Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Carol Masser, Yes, you can't always get what you want.
Speaker 3: Have you heard that Mick Jagger says that Rolling Stones say.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they do.
Speaker 2: It may be true, but if you play your cards right,
Speaker 2: you can get what you need from the people you
Speaker 2: work with. At least that's what human behavior professor and
Speaker 2: career coach Melody Wilding says in her new book. She's
Speaker 2: professor of human behavior at Hunter College. The new book
Speaker 2: it's out this week. It's called Managing Up. How to
Speaker 2: get what you need from the people in charge. She
Speaker 2: joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive at Brokers Studio. Welcome.
Speaker 3: Can I just say I was telling you.
Speaker 2: Fan of the Rolling Stones?
Speaker 3: No, I am a fan. I mean with Jagger at
Speaker 3: the oscars. I mean, how cool was that? Having said that,
Speaker 3: I remember someone one saying to me, you're so good,
Speaker 3: but you don't manage up enough.
Speaker 2: And it was like, who was that?
Speaker 3: And when I'm going to tell you the details? But
Speaker 3: what was kind of crazy later off air? But it mean,
Speaker 3: you know, in most of my life. I just did
Speaker 3: my job, did it well, worked really hard, and things
Speaker 3: just happened. But I understand the importance of managing up.
Speaker 3: Tell us first of all, tell us exactly what that means.
Speaker 5: Yes, And I think it's worth rebranding managing up because
Speaker 5: a lot of people hear it and they think suck up.
Speaker 5: They think the person who's ingratiating themselves to their body.
Speaker 3: I think it's suck up exactly, we see someone exactly.
Speaker 5: But managing up done well is building a relationship with
Speaker 5: the people that have more positional power than you. Primarily
Speaker 5: that's going to be your manager, but today a lot
Speaker 5: more people besides your direct boss control your success and
Speaker 5: your future at work. And so, just as you were saying,
Speaker 5: it is more important than ever because work is more
Speaker 5: complex than ever, and now that more people are working
Speaker 5: remotely in hybrid you don't have as much organic access
Speaker 5: to the people you work with. You do have to
Speaker 5: make more of an effort to make your accomplishment it's visible.
Speaker 5: To build a relationship, all of that has to be
Speaker 5: so much more intentional.
Speaker 2: Well, as I mentioned, you're a professor of human behavior
Speaker 2: at Hunter College. You're also a career coach and a
Speaker 2: lot of your book is based on real life interactions,
Speaker 2: really conversations counseling that you've done with some of your clients.
Speaker 2: What are the themes that emerged when it came to
Speaker 2: the modern workplace? Because it kind of sounds simple, but
Speaker 2: it's not simple. It's pretty complex.
Speaker 5: Stuff, that's right, that's right. I think one of the
Speaker 5: key themes is realizing that you work with people that
Speaker 5: are different than you. And I know that sounds very obvious,
Speaker 5: but so many of us were in our own bubbles
Speaker 5: and we take things personally when in actuality, what we
Speaker 5: think are difficult behaviors are actually just a result of
Speaker 5: different styles.
Speaker 2: What do we say, don't take it personally?
Speaker 3: Okay, Carol, But yeah, it's so funny because we think
Speaker 3: about segments. Let's be real, right, be real. We think
Speaker 3: about it and there is a performance aspect, an entertainment aspect,
Speaker 3: and formative aspect. But you want it to be an
Speaker 3: interesting and engaging conversation. Could be a killer story, but
Speaker 3: if you don't have the right voice, it's just not
Speaker 3: going to go well. And so right, it's not show friends,
Speaker 3: it's show business. Has some smart individual once said to
Speaker 3: me this idea is you don't just have on people
Speaker 3: you know that maybe you like or whatever. You want
Speaker 3: to have an engaging conversation, because that's part of the
Speaker 3: business we are in.
Speaker 5: Well, that's where some of the psychology comes in, right.
Speaker 3: You have to open up too much, talk about going back.
Speaker 5: You have to understand people's pressures, desires, and you have
Speaker 5: to frame your message around that, not because you're trying
Speaker 5: to be someone you're not, but so they connect with
Speaker 5: it and they hear you and they're interested. And so
Speaker 5: that's part of how do how do we make it
Speaker 5: appealing to what people really want? And especially in the workplace,
Speaker 5: that's all the more important.
