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Lead from Wherever You Are

Up, Down, Sideways … and Diagonal

Nate works as a manufacturing manager in a major company that makes truck steering systems. To do his job, he regularly collaborates across the organization, whether it’s with purchasing or quality or engineering. One of his biggest frustrations is when things don’t go well with his counterpart from another department. It’s never clear how to resolve the problem or who has the final word on a disagreement. “Whenever I ask my boss to intervene on my behalf, back me up, and help me get what I need,” Nate says, “his first, second, and third response is almost always, ‘Work things out at your own level.’ ”

That response has become one of the mantras of the collaboration revolution. “Work things out at your level” effectively pushes as much communication, decision making, and cooperative action as far down the chain of command as possible. When it works well, everything runs more smoothly and swiftly: information exchange, planning, resource sharing, and execution. It also reduces unnecessary problems and waste.

When people don’t work things out at their own level and get in the habit of going over each other’s heads, to the boss or the boss’s boss, trust and confidence within work relationships suffer, along with the work itself. Getting things done indirectly through the boss is not the best way to make your expectations clear and make a solid plan. That diminution in planning leads to further delays, mistakes, and resentment.

So, what is Nate’s gripe with “work it out at your own level”? “The problem,” says Nate, “is I don’t have the authority I need to work things out at my level. We don’t always have the same agenda. We have competing priorities and limited resources, not to mention egos.”

The Authority Conundrum

Nate is grappling with what I call “the authority conundrum.” The goal is to empower collaboration throughout the organization as far down the chain of command as possible. But when there’s a problem and you’re left to work things out at your own level, by definition nobody has the power of rank to resolve things swiftly and efficiently. And the conundrum emerges even when you are dealing with people in diagonal roles—up or down. One person might have a higher rank, but no one has direct authority, which complicates the relationship even more.

So, to Nate’s point, when you have conflicting agendas, priorities, resource needs, and egos, you get into power struggles. That’s why so many people in Nate’s position “escalate the matter,” which is corporate-speak for going over each other’s heads.

The fact is that despite the collaboration revolution, with its flatter organizations and self-managed project teams, there is always somebody in charge who is making decisions. Choices are considered up and down the chain of command. At your own level, there will always be conflicts that can’t be worked out.

What can you do? There are three logical possibilities:

1. You can escalate conflicts and try to get your boss to intervene on your behalf, which might mean further escalation to your boss’s boss—which may or may not produce a resolution.
2. You can resist escalations and remain frozen in conflicts at your own level.
3. You can try to collaborate as if you have all the authority you need—ignore the proper lines of authority, sidestep or end-run the chain of command, and assume or presume what the boss’s answer would be to the problem.

“Proceed until apprehended. That was our strategy,” says Chris, a former executive in a federal agency. She was describing how her team dealt with the many unclear lines of authority in its working relationships with people in other offices, agencies, and departments. “We’d get an interagency request, or we’d have some initiative we were keen to pursue that required participation by another office,” she says. “Nobody had the authority. It was like the Wild West.”

How did that work out? “Sometimes it was fine, if all the people involved were on the same page,” says Chris. “But too often we were just moving ahead blindly until it would come back to bite us. We’d all buy in to somebody’s great idea and invest time and energy and budget dollars. Then it would turn out there was no support at higher levels. So, the whole thing would get scratched. Or we’d decline a request, and then be overruled by the bosses and end up getting a late start. Or we’d disagree about something and fight it out until one or the other prevailed, or not.”

Too many people find themselves, in effect, proceeding until apprehended, leading to the kinds of real business problems and costs that Chris describes. That’s often the net effect of “work things out at your own level.”

Meantime, most people in the workplace need a lot more guidance than they get when it comes to managing their sideways and diagonal working relationships. But they feel they are discouraged from going to their managers for that guidance until things are already going wrong. Or they sidestep authority and go in the wrong direction until it comes back to bite them.

The ad hoc, unstructured, as-needed communication typical of the collaboration revolution often breeds unnecessary problems that get out of control—leading to delays, errors, squandered resources, and plenty of relationship damage.

What’s the go-to person to do?

Align, Align, Align

The answer is alignment. How you align yourself in terms of decision making and support—and with whom—is the first core mechanism of becoming indispensable at work.

