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Just because you’re the boss…

…doesn’t mean you need to yell or be abrasive to get your point across.

…doesn’t mean I can read your mind and write/design/build something based on your vague parameters.

…doesn’t mean you can’t get in the trenches and get your hands dirty.

…doesn’t mean you have to be perfect or know everything.

…doesn’t mean we want to hear all your random stories unrelated to work more than once.

…and choose to have no life doesn’t mean that your employees hate their nights and weekends.

…doesn’t mean you have to fly first class or get picked up in a Towne Car.

No boss is perfect.

Employees don’t expect you to be. Chances are you’re the boss because you have a wealth of knowledge, experience, or both. Most employees would love to acquire a bit of both under your tutelage so…

… be patient when we have questions. Especially good ones.

… refrain from yelling (unless we’re one of those knuckleheads that only respond to that).

… provide constructive criticism. “You did (this) well. I feel you could’ve done (this) better. Here’s how I think I would’ve approached it.” I’ve never found a more successful formula.

… give ample direction so that we have a good feel for what you want us to accomplish. If we look lost, we probably are. We’d rather only do it once too.

… pull up a chair, brainstorm with the team, lend a hand. We’ll have a lot more respect for you. (My current CEO unloads furniture off trucks with the warehouse crew).

… admit when you don’t know something. Don’t get intimidated when an employee is more knowledgeable about something than you. That just means the team is stronger. You should be striving to hire people good enough to take your place eventually anyway.

(I see so many bosses trying to surround themselves with young, subservient employees that will suck up to them, won’t challenge the status quo, keep their heads down, and just be thankful for a job. Is there anything worse than an egotistical boss?)

… act like our boss. Maybe you can be our friend too, but that’s a fine line. We’re probably not inviting you to happy hour and we don’t want to hear an abundance of your personal stories in which you try to impress us. They don’t, and we certainly don’t care once you’ve recycled it multiple times.

… we’re all for working hard and paying our dues (eh, this is probably debatable for half the workforce), but there has to be some semblance of balance. Don’t get cranky on Friday afternoon because we’re anxious to go out with our friends and you’ll be working Saturday (by choice). And please don’t call us on our days off unless it’s important.

… transport yourself to your heart’s content, but I still think it’s dumb.

I haven’t been in the workforce that long so most of these I’ve collected via friends horror stories, but I do think that some of these solutions are fairly universal. I also think ego is often the root cause of a bad boss.

I want to hear what you have to say. What are things you’ve experienced that really turned you off/hindered your ability to do well? What solutions would you offer? If you’re a boss, how do you combat these negatives? How is your approach different? Where am I off base?

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“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus

You can complain about long hours…

      …or you can choose to value your free-time more.

Your job might not be the perfect fit…

      …but it might make you appreciate the next one even more.

You can complain that your boss is arrogant, manipulative, and incompetent…

      …or you can take mental notes on how not to act for when you become a manager.

You can whine about annoying co-workers…

      …but you’d be better served to learn how to deal with all walks of people.

You can complain that you’re underpaid…

      …or you can learn to budget your money better and appreciate a less cluttered lifestyle.

You can get worn down by the grind…

      …or you can choose to feel self-satisfaction and a sense of pride for pressing on.

The bottom line is that you can choose to let yourself get discouraged, frustrated and beat down…

      …or you can react by finding the silver lining.

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I’ve previously discussed the importance of having the right players vs. the best players when building a team.

But how do managers find the “right” players? Most of the time, particularly for entry to mid level gigs, they post a job description and countless people come calling, all trying to differentiate themselves with a few bullet points.

Just one reason why you should never read another resume. Going through endless resumes and vetting out the best for interviews is a process that only works if you have the time and resources to really do your due diligence. But who does any more? (Union Square Ventures is the exception, not the norm).

So how then do you assemble the perfect team? It’s a lot like networking, actually. They say build your network before you need it. Hiring managers should be determining who they want and planting that seed before they need them.

Stanley “The Coach” Woodward, of the New York Herald Tribune assembled one of the best sports staff’s ever for a newspaper. How?

By using what he described as a scouting system, the Coach studied out-of-town news papers, and when he spotted a good story, he began a file of the writer’s work. If it was consistently excellent, Woodward waited for an opening, then brought the man to New York with talk of “the big time” and possibly a pay raise.

This is essentially the strategy Amber Naslund has used to build her Radian6 team. I suspect it happens often for VP, CMO, President positions, but I’m not yet privy to that culture.

Update: Here’s a post from Seth Godin about having a list of people you want to work with before you need them.

If you’re a manager, how do you assemble your team? Do you look for hungry unemployed workers, fresh-faced college graduates, or do you try to recruit talent from other organizations?

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