Speaker 3: And the other thing though, I wanted to pick up
Speaker 3: is when you said that the idea of don't take
Speaker 3: it personally, and this is another thing you and I
Speaker 3: talk about. It's like, well, wait a minute, I'm a
Speaker 3: person and I've got feelings. So when someone says like, well,
Speaker 3: don't take it personally, it's like, how are we supposed
Speaker 3: to think about that?
Speaker 5: Yes? And when I mean bad station with you, yes,
Speaker 5: And I'm sure you both in just before we were recording,
Speaker 5: you were saying how fast everything is changing, and so
Speaker 5: I'm sure, you're on the receiving end of emails that
Speaker 5: are just one word okay, got it. And for some
Speaker 5: people they may take that personally and say, does this
Speaker 5: person hate me? Am I getting fired today? Why did
Speaker 5: they use a period instead of an exclamation point? And
Speaker 5: what I'm saying is that some people that may be
Speaker 5: their default communication style, where you may lead with a
Speaker 5: lot of context and pleasantries and.
Speaker 6: How are you doing?
Speaker 5: And you want to know about their personal life, and
Speaker 5: other people are straight to the point. They want the bullets,
Speaker 5: they want the bottom line. And when you know that
Speaker 5: you understand where their behavior is coming from, you're much
Speaker 5: less likely to go to that worst place.
Speaker 2: Is it possible, well to understand each other if you're
Speaker 2: not in the office physically together.
Speaker 5: I think it is. I think it is. In the
Speaker 5: first chapter of the book, I talk about what's called
Speaker 5: the Alignment conversation. The book is actually based around these
Speaker 5: ten conversations for managing up to give people methodology to follow,
Speaker 5: and in there I talk about being observant. Yes, you
Speaker 5: can ask questions about someone's preferences, but you also have
Speaker 5: to have your eyes open. How is someone communicating even digitally?
Speaker 5: Are they communicating and sending you things via Slack or text,
Speaker 5: for example, who's speaking up first in meetings, who's turning
Speaker 5: their camera on or not unmuting themselves. All of those
Speaker 5: are cues about the power dynamics and what's going on.
Speaker 3: So what would you say, like, I put down the
Speaker 3: lie forgetting to mute themselves. I always am and they're like,
Speaker 3: I'm on the subway platform. Could you ah, like how
Speaker 3: to ask for a raise, how to say no to
Speaker 3: your boss, how to ask for promotion or an opportunity?
Speaker 7: Are there rules around?
Speaker 3: And obviously every relationship, even in the workplace, is going
Speaker 3: to be specific and different. But I wonder if there's
Speaker 3: some thoughts on that.
Speaker 5: Definitely thoughts on that. I would say rules, not exactly,
Speaker 5: because every workplace is different.
Speaker 3: As part of managing up, though, part.
Speaker 5: Of managing up exactly is having organizational awareness to understand
Speaker 5: the environment that you're operating in the workplace culture, but
Speaker 5: also who you're dealing with. Let's talk about saying no,
Speaker 5: for example, because today you can't just outright say no.
Speaker 5: There is an expectation that you will be a team
Speaker 5: player and everyone's being expected to take on more, so
Speaker 5: you can't just say I'm not doing that. And in
Speaker 5: the book, I talk about a few approaches. One of
Speaker 5: my favorites I call the trade off approach, and that's
Speaker 5: where you say, okay, I hear X is important in
Speaker 5: order to do why, which you've also shared you want
Speaker 5: me to work on. That means we're going to have
Speaker 5: to temporarily slow down on something else. Are you comfortable
Speaker 5: with that? Or what would you like us to d
Speaker 5: priority ties? And so with that, you're framing the conversation,
Speaker 5: you're framing the decision, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: you're putting the authority back in the other person's stand
Speaker 5: to make a call.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a section in the book called Expose Yourself,
Speaker 2: and I know it's a little tongue in cheek, but
Speaker 2: what essentially you talk about is is put get around
Speaker 2: people that you're not typically around. And there's something that
Speaker 2: sticks out here which I love. Take the elevator instead
Speaker 2: of the stairs, or grab a coffee from a different
Speaker 2: spot if it means you're more likely to bump into
Speaker 2: someone new or influential. You're here with us. You probably
Speaker 2: noticed the elevators only go to the sixth floor. That's
Speaker 2: by design. Yeah, it's to make sure that you are
Speaker 2: around everybody in the organization work. It totally works. I
Speaker 2: see people.