“I don’t have the power myself, so I go get the power from my boss,” says Fernando, an IT service tech manager in a large accounting firm. “We have a system for ranking service tickets and project work, but of course every ticket is somebody’s special urgent priority. Everybody wants their IT issues put higher in the queue. Before I took over the team, people here were in the habit of going over the tech manager’s head or even going to the boss or the boss’s boss. Nobody does that now.”

What changed?

Fernando says, “Since I took over, we beat them to the punch every time. We go over our own heads before anyone else can. I’ve already gone to my boss, every time, before anybody else can go over my head. My techs have already come to me, every time, before anybody else. We are all totally aligned. So, there is no point to going over our heads.”

Does that mean Fernando has to check with his boss every time he makes a move? And do his techs have to check with Fernando every time before they make a move? “Only if we don’t already know the answer,” says Fernando. “If we don’t know, then we’d better check. But we almost always already know the answer. I don’t speak for my boss, but I might as well, because nine times out of ten, I already know what he would say. The same is true with my techs. They already know what I would say, in almost every case, so they might as well speak for me.”

Can you say the same about you and your boss and your chain of command? Are you so aligned with your boss and your boss’s boss that you might as well speak for them because you already know what they would say?

Remember, you are not in charge, but somebody is. Decisions are being made at a higher level. If you are going to have the power to operate without authority and work things out at your own level—what I call working sideways (and diagonal)—then, first, you’ve got to align yourself with the people making decisions: you’ve got to go vertical.

Go Vertical Before Going Sideways (or Diagonal)

Going vertical is one of the secrets to becoming an indispensable go-to person. At work you deal with so many people from all over the organization chart—up, down, sideways, and diagonal—that in order to keep your priorities straight and set yourself up for success, you must align yourself vertically along the way. You need to know clearly where you have discretion and where you don’t. The only place to get that clarity is from above.

When you don’t know an answer, you’d better check with your boss. Over time, you will get the answers to many questions that recur, and you’ll learn more about the organization’s overarching objectives and policies, ground rules, politics, and standing marching orders. The more you check, up front and in advance, before proceeding, the more situational awareness you’ll gain—and the less likely you’ll be apprehended going in the wrong direction.

The same goes for your direct reports. You must align with them so they understand their marching orders and have the authority to make choices and get their work done.

So, vertical alignment (up and down) is your anchor because:

• If nine times out of ten you already know exactly what your boss (and your boss’s boss) would say, you have a lot more power to work sideways (and diagonal)—to communicate, decide, and take action—with confidence. That power comes from managing up.
• If nine times out of ten your direct reports already know exactly what you (and your boss) would say, then they have a lot more power, too. That’s the power you give your direct reports by managing down—aka, just plain managing.
• It is also much easier to deal with sideways and diagonal colleagues who ensure their own vertical alignment, with their own bosses and direct reports. Otherwise you may think you are making decisions and taking action with colleagues at your own level only to find that they were never empowered to do business with you in the first place. While you can’t control that, you can try to check up front.

What does it take to attain such vertical alignment? Let’s start by looking at managing up (managing your bosses) and down (just plain managing your direct reports), because what needs to happen for alignment in both directions is the same: regular, structured communication at every step to clarify priorities, marching orders, and expectations, and to plan, track performance, and solve problems while they are still small. If you are anybody’s boss, that is a huge responsibility. Do not take it lightly. And if your boss is not managing you, then you had better start managing your boss. (See the sidebar “Extreme Alignment.”)

Extreme Alignment

Thriving in the collaboration revolution means staying in alignment with your boss, your direct reports, and your colleagues (sideways and diagonal) in the organization. To make yourself truly indispensable, go the extra mile with extreme alignment:

