tincansI’m not quite certain if this post is a violation of the “Boss’s Code,” much like that masked man on television who blatantly betrays the Magician’s Code (and ruins our fun in the process) by showing us how magic tricks work.  Nonetheless, here goes.

Every time you open your mouth around the boss, she learns something about you that may determine your fate, or at least your fate while you are working for her.

As people of experience, good managers listen for and  hear things during conversations that have nothing to do with the conversation but everything to do with how they view and value you as a professional.

There, the secret is out!  We’re carrying on two lines of thought when you engage us. We’re appropriately staying in the moment and attempting to support your inquiry, while we are processing on the following questions.

What the Manager Hears-Or At Least Is Listening For:

  • How complete of a thinker is this person?
  • How strong are his critical thinking skills?
  • Are his ideas creative?
  • Has he thought through the issue from all directions?
  • Are the solutions innovative?
  • Is he a systems thinker, taking into account the impact of the situation/solutions on other parts of our organization?
  • Is he asking me to do his job for him?
  • Is he pursuing a political agenda?
  • Has he sought out the experts for help?
  • Do I have confidence in this person?
  • Is he as smart as I thought he was?
  • Is this someone that can do more for us?

—

I could keep going, but by now, hopefully, you get the idea.

Someone once asked me when I take the time to evaluate performance and my response was something to the effect of “During every conversation and in every meeting.”

I was pleased to see that I was in good company on this point when I read Jack Welch’s book, Winning, and noted the following in his first of 8 points describing what a leaders does:

“Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach and build self-confidence.”

The Bottom Line for Now

Challenge yourself to develop your critical thinking skills.  Think about the questions above and make certain that you are adept in scaling from the big picture to the details and agile enough to circle the issues.  We like “complete thinkers” that take every opportunity to solve even bigger problems for our organizations. In fact, we like to promote these people, provide them with more responsibility and even pay them more.

All of that from a simple conversation.