Speaker 3: From all over things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it also raises the question that I have
Speaker 2: if you, you know, you want to open yourself up
Speaker 2: to people at work, this idea of you know, quote
Speaker 2: unquote bringing your whole self to work, right. Like, I
Speaker 2: saw a little bit of an eye roll from you
Speaker 2: just now when I said that, do you really want
Speaker 2: to do that? In this day and age. Work is work,
Speaker 2: it's not. It's not you're not hanging out with your friends.
Speaker 5: I understand. I think there's a difference between bringing your
Speaker 5: whole self and being true to who your professional self is.
Speaker 5: Your whole self is who you are at home and
Speaker 5: all of your weaknesses and quirks, and there still needs
Speaker 5: to be an air of professionalism that comes along with it.
Speaker 5: So I don't really believe in this idea of authenticity
Speaker 5: at work because we all have to maintain this air
Speaker 5: of professionalism. So but yeah, it exposing yourself is really
Speaker 5: about how do you put yourself in the path of
Speaker 5: new people that you could meet. Because even though we're
Speaker 5: talking about managing up, yes, it's about your boss. Do
Speaker 5: not make your boss your single point of failure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really interesting. So what you say managing up,
Speaker 3: it's really managing ups. Like there's most people that like,
Speaker 3: there's multiple people that you should be having conversations with.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 5: Oh, absolutely, whether that's your skip level manager, your boss's
Speaker 5: boss for example, your boss as peers, other powerful colleagues.
Speaker 2: That can be tricky in some situations a ken, because
Speaker 2: then it looks like you're sort of going over the
Speaker 2: head of your immediate manager.
Speaker 5: Yes, well, that's not the first thing you want to
Speaker 5: jump to, and that's why the book is based around
Speaker 5: these conversations, because they build on trust and rapport. But
Speaker 5: when it does come to scheduling a skip level, which
Speaker 5: is what we're talking about, you don't want to you
Speaker 5: want to bring your boss in the mix. This is
Speaker 5: something you could bring to your one on one and say,
Speaker 5: I would love to gain a better understanding of the organization,
Speaker 5: the priorities that we're working on. I think a great
Speaker 5: way to do that would be meeting with your manager.
Speaker 5: Would you be comfortable with me doing that? And if
Speaker 5: you think that might be too much of a risk,
Speaker 5: you can also say, how about would you be open
Speaker 5: to your boss coming to our next team meeting or
Speaker 5: all hands for example, so it doesn't feel like you're
Speaker 5: doing a end run around them.
Speaker 3: You do have a chapter about the money conversation, So
Speaker 3: what's your advice. You just got about a minute left here.
Speaker 4: And show me the money which goes the money to
Speaker 4: make that's bring it up because most people like when
Speaker 4: they go in for a conversation it's either new opportunities
Speaker 4: and or you know, money or a combination above.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, two quick things. Don't just focus on what
Speaker 5: you've done in the past. Focus on the value can
Speaker 5: provide going forward, because your boss is going to have
Speaker 5: to make a compelling case up their chain of command
Speaker 5: why they should pay you more. And then second is
Speaker 5: when you are asking for more money, frame it in
Speaker 5: terms of fairness. Use language like I want to make
Speaker 5: sure my compensation matches the level that I'm performing at.
Speaker 5: So it doesn't feel like, well, I just deserve this
Speaker 5: or I feel like I deserve this. It sounds more
Speaker 5: like it's coming from a place of equity and just
Speaker 5: writing the skills.
Speaker 3: Do most bosses like talking with their employees.
Speaker 5: It's you know, TVD, TVD. But what I have found
Speaker 5: is that you know, I think I think there's a
Speaker 5: lot of boss bashing out there, and I think most
Speaker 5: bosses are trying their best. They are imperfect people and
Speaker 5: imperfect situations, and they really want to do their best.
Speaker 5: I've had a lot of bosses give this book to
Speaker 5: their team, so you know, I hope we're seeing a
Speaker 5: change for the better.
Speaker 3: And I have to say, like, we're in a pretty
Speaker 3: cool environment that everything's just open. There are no offices,
Speaker 3: so you run into people or you're sitting next to
Speaker 3: like bosses and stuff, so it's kind of out there.