• Regularly provide drafts or samples of your work in progress. Don’t wait until a routine review of the work comes along; by then, you might discover you’ve been doing a task the wrong way for quite some time. Even if you have a clear deliverable with a concrete deadline, don’t wait until you deliver the final product to find out if it meets the expectations. Instead, check in with your boss, direct report, or colleagues early on. That means not just describing but actually showing drafts or samples: “This is an example of the product I’m building. Does this meet your requirements? What adjustments should I make?”
• Ask your boss, direct reports, or colleagues to watch you work. Watching you complete a task will give them a clear view of what you are doing and how you are doing it. This also gives you an opportunity to have your work spot-checked to identify and solve any hidden problems. For example, if you manage a database, ask your collaborators to walk through some records, chosen at random, with you to check for quality. If you write reports, ask colleagues to look at early drafts or draft sections.
• In every one-on-one conversation, provide a full and honest account of your activities. Account for exactly what you’ve done on your assignments for that person since your last conversation: “These are the concrete actions I’ve taken. This is what I did and how I did it. These are the steps I followed in order to meet or exceed the expectations we set together.” Once you’ve given an honest account, ask to clarify next steps. As long as you are engaged in an ongoing, consistent, one-on-one dialogue with that person, this element will become routine.
• Use self-monitoring tools. Track your concrete actions by making good, rigorous use of project plans, checklists, and activity logs. Monitor in writing whether you are meeting the goals and deadlines laid out in a project plan. Make notes and report to your collaborators at regular intervals. Use an activity log, a diary noting exactly what you are doing all day, including breaks and interruptions. Each time you move on to a new activity, note the time and the new activity. Even if you do this only periodically, you will still acquire valuable information about how efficiently you work, and you can make adjustments accordingly.
• Spread the word. Ask customers, vendors, coworkers, and everyone else you work with to give you honest feedback about your performance in relation to them. Ask them in writing, “How am I doing?” People talk. Word spreads. You should know what people think about your work. Use that data as feedback to help you improve.

Vertical Alignment: Managing Up—and Down

Before anything else, you need to go up the chain of command, on a regular basis, to ensure you have the power you need to do your job. Get in the habit of going over your own head at every step and align with your boss through regular structured dialogue.

Align with Your Boss to Manage Competing Priorities

Let’s say you are a would-be go-to person who also assumes a role in a cross-functional working group or a special project team. At the outset, you might be asked to commit a percentage of your daily or weekly schedule, say, 20 percent, for some period of time, say, three months.

What happens? Soon that 20 percent turns into 30 percent or 50 percent, and three months turns into four or five or six. Often, this is because of “scope creep”—the bounds of the project expand. What happens to you, though, is what I call “role creep.” Your role in this special project takes on its own life and starts to take over your job.

You try to deal with it. You work harder and have a good attitude. After all, you think, how long can this last? At project team meetings, you see you’re not alone in being late on your deliverables. Everything is behind schedule, and it looks as if this project will continue even longer than you thought.

At this point, you have three options:

1. Try to be a superhero and keep doing everything. Perhaps you will be able to do it all forever. But you will probably find yourself becoming more and more overcommitted. Perhaps you succumb to siege mentality and start resisting every other opportunity that comes your way. Meanwhile, you risk errors and delays. Maybe you disappoint your boss or your project team. You probably end up disappointing both.
2. Double down on your commitment to your role in this project and diminish your commitment to your primary job.
3. Diminish your commitment to this project and double down on your commitment to your primary job.

Regardless of the option you choose, the most important thing is, first, go vertical and manage up. You need to be in dialogue with your boss on the matter, checking in every step of the way.

Aisha is a marketing executive who found herself overcommitted after being pulled into a seemingly endless project on a cross-functional team. She wisely sat down with her boss to discuss what to do. It turned out that neither saw much of a choice; the project had to be done and so did her regular job. Aisha was the only real candidate for both. But she felt a whole lot better making the choice to play the superhero with her boss’s support. Now they both shared responsibility for the fact that Aisha was carrying an overwhelming workload for an extended period of time.

Aisha kept up the regular structured dialogue with her boss, and at some point, the boss saw that she was doing a spectacular job balancing the overload—and he recommended her for a promotion. But even if Aisha had begun to drown in overcommitment and not handled it well, because she and her boss stayed in dialogue, they were both more likely to have seen that coming. Her boss could have provided her with extra support, perhaps someone who could backfill part of Aisha’s work in her primary job or on the extra project, or both.

Likewise, if Aisha and her boss had chosen option two, to double down on the cross-functional project, Aisha would still maintain close contact with her boss to help find and support someone to backfill her work in her primary job. She’d need to document her current best practices in the form of step-by-step work instructions for all her transferable primary tasks, responsibilities, and projects (if she hadn’t already prepared these job aids for herself, being the go-to person that she is). She would likely assist in training the person backfilling her role.

Because she made these moves in alignment with her boss, everything would probably go more smoothly than if she were just winging it on her own. In the process, she would have the opportunity to help build up a new go-to person to fill in at her primary job. That would enhance her leadership skills and experience, as well as her growing network of go-to people.

