Page 107 - Make Work Great

Beginning Your Crystal

accounting that the new processes you asked me to develop are sav-
ing about three hours per week. I thought you’d be as proud of that
as I am.” Or for a new piece of work, “It’s clear to me that when I
fi nish this, it will increase the number of high-revenue products we
can offer. Do you have any other view of what this will accomplish
from a broader perspective?” Be inclusive, impact-focused, and quick.
Allow your manager to make the decision about whether to delve
more deeply or move on.

Overtness About Incentives if You Are the Employee
When talking with your manager about your incentives, keep your
initial conversations positive. Avoid leading with what you don’t like
about your work. Find positives: “I really enjoy one particular aspect
of this work,” you might say. “That’s the chance to research new
approaches to old problems.” Be as specifi c as you can, and show
gratitude: “I want to thank you for this opportunity and let you know
it’s something I like in case similar opportunities arise.” In less than
a minute you have role-modeled overtness about your own incentives
without doing anything that remotely resembles complaining.

Overtness About Progress if You Are the Employee
Sharing how you track your progress can be tricky. Your obligation
under normal circumstances is to inform your manager regarding the
current status of your output requirements. Going deeper—to the level
of the visibility systems you use to track that status—runs the risk of
inviting unnecessary scrutiny or micromanagement. As with each type
of overtness, only you can decide if and when it’s appropriate to have
this conversation. When you do, try to fi nd a way to let your manager
know you have a system for keeping track of your work without ini-
tially going into too much detail about how it works. An offer to share
your system directly with colleagues might be a good strategy. Or you
could disclose just part of the system—“By the way, I post my daily
checklist of tasks on the wall in my work area to help myself stay on
track.” Keep your intention well defi ned. You want to spend a minute or
two role-modeling the value of visibility systems, but you’re not trying

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