but in the day to day work I was doing, it didn’t occur to me. I thought she knew where things stood and that I would only lean on her for escalations since she was busy. I was wrong. Is your manager asking you for information all the time? Is there a more proactive approach that you can use? You may not need to provide daily updates, weekly updates may be enough.
Think of your manager as your client. What would you do to keep your client informed? What value can you provide to help them be successful? How can you provide more visibility to what you are doing and equip them with the information they need to make decisions? I have seen the use of a status report work so well to build trust and confidence. Remember visibility is the amplification of your voice and a status report is just another means to help you do that!