Finally, what if Aisha had chosen option three instead, telling her boss that she really didn’t like being on the project team and wanted to be able to commit at least 80 percent of her time to her primary job? Or maybe her boss has really missed Aisha and wants her back full-time. Either way, there would be some political work to be done with the project team members and the executive sponsor of the cross-functional team. Aisha’s boss might or might not get involved to help her diminish her role in—or remove her altogether from—the project.

But by staying in close consultation and cooperation with her boss as well as with her collaborators on the cross-functional team, Aisha would be much more likely to win the support she needs. Again, her withdrawal from the project fully or partially might present another great opportunity for Aisha to help develop somebody else to take over some or all of her role on the project, lifting them up as a new go-to person and expanding her network.

Align with Your Direct Reports

Just as you must stay aligned with your boss, your direct reports need to stay aligned with you, and you need to take responsibility for ensuring that alignment. Your direct reports don’t want to waste time and energy going in the wrong direction any more than you do. They need your guidance, direction, support, and coaching to set them up for success in their work and help them get their needs met. Being in charge of other people is a huge responsibility. Don’t take it lightly.

Practicing regular, structured dialogue with every single person who reports to you is how you make sure they have the power they need to work things out at their level—to make decisions and take action. Are there problems that need solving now or that are hovering on the horizon? Are there any needed extra resources you should secure, or any instructions or goals that aren’t clear? Has anything happened since the last time you talked to the person that you should know about?

Just like Aisha, and just like you, your direct reports probably have too much to do and not enough time. In addition to their primary job, in which they report to you, they are also likely being drawn into other projects—sideways and diagonal.

So, first, closely track your direct reports’ workloads—monitor every individual’s available productive capacity (what many refer to as “bandwidth”—in other words, “Exactly how much more work can you handle?”).

Second, make sure you are not the one who is overcommitting your own direct reports. So often, managers end up making commitments to their own boss, or to their sideways or diagonal colleagues, that have huge implications for their subordinates, leaving them to scramble in order to accomplish everything.

Third, when your direct reports do start taking on so much that they risk overcommitment, use your regular structured dialogues with them to help them balance all of their competing priorities by providing the kind of ongoing support Aisha’s boss gave her. (See the sidebar “Helpers, Experts, and Rogues.”)

Helpers, Experts, and Rogues

Certain types of employees, more so than others, tend to jump into projects outside their normal jobs. I call these people “helpers, experts, and rogues.”

Helpers get pulled away from their regular work because they are genuinely open and tend to be good at solving problems—and they have a hard time saying no. So people are always asking them for help.

Experts are always getting asked to field a question or take a look at something because they usually know the answers.

Rogues are drawn away from their work because they become intrigued by some interesting idea or initiative, often their own, but also from some other rogue.

Helpers, experts, and rogues continually find themselves explaining to their bosses why their regular work is falling behind. And it’s usually because they were busy doing something that really should have taken a backseat to their regular work.

If you’re a boss to one of these types, you might be tempted to say, “Stop doing all that other work and do your job!” But at the same time, you know that being a helper, expert, or rogue can be a positive thing. Those people end up doing some pretty interesting stuff—often the very things that make them go-to people for some of your best customers.

So instead of just shutting them down, you can assist the helper, expert, or rogue to own what they do. Make their particular tendency part of your ongoing dialogue with them. Stay aligned with them at every step of their workload and how they are managing their competing priorities. You can help them by setting clear ground rules for how to make time for their side work—without getting distracted from their primary responsibilities.

For example, discuss how much time—as their boss—you are comfortable with them using their skills as helpers, experts, or rogues. What criteria could help them decide whether an outside project is something they should do or not? Are there certain people you want them to avoid, or others they should go out of their way to serve?

With a time budget and clear guidelines, you can help these people document all their extra work in a time log. Then you can give them proper credit, or if the work they’re doing turns out to be of no value from your perspective, you can shut it down.

What if you realize you are a helper, expert, or rogue? Again, it’s best to own it instead of risking having your side operations continually shut down. Use your ongoing dialogue with your boss to get help with addressing your tendency, as outlined earlier. If it turns out that your boss deems the extra work you do of no value to the organization, then you’ll need to seriously consider what that means for you. If you’re convinced your boss is wrong, be prepared to make a business case for what you do.

