Adrian Watkins

It’s largely about clear communication and trust. Here’s how to do it.

“Managing up” sounds slightly nefarious, like it’s a way of manipulating your boss to get what you want or to maneuver your way in on (or out of) projects or responsibilities.

The truth is managing up is about building the trust and two-way relationship you need with your manager to be successful in the workplace. It’s about being proactive and finding ways to make your communication with your boss more productive, particularly if you have different (or even clashing) styles.

Managing up is especially helpful if you’re new to the organization or the team, or you’re reporting to a manager you haven’t worked with before, or if you’re managed by someone in a different office or location. And it’s absolutely crucial if you’re angling for a raise or a promotion.

These tips are designed to help you and your direct manager have clear and open lines of communication through which the information you both need to be effective can flow.

The following are five tips that are essential to managing up:

1. Figure out your manager’s communication style.

Is your manager the kind of person who doesn’t acknowledge any information that wasn’t in a Keynote or PowerPoint deck? Do they prefer face-to-face meetings, or do they communicate primarily by sending Slack messages at 6 a.m.? Are they always in their office, or do they roam the halls? Are they always on Do Not Disturb with a blocked calendar?

Every manager has a different communication style, and part of your job is to recognize and adapt to it accordingly. If your manager prefers meeting in person (or has a nightmare of an inbox) and you send them a three-page treatise on why you should get that assignment, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

It’s especially important to acknowledge that you might have totally opposite ways of working—and that you’re the one who’ll need to compromise. (As with everything, it’s important to have boundaries here. If you find yourself trying to be awake at 5 a.m. to catch them before their commute, the problem might not be yours to solve, and you’re probably in the territory of needing to have a very different conversation with them.)

If you’re not sure what makes your manager tick, check in with your colleagues or just ask your boss. Don’t be afraid to be direct here; after all, you’re trying to get information that will ultimately make you more productive and your manager’s life easier. It’s as simple as saying something like

“Hi [Manager], I want to make sure I’m sharing information in the best possible way for you. How would you prefer I keep you updated on what’s happening?”

2. Make sure you know what your manager thinks your job is.

Have you ever felt like the job you thought you were hired to do and the tasks you find yourself working on don’t quite line up? Or that the feedback you’re getting from your manager isn’t helping you prioritize your day-to-day?

You’re not alone – whether you’re working at a small start-up or a massive corporation, the feeling of simultaneously doing everything and not making anyone happy is not an uncommon one. This is often symptomatic of a mismatch between what your manager expects you to do and what you think your job is.

To start to resolve this, you need to have a focused discussion with your manager around three key questions:

1. How they define what your role is (and what it isn’t)
2. How they measure your success
3. How your role aligns with the overall goals of the team

The goal here is not for you to react—that comes later. It’s for you to gather some crucial information that will inform your next steps. You can handle this conversation in a couple different ways.

You can go with simple and direct:

“I’ve been on the team for a few months now, and I’d like your feedback on how you think I’m doing. Can we talk about how you see my current role?”

This approach is easier if these conversations are part of the company culture.

If they’re not, you might need a softer touch: “I’d love to get your perspective on how you think I’m doing in this role so I can continue to learn and improve. When would be a good time for us to talk through how you think I’m performing, and where I can grow?”

3. Next, confirm that what you’re doing every day is aligned with your boss’s expectations.

So you’ve worked out your manager’s preferred communication style and received feedback on why you’re on their team and what their expectations are. What’s next?

This is where you use what you’ve learned to start to take more control of your experience of the job.

One immediate, concrete step you can take for yourself is writing down what you’re spending the most time on, and then comparing that with the feedback you received. If your manager’s perception of what you should be doing is wildly different from your daily experience, for example, this is the time to think about why that might be.

Some common reasons for that disparity include being asked to do tasks that aren’t quite your remit—and for women, this sometimes extends to being the “office mom.” Maybe you’re expected to keep track of office supplies or whether the communal kitchen needs to be restocked or cleaned. Or maybe you’re informally helping coworkers with their own work or personnel challenges.

Depending on what you learn from going through the exercise of writing down how you’re spending your workday, you can start to close any gaps between what your manager wants and what you’ve actually been doing. If your task list reveals that what you’re doing is far from what you were supposed to be doing, the next discussion you have with your manager should be around either refocusing your time or updating your responsibilities.

(By the way, another reason for this mismatch could be that you actually don’t really have a job description. If that’s the case, this is a good time to write one yourself and then ask your manager to review it with you.)

Once you have that alignment, don’t forget to share what’s working with your manager in addition to what you need help with. Managers aren’t mind readers—if you’re not telling them about your accomplishments and your contributions, it’s unlikely they’ll know the full scope of what you’re adding to the team. And that means when it’s performance-review time, you’re more likely to be disappointed.

Similarly, and this is especially important if your boss is extroverted and loves being in the spotlight, let them know how your work is making them look good.

