by Mr. Tiny Brain

Created on: January 25, 2009

The most surprising thing an employee can learn is that they don't work for the company. I don't mean that you're fired, I mean that you work for your boss. Your boss works for his boss and so on. The difference is that the company may say that we're all going to be open, honest, team players and so forth but if your boss really doesn't want to work that way its not going to happen.

The two most important things you can learn are: What does your boss really want? What does your boss want things to appear to be like? Employees often notice that managers don't do what they say they will do. This is called "Walking the talk". I never really caught on that the things managers ask for are not necessarily the things they want until it was too late. I always believed that if it was good for the business than I should do what they're asking me to do. Man, was I wrong.

Lets take empowerment as an example. Empowerment is when management works to move decision making to the lowest possible level. The intent is that clerks can take care of things at the clerical level freeing up management to take care of things at their level. If you happen to work for a micromanager, you'll soon realize that your boss doesn't have any intention of empowering you to do anything. That doesn't mean your boss doesn't want to appear to be an empowering manager. Your boss may even believe that you're empowered (even if you're not allowed to decide when you need to use the restroom or not.) Its just possible that your managers performance review may include elements that require him to empower you.

To be a successful employee you need to find a way to make it appear as though you're empowered without actually becoming so. You also need to do it in a way that's not obvious. If your boss can spot what you're doing then their manager probably can too. It can be a very tough challenge. In this particular case the best way to handle the problem is to have one on one conversations with your boss. Its important that there are no witnesses. Discuss with your manager what you hope to accomplish and what you would do if you were actually empowered. Chances are that if your manager will actually spend the time with you, he or she will end up believing that everything they discussed was their idea. This may lead to a situation where they approve of what you're doing so that you can continue with what you wanted to do anyway. If your manager isn't too jealous of your success then when the next level manager

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