That’s exactly the kind of boss Joel tries to be. Joel, a research manager in a biotech firm, often finds his team members in demand for side projects because of their expertise. Those are the employees to whom he pays the most special attention. He stays in especially close contact with them and helps them watch out for project scope creep and role creep. He regularly asks them how they are allocating their time between their regular tasks and responsibilities and their competing priorities on whatever projects they’re pulled into.

Joel also regularly talks through two key questions with those direct reports: What might not get done? What might be delayed? If the balance starts to become untenable, Joel helps those employees make choices—and sometimes he offers to intervene by talking with the leader of the outside team. But usually he’s able to help his direct reports eliminate or delay some less critical tasks, or develop backup plans, if needed, to provide additional support. That includes helping them find and develop backfill personnel to relieve some of their workload.

This is yet another illustration of the incredible value of continually developing your network of go-to people. When one of your direct reports is truly overcommitted, you may not always be able to redistribute work to another member of your immediate team. They might be verging on overcommitment themselves. But it just might be an opportunity to add a new go-to person to your team. Maybe there is a sideways or diagonal colleague who has worked with you or your direct reports, and they’ve already proven themselves. If you’ve also proven yourself to them, maybe that colleague will want to join your team.

Be careful about poaching talent from other managers, but always be on the lookout to identify new talent (including internally) and be prepared to train them to bolster the team. All at once you can increase the head count on your team, provide support and relief for your overloaded direct reports, and have the opportunity to build up a new go-to person.

When You Are the Customer at Someone Else’s Mercy

At some point, you or your subordinates will likely find you are at the mercy of someone on whom you—or your subordinates—must rely, but who has no real stake in your (or their) success or whom you (or they) can’t hold accountable, or both. Whether it’s a counterpart in another department you must cooperate with to accomplish a task, or some outsider who holds the purse strings on a pet project, you as a boss will need to help your subordinate manage that tricky relationship. And if you’re the subordinate, you’ll need to ask your boss for the help and backup you need.

When you are at someone else’s mercy, you are essentially the customer, requiring help or cooperation from someone sideways or diagonal in the organization. Again, vertical alignment is critical—upward with your boss for guidance and support, or downward with your direct report who needs your help. And that alignment should happen sooner rather than later.

Shantel, a gifted graphic designer at a global consulting firm, provides a cautionary tale. It was the end of her workday, and once again she was sitting at her computer, awaiting text for a four-color brochure that was due to her boss in the morning. The copywriter, who was based in another time zone, had promised it to her hours ago.

Shantel already had done everything she could with the design, having only the brochure title and company logo to work with. Now it was 5 p.m. and the copywriter still hadn’t delivered the text. Shantel wanted to give the writer the benefit of the doubt. Something else might have come up.

But Shantel had been down this road before. In the past, this writer had made similar promises but failed to deliver his copy until late in his day—which was more like 8 p.m. Shantel’s time. He was on track to do it again, meaning that, even if Shantel were to badger the writer again now, in the best case Shantel would be sitting at her computer until at least 10 p.m., working his brochure text into her design for the morning deadline.

Don’t allow yourself to get into this situation over and over again, like Shantel. Do not wait until your work is due and either sacrifice your evening or end up trying to explain to your boss that you missed a deadline because your colleague didn’t come through on time.

Instead, keep your boss regularly apprised—well ahead of a deadline—about problems you foresee regarding someone who needs to provide a key piece of a project. You are not asking your boss to intervene or go to the other person’s boss. You are alerting your boss and asking for support, such as:

• More flexibility on the deadline in question
• Advice on further steps you might take to get what you need from your colleague
• Recommendations for alternative talent you could work with to get what you need to stay on track, if there’s no wiggle room on the deadline

In your ongoing dialogue with your boss, think ahead and think aloud—together—through the resources you need to do your job (especially when they involve the cooperation of sideways colleagues), at every step. Articulate exactly what you are going to need, from whom, when, and how you are planning to get it. Ask for advice about how to get what you need on schedule. Maybe there are tips the boss can share about getting certain things from certain people or teams or departments.

Then keep your boss updated, early and often, if you’re running into obstacles or delays. Talk through backup plans, workarounds, and what to do if you just cannot get what’s required.

Alignment Also Means Gathering and Sharing Intel

Knowledge is power.

Keep your eyes and ears open for valuable intelligence up and down the chain of command. That doesn’t mean listening to and spreading gossip. It means learning from your direct reports about what’s happening on the front lines, from your boss about what’s occurring in the executive boardroom, and from everyone else about anything in between.