4. Get in the habit of not burying bad news.

Even if you’re fantastic at your job, you’re going to run into challenges. Perhaps you’re worried about a crucial upcoming deadline because you’re struggling to complete a difficult task. Maybe you know that there’s a personnel issue on your team that’s really affecting your colleagues. Or you might be finding it hard to prioritize everything you’re responsible for, and the quality of your work is suffering.

Whatever the case, it might be easy to feel like you should be bringing only wins to your manager. In fact, it’s never a good idea to surprise your boss with bad news particularly when it’s a situation they may have been able to avert or mitigate with more time or information.

Now, at the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm them with the details or relatively minor issues. It’s a bit of a balancing act, and it might take a moment for you to figure out what that balance looks like.

For example, not every problem needs your manager’s immediate attention, or requires the same degree of involvement. That relatively small but annoying issue you and your team were able to identify and resolve quickly? No need for a string of real-time updates; you can raise that in passing in your next one-on-one. That situation involving multiple other teams or senior company leaders and about which there’s an active and frantic Slack conversation or email thread? Don’t wait—escalate.

Escalating doesn’t, however, mean you drop the problem on them with no context and the subject line “URGENT.” In an ideal world, when you loop them into something you need their help with, you will also have included what you’ve done so far, what the risks are, and what you think a potential solution might be. This shows not just that you’re proactive and thoughtful about problem solving, but that you have the kinds of instincts that are necessary for the stretch opportunities that lead to promotions.

Look at this way: Keeping your manager abreast of challenges gives you the opportunity to tell them about the ways you solved an issue, or how you worked with your team to come up with a new approach.

5. You really DO have to check in with them regularly.

Meetings with your manager can be stressful, if not outright terrifying. But they’re an absolutely essential component of managing up.

Having regularly scheduled check-ins with your boss is crucial to maintaining that newfound alignment and avoiding negative surprises.

If your boss enjoys face-to-face conversations, work with them to get 30 minutes on their calendars on a recurring basis. Once a week is ideal, but even once a month is better than nothing. If they’re based in a different location, ask if they’d be up for a phone call or video chat.

And if you’re dealing with someone who’s religiously anti-meeting or has one of those calendars with no available slots, send them regular updates. To make sure you’re getting the answers and help you need, try including specific, actionable questions at the top of the email or the beginning of the deck so they know a response would be helpful.

Once you have that meeting on the calendar, get yourself prepared. It’s helpful to have a written list of topics you want to cover or issues you want to raise, or action items you agreed to follow up on in the previous meeting. And yes: If your manager is the presentation type, that might mean having a few slides ready to go. Some managers like getting that list or deck ahead of the meeting—another reason it’s helpful to know how they like to process information.

Give yourself enough time before the meeting to ensure that you’re in the meeting room or dialed in promptly, and enough of a buffer after that you’re not going to be too stressed if your check-in starts to run over.

With these five tips and a little bit of preparation, you’re on your way to a much better relationship with your manager and becoming a pro at managing up.

This article appeared on Self.

Your clever brain can work overtime building worst-case scenarios. Here’s how to recognize and avoid common thinking traps so you don’t get stuck.

How can we make the perfect balance between positive and negative thoughts?

That was a trick question. The way to a healthy mental experience is not to control our thoughts. If we try to manipulate our thoughts, we’re being dishonest with ourselves. Not only that but we’d also be fighting an exhausting battle, since the mind has a pretty strong will of its own.

“The mind likes to worry, criticize, complain, doubt, regret, downplay, and generally bring us back down to earth.”

Trying to put all of our inner experiences in rose-colored boxes often either doesn’t work or doesn’t last very long. The truth is, our thoughts are not always positive, and they shouldn’t be. To help us navigate the world and make sound decisions, we need a variety of thoughts, not just positive ones. Right next to the peppy “I can totally do a triathlon!” we also need the sobering “I won’t be able to unless I start training.”

The mind likes to worry, criticize, complain, doubt, regret, downplay, and generally bring us back down to earth. It sometimes even goes too far and keeps us mired in muddy, unhelpful swamps, and in those moments, we could use a positive lift.

Here’s a better question to ask yourself: How can I gain better awareness of the tricks my thoughts play, and how do I get out of unhelpful thinking traps for better mental health and more successful living?

Thinking trap #1: Black-and-white thinking

• “I bombed this presentation because I messed up the order of two important slides.”
• “My friends have partners, so they’re lovable. I’m single because I’m unlovable.”
• “Your parents were perfect because they supported your dreams, but mine ruined my life because they didn’t let me go to art school.”

Have you had thoughts like these? You certainly wouldn’t be alone. We’re very good at making contrasts and comparisons. From a young age, we’re taught about the concept of being tall by comparing it with being short, and the concept of old by comparing it with young. No wonder we often draw all-or-nothing lines that put our situation in the “awful” box while others seem to be in the “awesome” box.

“We’re very good at making contrasts and comparisons. No wonder we often draw all-or-nothing lines that put our situation in the ‘awful’ box while others seem to be in the ‘awesome’ box.”

