Page 258 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

Settling into Your Renewing Organization 243

to keep customers coming back for repeat business, for future product ideas and
needs. In the process, customers will bring their good ideas, which will provide
a wellspring of product extensions and new product ideas. Sometimes customers
will even help develop those ideas when the first customer contract is signed.
Anticipating competitive threats, planning for likely scenarios, and posi-
tioning your organization to cope with them are also essential to strategic
thinking. Continuous improvement, an eye to new technology, and listening
to customers are the keys.

Not Adapting to a Boss with a Different Style
We have repeatedly returned to the central issue of your relationship with your
boss. After you have taken the job and think you have negotiated your role
and prerogatives, you might very well have surprises in store for you. In Chap-
ter 3, we discussed a number of issues. By now, you will have faced a few more.
Besides a full range of professional areas that could be ripe for disagree-
ment, some of your personal habits may annoy your boss. He or she might
value an office or desktop that is orderly and neat, a reflection of organization
and good planning. Your boss might not think the way you dress, the length
or style of your hair, or your habits of speech reflect the image he or she wants
to project.
Your boss may be a late starter who stays late. If you are an early starter
who leaves early, you may not score many points for your hours. Your boss
isn’t there to see your 6:30 a.m. arrival, only your 4 or 4:30 p.m. departure to
be home for dinner with your family or to coach a neighborhood team. Check
it out with your boss.
You can try to be stubborn and do these things your way. You may not lose,
but you will not win. Whatever your boss’s annoyances, they will crop up again
and again, and they will color his or her perception of your performance.
Keep the things your boss disapproves of in your lifestyle out of sight. Don’t
bring them to work. Don’t talk about them with coworkers, fellow managers,
or even with friends at work. For the time you are in the office, they don’t exist.
Pay attention to the hints your boss makes, to how he or she may gently
tease you. Remember that there is frequently at least some, if not a lot, of truth
in humor. If you have a suspicion about how your boss feels, raise issues of
style directly. The more issues put responsibly on the table between you, the
smoother the relationship.