It’s not enough to align yourself, after the fact, with decisions and priorities up and down. You want to help inform those decisions and priorities, and you want to understand as much as you can. In a world of infinite business data, human intelligence—what people are thinking and saying—is still incredibly valuable. Often that intelligence is there but is not communicated up and down the chain of command. So when you gather and share intel, you are telling your boss that you care about how your job fits into the organization, and you are showing your direct reports that you care about their experience and perspective and value what they are learning.

Here’s how to do it:

• Ask your boss for regular updates about key decisions made at a higher level, especially changes in high-level priorities, personnel, policies, procedures, systems, or resource allocations.
• Make sure you understand how any changes might affect your planning or that of your direct reports. Clarify what information is meant to be kept confidential, at least for now, and what information and messages you should communicate systematically down the chain of command to your peers and direct reports.
• At the same time, keep your boss informed of any important developments or reportable facts you observe at your level or learn from your peers or direct reports. That will help your boss see around the corner to any upcoming risks, challenges, needs, or opportunities you perceive on the front lines.
• Keep your boss apprised of what’s going on in your other dialogues with your own subordinates and other colleagues: Are you dealing with or anticipating any personnel issues? Performance problems? Conflict on the team? Superstars who may need special rewards? Staffing-level changes? Training needs? Other resource issues?
• And if you are someone’s boss, make sure you are driving the same kind of intelligence gathering and sharing conversations with your direct reports.

Aligning Yourself Sideways—and Diagonal

If you are doing the work I’ve just described to align vertically, up and down, at every step, then you’ll be in a much stronger position to maintain alignment in your sideways and diagonal working relationships too. If you have structured communication in those sideways and diagonal relationships, it likely occurs in the form of regular project team meetings. But a lot of critical communication will also happen in informal side conversations that are highly unstructured: ad hoc hallway encounters, lunch, quick text updates, phone calls, and office drop-ins, not to mention cross-talk and side conversations in those otherwise structured project team meetings.

Formal Structured Meetings

Meetings can be great opportunities, but not all meetings are great. There are really only three good reasons for a meeting:

1. To create a feeling of belonging and togetherness
2. To communicate a bunch of information to a bunch of people in the same way at the same time
3. To brainstorm about a project or deal with an open question, such as planning interdependent project handoffs in which multiple people need to hear and respond to each other

With so much interdependent work going on and handoffs to plan, meetings have become ubiquitous in the collaboration revolution workplace. People often tell me that they have no time to work because they spend their whole workday in meetings on top of meetings, and too often, the meetings are not so great. The stakes are high because every single minute consumed in any meeting is multiplied by the number of people. A thirty-minute meeting with eight people consumes four hours of productive capacity (time in which people could be working on something else).

I’ll never forget the first time I walked into a corporate conference room that had a posted placard outlining rules of conduct for meetings. The list included gems ranging from “If you are the host, distribute an agenda in advance to all participants” to “Silence your phones” to “Please clean up after yourself.” I asked the person sitting next to me, “Gee, is that really necessary?” She said, “Yeah, people are irritated by the sign. It’s sort of infantilizing. But actually, some people are just horrible in meetings.”

Since then, I cannot count the number of conference rooms in which someone, officially or not, has posted a placard with similar kinds of meeting rules. Nonetheless, people still hold meetings without clear agendas or, despite a clear agenda, they don’t follow it. Or they go way over the allotted time, digress, hold one-on-one cross-talk conversations on the side, or try to multitask with handheld devices or laptops (sometimes pretending to take notes) and then chime in with a point that’s already been made. Or they come late, leave early, make noise, eat smelly food—you name it.

Just as people notice when colleagues are especially horrible at running or attending meetings, they also notice people who are great at meetings. Be that person.

First, be known as a great meeting citizen. That means, be informed and be reliable. Make sure you don’t double- or triple-book yourself for meetings. It’s amazing how common this has become among would-be go-to people because they think it makes them seem busy. Being double-booked is not impressive. You cannot be in more than one place at a time, and it’s distracting if you’re hopping in and out of meetings in progress. If you have conflicts, make a choice and choose the most important meeting, not the easiest one. That doesn’t mean the meeting with the most big shots or the highest-profile work, but rather the meeting where you play an important role and have the most value to add. If you are not sure, align with your boss.