Speaker 3: It's also a newsroom environment but the whole company, but
Speaker 3: not every place is like that. And I know when
Speaker 3: there are doors and stuff and different floors, it can
Speaker 3: make it a.
Speaker 7: Little bit tougher.
Speaker 3: This was fun.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having it. Melodie Wilding. Her new book
Speaker 3: is Managing Up, How to get what you need from
Speaker 3: the people in charge, and she's professor of human behavior
Speaker 3: at Hunter College. Take some notes there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Paul, you saw me typing. You think I'm doing?
Speaker 3: Do not go anywhere, folks, more to come right here
Speaker 3: on Business Week.
Speaker 2: Well, in just a few years, Mackenzie Scott has given
Speaker 2: away close to twenty billion dollars to thousands of nonprofits.
Speaker 2: What a shock the philanthropic community, though, is not just
Speaker 2: how much she's given away, but how she's done it.
Speaker 2: Essentially raining money on organizations with quote no strings attached
Speaker 2: attitude unrestricted giving is what it's called in that world.
Speaker 2: But how effective has it been? Alisha Smith Arigaga is
Speaker 2: the vice president of Research at the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
Speaker 2: It's an organization that uses data to help donors make
Speaker 2: sure their giving is as effective as possible. Alicia, thanks
Speaker 2: so much for joining us this afternoon. Do appreciate it.
Speaker 2: This idea of adding value by giving up control. It's
Speaker 2: what yield giving. Mackenzie Scott's organization is all about what
Speaker 2: did you find in your research about whether or not
Speaker 2: it's working.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me today, and we at
Speaker 6: the Center perfect of Philanthropy have been studying Scott's giving
Speaker 6: over the last three years and serving organizations that receive
Speaker 6: funds through Scott's quiet process, which means that you know,
Speaker 6: organizations would often get a call, you know, inquiring about
Speaker 6: their finances and leadership, and then they get a follow
Speaker 6: up call sometime later letting them.
Speaker 7: Know that they received a really large gift, And what we.
Speaker 6: Learned in our research is that these gifts had tremendous
Speaker 6: impacts not only on the organizations, but on the communities
Speaker 6: the organization serve, on the leaders the organizations serve, and
Speaker 6: we also learned that they're you know, is mixed response
Speaker 6: in the funder community to this kind of giving as.
Speaker 3: Well is of giving based on what you guys are
Speaker 3: finding out.
Speaker 7: I mean, from what we learned, we definitely.
Speaker 6: Found that there are huge positive impacts from this type
Speaker 6: of giving. One of the things there there are a
Speaker 6: couple of ways in which this kind of giving is
Speaker 6: different from what typically happens. You know, it's not just
Speaker 6: the size of the gifts. Many folks are like, wow,
Speaker 6: nineteen billion dollars. I don't have nineteen billion dollars. But
Speaker 6: it wasn't necessarily the amount. But often Scott's gifts were
Speaker 6: seventy percent of the operating budget on average of an organization,
Speaker 6: which is really large. They were unrestricted in terms of
Speaker 6: the amount of time in which they had to be spent,
Speaker 6: which is very unusual, and then they have few reporting requirements.
Speaker 6: And so those kinds of characteristics are characteristics that we
Speaker 6: see much more rarely in grant making, and so we
Speaker 6: saw some really powerful impacts from those pieces in this data.
Speaker 2: Are there copycats emerging in the best sense of the
Speaker 2: word because they have seen the way it's working. Are
Speaker 2: are other individuals organizations starting to do this?
Speaker 7: There are so For example, well, just a few months ago, Jeff.
Speaker 6: Atwood came out saying that he was really inspired by
Speaker 6: Mackenzie Scott's giving. He also is part of, you know,
Speaker 6: a group of folks who have billions to give away,
Speaker 6: and talked a lot in the Chronicle Philanthropy and other
Speaker 6: places about how he was so inspired by her giving
Speaker 6: that he was going to give in the same way.
Speaker 7: We also know that this is the.
Speaker 3: Co founder of It's i think a computer programming platform,
Speaker 3: right stack overflow, So yeah, forgive me, yeah, go.