But is there really no middle ground, no room for mistakes, between a perfect presentation and a “ totally bombed” one? Does the line between married and single perfectly map onto the line between lovable and unlovable? Does such a firm line even exist? And how do these lines make you feel?

How to avoid this thinking trap:

The first tip for healthier thinking is to allow natural nuance. The goal isn’t to convince yourself that you like a situation you don’t like. Rather, it’s to acknowledge that there are gray areas and caveats, to-be-fair’s and I-guess-it-depends’.

It sure sucks that your parents didn’t let you go to art school! And there might be other ways in which your parents were supportive—perhaps they taught you how to do things around the house, modeled responsibility, gave you warmth and comfort, paid for your accounting degree, or worked hard to be nice to your significant other. They’ve certainly made mistakes, but there’s a whole football field of distance between being perfect parents and ruining your life, isn’t there? Would you rather live in perpetual resentment, or allow yourself mixed feelings of appreciation and disappointment?

“Would you rather live in perpetual resentment, or allow yourself mixed feelings of appreciation and disappointment?”

Next time your mind tells you a story that seems to only present two forks in the road, slow down and ask if you might be missing some options. The more of those you see, the clearer the picture will be.

Thinking trap #2: Jumping to conclusions

• “She didn’t answer my text, so she must be mad at me.”
• “If I’m not absolutely stellar at this interview, they’ll write me off for good.”
• “The doctor is frowning at my chart, so there must be something terribly wrong with my test results.”

For better or worse, our brains are faster than the speed of sound, always racing ahead on the fabric of time-space to see what might lie ahead.

Sometimes this is very helpful! If we waited while we deliberated each thought carefully and rationally, we wouldn’t be fast enough to duck a baseball flying at our head. But sometimes, this eagerness to think ahead lands us in trouble. Sometimes, even before a situation fully unfolds, we’v already convinced ourselves that we know what’s going to happen. Not only can this cause anxiety, but sometimes it even becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Is your thought based on facts that have already happened? Or is it based on what you fear might happen?”

For example, if I’ve convinced myself that nobody at this party is going to like me, I’ll be nervous, sullen, or even defensive all evening. If the new people I meet end up not being fans of this crabby version of me, could you blame them? What if I had gone in with an open mind and a more relaxed attitude?

How to avoid this thinking trap:

If you feel yourself feeling nervous or discouraged about an upcoming situation, ask yourself if you’re time-traveling or mind-reading. Is your thought based on facts that have already happened? Or is it based on what you fear might happen? No matter how confident you are in your prediction—and to be fair, you might be accurate!—it’s helpful to remember that, at the very least, what you fear is not yet true. There’s no need to spend time wrestling with this thought right now.

Thinking trap #3: Mental filter

• “Every time I have an insomnia night, my brain is useless the next day.”
• “My partner is always leaving dirty clothes on the floor. She’s hopeless!”
• “I suck at art. I’ve only ever drawn stick figures!”

In addition to being lightning fast, our brains are also naturally good defense lawyers. Without even knowing it, we often stake out a claim and automatically start searching for evidence to back it up. If I only had a dollar for every time a patient with insomnia has said that their daytime mood is 100 percent tied to last night’s sleep!

Sure, last night you slept poorly, and you feel awful today. And last Friday, you slept poorly and felt awful on Saturday. And last Tuesday you slept poorly and felt awful on Wednesday… there certainly seems to be a pattern. But have there been any days when you’ve felt fine after a bad night of sleep? Or any bad days even after you slept well?

“We remember the instances that prove our point—we were on the look-out for this evidence in the first place. But we have a harder time noticing or remembering evidence to the contrary.”

When we blame our moods on sleep, of course, we’ll remember the instances that prove our point—we were on the look-out for that evidence in the first place. But we have a harder time noticing or remembering evidence to the contrary. Sometimes we go even further by not even allowing ourselves to find contrary evidence.

How to avoid this thinking trap

Perhaps it’s true that you’ve only ever drawn stick figures, but have you tried to draw more seriously with an open mind? Van Gogh himself would never have become a great artist if he had constantly told himself he couldn’t be one.

“Notice how the key to avoiding these thinking traps is slowing down, adding nuance, and completing the picture? None of them are about changing your thoughts from negative to positive with brute force.”

Next time you feel stuck or despairing about something, see if you’re looking at the situation with blinders on. Put on an independent investigator’s hat instead of a defense lawyer’s, and let yourself explore the evidence. Suspend your belief and ask if there’s anything you’re missing.

Notice how the key to avoiding these thinking traps is slowing down, adding nuance, and completing the picture? None of them are about changing your thoughts from negative to positive with brute force. That’s one wrestling match you won’t win anyway, so why spend the effort? Instead, remind your brain to be fair and open, curious rather than judgmental.

With practice, you might find yourself working with your thoughts instead of against them. And isn’t that more fun?

This article appeared on QDT.