Then, before attending any meeting or presentation, make sure you know what the meeting is about and whether your attendance is required or requested. One of the biggest favors you can do for yourself is becoming savvy about which meetings to attend and which ones not to. Again, make sure to align with your boss. The key is knowing exactly what your role in the meeting is: What information are you responsible for communicating or gathering? Prepare in advance any material you should review or read before the meeting. Are there any conversations you need to have before the meeting? If you are making a presentation, of course you’ll prepare even more. Ask yourself exactly what value you have to offer the group and then be sure you deliver that value.

If you are not a primary actor, or you don’t have some other clear role in the meeting, try not to say a single word that will unnecessarily lengthen it. And practice good meeting manners: Do not try to multitask or make unnecessary noise or activity. Stay focused on the business at hand. Listen carefully and learn. If you are tempted to speak up, ask yourself: Is this a point that everyone needs to hear, right here and now? If you have a question, consider whether the question is important to the purpose of the meeting or whether you could get your question answered later by referring to a document or asking someone.

Informal Unstructured Communication

What about communication that takes place outside the formal meeting? Those tidbits someone drops on you at the coffee station or that text or quick check-in from a colleague can be every bit as important as the formal information and discussion you get when sitting in meetings.

The trick is to put some structure in those informal exchanges. Just as you would note and apply what you learn during a formal meeting, you should capture and leverage as much informal information as possible. In fact, informal communication can be the ultimate tool when you’re asked to “work it out at your own level.”

So, pay close attention to all those unstructured interactions that come your way between or before or right after a meeting, or even side (or cross) talk during meetings. Those seemingly one-off communications, if they involve any substantive talk about the work, can be key. There is often critical information in the cross talk at a meeting or a quick postmeeting huddle. The same goes for all those emails, texts, quick calls, hallway chats, and drop-bys.

Don’t let it stay in the ether. Put as much structure as you possibly can in those unstructured informal communications:

• Stop the person who is delivering the aside
• Visibly take notes
• Then follow up in writing to confirm the communication and try to schedule a structured follow-up one-on-one conversation

Bud, a grain buyer working in a billion-dollar agricultural co-op, sent me an email recently to tell me how well this simple tactic has worked for him since he started using it after one of my seminars. Bud is always on the road helping farmers sell their grain. His work involves navigating transactions with numerous collaboration partners—contractors, schedulers, truckers, grain elevator operators, processors, financers, and sometimes more.

Bud wrote in an email, “I just took it for granted that most of my communication with most of these people was so informal and unstructured. After the program, I started carrying a notebook. I pull out my notebook and take notes at each stop, all day. My end-of-the-day routine now is to send out a bunch of emails based on my notes. It just squares up what I did during the day and keeps things from slipping through the cracks.” My favorite part of Bud’s email came near the end: “One of the producers said to me, last time I was there, ‘Heck. You’re writing everything down now, I notice. You must be getting serious about this business.’ I told him, ‘Yes sir. You bet I’m serious.’ ”

Add structure to unstructured interactions, and you will get much better substance. That is especially true when it comes to interruptions—those inconvenient questions or comments that someone drops on you when you’re right in the middle of something else.

How to deal with interruptions. Who are your regular interrupters? And whom do you find yourself interrupting on a regular basis? Often, seemingly one-off communications can become an important, ongoing conversation. Again, the key is to add structure to those interruptions.

Try it. When one of your regular interrupters next interrupts you, don’t dismiss the conversation, but after absorbing the interruption, suggest scheduling a one-on-one meeting. In between now and your scheduled one-on-one, suggest that you each keep a list of what you want to discuss with the other—and that you each prepare a bit before you meet.

Imagine how much more productive that conversation is likely to be than all those interruptions. If it goes really well, maybe, at the end, schedule another conversation. Maybe you will get into a cadence of regular, structured communication, instead of all those unstructured interruptions.

This works especially well with high-maintenance customers and clients who think nothing of interrupting you because they are the ones paying the company all that money. They are often your top priority, so you know you’d better welcome and even embrace their interruptions. But you can serve them a whole lot better, and save yourself a lot of aggravation, by paying attention to the frequency of their interruptions and scheduling a regular one-on-one to get ahead of them. If you build the right cadence of structured one-on-ones, you will obviate most interruptions, with the exception of real emergencies.