Speaker 6: Ahead, yeah, So yeah, he was an individual donor who
Speaker 6: we saw using a lot of the same strategies. And
Speaker 6: then there's some foundations as well who have shifted portions
Speaker 6: of their giving to giving in this way. You know,
Speaker 6: would love to see more of us, since the data
Speaker 6: shows that it works, But we are seeing some trickles
Speaker 6: of folks who are doodling this similar kind of giving.
Speaker 3: You know, I have to say, before I came to
Speaker 3: Bloomberg and when I was an undergrad, I did some
Speaker 3: donor and development work for a major business school. And
Speaker 3: it's interesting that I think when a lot of people
Speaker 3: like to donate, sometimes it's a major capital project, you know,
Speaker 3: an addition to a school or so on and so forth.
Speaker 3: But a lot of times, I feel like it's safe
Speaker 3: to say that I think donors like to be very
Speaker 3: involved in where the money's going, and there is a
Speaker 3: lot of strings attached. I'm not saying good or bad,
Speaker 3: it's just sometimes the way it goes. The majority of donations, right,
Speaker 3: philanthropy is often with guidelines with strings attached.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, that is correct.
Speaker 3: Does some of those, but do some of those strings?
Speaker 5: Also?
Speaker 3: What's good about it is it's transparency and you make
Speaker 3: sure the money is actually spent towards something and it
Speaker 3: isn't somehow potentially wasted away and not necessarily going.
Speaker 7: Towards the goal.
Speaker 3: So is that part of also having those strings attached,
Speaker 3: that you really do know where the money goes?
Speaker 6: Well, I think the really powerful thing here is that
Speaker 6: even though there weren't necessarily strings attached on the back end,
Speaker 6: like Scott was, pretty clear, and for the most part.
Speaker 7: For most of these folks, these were one time gifts.
Speaker 6: Yeah, what they did do was pretty intensive vetting of organizations, Right,
Speaker 6: So they're looking finances, they're looking at leadership, they're looking
Speaker 6: at strategic plans, and they're choosing organizations on the front end.
Speaker 6: So the donor's done a lot of work on the
Speaker 6: front end in terms of, you know, deciding where the
Speaker 6: funds go, and so then if you really trust where
Speaker 6: you've made that investment, there's less of a need to
Speaker 6: then at the back end, you know, trying to determine, well,
Speaker 6: did you know X percent of what I was funding
Speaker 6: go to Y or Z. But you know, really doing
Speaker 6: that upfront work, I think is what's really powerful and
Speaker 6: unique about the way that Scott gave and what we
Speaker 6: see in the data is that organizations were really great
Speaker 6: stories of the funds and did all sorts of innovative
Speaker 6: things as well.
Speaker 3: You know, you shared with our producer Paul Brennan that
Speaker 3: the backlash in terms of her how Mackenzie Scott donated money,
Speaker 3: that there was a backlash from foundation leaders about her approach.
Speaker 3: What specifically did they do, Is it just vocal verbal
Speaker 3: or what was it. What was that backlash?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, there wasn't necessarily backlash, But what we
Speaker 6: found in our data is that there's mixed you know,
Speaker 6: we asked funders and we surveyed a national sample of
Speaker 6: funders who do over five million dollars in grant making,
Speaker 6: if you you know, and ask them if they look
Speaker 6: at Mackenzie Scott's giving, how has.
Speaker 7: It influenced their own giving?
Speaker 6: And what we see is that, you know, while folks
Speaker 6: funders reported a large majority of them that they see
Speaker 6: the way that she gives is impactful to the organization
Speaker 6: she gives to, when they're then asked if they would
Speaker 6: do that same kind of giving in their organization, we
Speaker 6: see much more mixed reactions.
Speaker 7: And we know, you know, what.
Speaker 6: We saw in interviews from this is that it's due
Speaker 6: to all sorts of reasons, right, whether that's some sorts
Speaker 6: of constraints from the board or constraints of the organization.
Speaker 6: There are other folks who just don't choose to give
Speaker 6: that way, and so the number of foundations who've adopted
Speaker 6: this approach is much more varied.
Speaker 7: Overall.
Speaker 2: Lisha're gonna have to leave it there. Alicia Smith Jaga
Speaker 2: is the vice president of Research at the Center for
Speaker 2: Effective Philanthropy. Check out the work that the organization has done.
Speaker 2: They use data to help donors make sure their giving
Speaker 2: is as effective as possible. She joins us from Austin, Texas.