Managing bosses the NLP way

If life were a movie, chances are that around one-fourth of the entire movie would involve office scenes in the case of a working professional. The quality of life in those scenes would largely depend upon the discretion of the director, the boss. Remarkably, the art of boss management is indispensable, and if you are looking for an answer How to manage your boss read further

To your aid, internet is full of articles categorising bosses on the basis of work style and culture they weave around themselves. These articles seem to be the magic wand, almost ready to spread the pixie dust, hanging mid air, uncertain where to focus! Unless you figure out the blind spots, even pixie dust is useless. Unless you make an effort to know what you don’t know, you will never know what you don’t know and then you will not be able to work the situation out because you just don’t know what you don’t know.

Sounds easy?

May be not!

Assuming you have a troubled relationship with your boss, you could think that your boss is a bad mix who does not appreciate or recognise you. Instead of validating this to be true, ask yourself in all honesty-

Has there ever been a time when your boss heard you, trusted you, supported you, depended on you?

What specifically makes you think that something is amiss?

What will set things right?

• Is there anyone who does not find your boss that difficult to deal with? You can model their strategy to manage the boss, and they can be of great help in getting some answers going for – How to manage your boss

• What could you possibly change in yourself to help the relationship?

• What is the first step?

Be realistic with yourself.

In case you conclude to work on your relationship further, replay the office scenes in slow motion inside your head and go over them like a curious child trying to make sense without judgments.

Explore what is important to these characters, and how and why do they care deeply for something. Pay attention to what is being said, and how much of it is being grasped by these characters in different scenarios like planning meetings, feedback sessions, motivating discussions, etc. Notice when and why the intended message is not received or interpreted correctly.

NLP has established that you tend to develop dependence on some senses over the others for representing your version of an experience to yourself. These preferred senses keep on filtering everything you notice whilst focusing only on the information which your brain thinks is important in shaping your understanding of what’s happening around you.

Thence, the way your brain filtered the information as well as your version of the experiences altogether shape your thoughts, attitude, opinions, feelings, beliefs, values and understanding about the whole situation.

When you interact with people, your brain consults the council of your relatable experiences, values, and opinions for making sense of other people’s actions and reactions. Further, your brain borrows missing details from your previous experiences to facilitate this comparison. Thus, you draw conclusions about other people, issues and circumstances on the basis of your version of reality which may not be necessarily correct. Evidently, this is the root of goof ups.

So, avoid this folly to be able to remove the letter ‘n’ from your movie ‘happily never after!’

But how, you may be wondering now!

Well, by seeking clarity.

• Start with a blank sheet. Put off the spotlight, shower perspectives and play out of your skin.

• Speak dialogues which appeal to the preferred sense of your boss. Flex your voice tone, tempo, volume and speed. Use the same sensory words, phrases and metaphors. Deliver the desired behavior. Match and rehearse the facial expressions, posture and gestures of your boss.

• Before delivering a bad news ensure that you match the emotional state.

• Before expressing your opinion, idea or proposal, assess whether the structure of your presentation would be on lines of achieving favourable results or of avoiding unfavourable consequences. Evaluate and align your approach to the lenses and filters of your boss.

• Adopt adaptation as a strategy to get the benefit of being heard and understood.

In a nutshell, be the master craftsman of your life by listening with all your senses, and considering and respecting others’ right of having different beliefs, values and thinking styles. How to manage your boss starts from managing yourself first, and if you can master that you can not only learn how to manage your boss, but also be good in people management in general.

Remember, there are no bad bosses or difficult people in NLP’s movie of life. There are just not-so-good rapports which definitely can be made better.