What if you’re the person who regularly interrupts others? Maybe you think nothing of peppering your own vendors or direct reports with questions or comments while they’re trying to work. Or maybe you find yourself interrupting your boss or that special go-to colleague almost daily because you need guidance or help.

Try, instead, asking those people for one-on-one meetings. It can be lunch or coffee or a fifteen-minute conversation in the conference room. Save up your questions and prepare for the meeting in advance. Your direct reports, vendors, boss, or colleagues will thank you. Nobody’s at their best when they are being interrupted. Why would you want to be anybody’s regular interrupter?

Diagonal Relationships Can Be Especially Tricky

What about diagonal relationships—the ones where you’re working with people above or below your position on the organization chart, but with whom you don’t have a direct reporting relationship?

They might be someone higher up, maybe a peer of your boss or even your boss’s boss, but with whom you are sharing a task, responsibility, or project. Or you may find yourself working with someone who doesn’t report to you but reports to one of your lateral colleagues, another manager at your level or below but not in your immediate chain of command.

What’s tricky about these relationships is the power differential. But it’s indirect power, which can lead to misunderstandings and stepped-on toes. When you are managing diagonally down, make sure to stay aligned with that person’s direct boss. If anything changes in your working relationship with this individual, keep the boss in the loop.

When you are managing diagonally up, make sure to stay aligned with your boss. You don’t want to disappoint this other senior person, but make sure you keep your boss’s authority in the situation front and center—and treat your boss with the utmost respect. Do this even if you are actually in “manager shopping” mode and looking to make a move. Even if you are consciously auditioning to possibly switch to this other manager, show that new manager how you operate. Demonstrate your respect for authority, structured communication, and alignment at every step. It’s the right thing to do and the impression you always want to make.

Lead from Wherever You Are: Up, Down, Sideways, and Diagonal

The collaboration revolution has ushered in a huge increase in interdependent working relationships where lines of authority are not clear, along with the rise of so-called self-managed teams and the thinning out of management ranks in many organizations, all of which flatten hierarchies and widen the spans of control for managers. In this environment, the only way to make sure you are aligned and going in the right direction is to lead up, down, sideways, and diagonally—from wherever you are right now. What does that look like?

When explaining leadership, General Schwarzkopf often cited an old military cliché: “When in command, take charge.” Let me amend that for the collaboration revolution workplace: Whether or not you are in command, take charge.

One of Schwarzkopf’s colleagues, another four-star US Army general, who must remain anonymous, once told me, “There is only one tool for leading others: communication.” Then he said, “It’s amazing how many people want to be leaders, but there is no rhyme or reason to how they communicate.” Let me put a fine point on that: If you want to take charge of anyone anytime, you must communicate with rhyme and reason.

My firm’s decades of research show that the more rhyme and reason—substance and structure—that you put into your communication in any working relationship, the better things will go: fewer unnecessary problems occur, and those that are identified are solved more quickly; resources are better planned and less often squandered; people are more likely to concur about what they’ve agreed on; and fewer conflicts occur within the ranks.

That’s true whether you are leading (i.e., communicating with) people up, down, sideways, diagonal or—like most people in the workplace—in all four directions. Just remember, the order of operations is very important: start by aligning yourself vertically, with your boss and the chain of command by managing up, and down with your direct reports. That’s your anchor. Then you can go sideways—and diagonal.

Sideways and diagonal are always the directions where the lines of authority are least clear. So, you and your colleagues need to “work things out at your own level.” Most often that means making really good choices about when to say no and how to say yes. “Yes” is where all the action is, so you’d better not waste your yeses by overpromising or failing to plan.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

• Align by going vertical before going sideways (or diagonal).
• Align up by going over your own head to your boss, at every step, through regular structured dialogue.
• Align down through structured dialogue with your direct reports so they understand their marching orders and have the authority to make the necessary choices to get their work done.
• Once you are anchored up and down, you can go sideways—and diagonal.
• Be known as a great meeting citizen.
• Put structure and substance into more of your unstructured communication.
• Schedule regular one-on-ones with your regular interrupters and with those whom you interrupt on a regular basis.
• When you are managing diagonally down, stay aligned with that person’s direct boss. When you are managing diagonally up, stay aligned with your boss.
• Lead from wherever you are: up, down, sideways and diagonal.
• Whether or not you are in command, take charge. If you want to take charge of anyone anytime, you must communicate with rhyme and reason.