How to Satisfy Your Boss?

Bosses are sometimes threatening creatures for employees. This article explains some intelligent ways to satisfy bosses.

Satisfying boss is not an easy task. The task of satisfying boss will never get listed in anemployee's objectives, but still more important. Here are some ways to satisfy the requirements of a boss.

Never try to object the idea of your boss immediately. This will always increase the tension and anger of your boss. Instead, whatever stupid idea your boss says to you, just get it inside your ears. Later, while implementing the task, try to convey your boss about the problems in it so that your boss can understand it practically.

Try to give an attendance daily. This will make your boss to feel happy. Though you do not have any reasons to talk with him, just get into his cabin and say a good morning or good evening. This will increase Boss-Employee relationship.

Try to update the status of activities. Do this even there is no significant advancements in your tasks. Try to tell valid reasons for delay in your tasks. Never blame your boss as a reason for delay since nobody will accept such kind of foolish talks.

Try to convey successful completion of activities immediately to your boss. This will make him happy and also boost the synergy of the team. He may call his team and explain about that success. Team work will grow by this way of sharing success stories.

Try to keep in touch with your boss through mails even though he is not available in office. This will make him understand about your sincerity in activities.

Ask for clarifications in your tasks if any. This will make him feel happy since you still believe that your boss is the perfect person for such kind of clarifications. He will clear your doubts in a happy mood. But never ask same doubts again and again to him which will definitely make him annoy a lot.

How to be a good boss in a bad economy

When cutbacks are necessary, can a good boss do right by the company's finances and by its staff? Some pain is probably unavoidable, but Stanford management science and engineering Professor Bob Sutton says that psychological and organization theory research suggests clear ways to handle such situations with a minimum of harm to the people and company involved. He makes that case in this month's issue ofHarvard Business Review.

"The best bosses understand that there is a difference between what they do and how they do it," says Sutton, author of the 2007 New York Times bestseller on bad bosses,The No A**hole Rule. "This article is about evidence-based ways to make and implement tough decisions such as layoffs, pay cuts and the like in ways that protect both human dignity and organizational performance."

Bosses often mishandle the organizational psychology of recessions because they get caught in a Catch-22 of human nature that Sutton calls the "toxic tandem." Many researchers have shown that people in power tend to become somewhat oblivious to the needs of their subordinates, Sutton says, but subordinates usually watch their bosses intently for any sign of what's going on and typically assume the worst—and they watch their bosses even more closely during scary economic times. As bad as times may truly be, Sutton says, the toxic tandem magnifies fear and paranoia, which undermine morale and productivity.

In the article "How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Economy," Sutton brings a number of sources together in concluding that good bosses are those who can look beyond their own needs and stresses, and attend to four of their employees' psychological needs: predictability, understanding, control, and compassion.

Four ways to be a good boss

Predictability: Studies of people and animals show that the ability to predict pain not only makes experiencing it much more bearable but also offers sufferers the ability to enjoy relative calm when they can be sure the pain isn't imminent. Bosses who can give employees definitive warning of when the ax will fall and when it won't can help make the process of making cutbacks less disruptive. In the article, Sutton presents as models managers who guaranteed to employees that no layoffs would be made "for at least three months'' or others who made deep cuts up front but with the guarantee there would be no more for at least six months.

Understanding: People are also much more able to tolerate adversity if they know why it is upon them, Sutton says. Bosses therefore probably cannot go too far in offering a sincere and informative explanation over and over again.

"Your job as boss is to design messages that will get through to people who are distracted, upset and apt to think negatively given any ambiguity," Sutton wrote for the journal's decidedly managerial audience.

Control: Few bosses are likely to give the rank and file control over cutbacks, but they can give employees some hope that their hard work to keep the company afloat will be successful. Citing the research of University of Michigan organizational theorist Karl Weick, Sutton advises bosses to engage employees in the process of breaking down the company's big-picture challenges into manageable parts. That exercise will help ensure that the work gets done, and will give employees a sense that they can have a positive impact on their situation.

Compassion: In the article, Sutton describes an Ohio State University study in which manufacturing employees who were treated callously by their boss during the process of closing their plant stole more from the company than workers at a nearly identical plant who were given a compassionate and detailed hearing by their boss during the same process. Respecting the dignity of those laid off, Sutton says, will help preserve the loyalty and productivity of the workers who stay.

Sutton emphasized that managing during rough times challenges even the most experienced bosses, but "the best find ways to preserve the dignity of everyone affected and look beyond the immediate crisis, often asking themselves, 'When I look back on what I did, will I be proud or ashamed?'"