Q & A Table of Contents
Paperwork Clouds My Manager's View Of Me
Nguyen Hanoi, Vietnam
Question: My working performance is very good. My sales volume is 20% above the challenging target which has been set for me. However, with too many customers, I'm often faced with paperwork troubles. Nothing seems to meet its deadline. The manager thinks I'm not working at full speed, therefore, always blames me when there is something wrong with my report.
How I can arrange myself or persuade my manager that I'm actually doing a good work? Really appreciate your advice.
Response: The first thing you should do is assess your job description and look at how your work compares with other colleagues in terms of sales goals, speed of completing paperwork, and the other elements of your responsibility.
If there are differences between you and colleagues, it might be wise to explore what those differences are and how they occur. For example, if paperwork is more of a problem for you, do colleagues have clerical help or less responsibility for paperwork? Are your sales goals similar and how does your achievement compare with that of your colleagues?
You also need to figure out whether the goals are realistic. How much does time spent on paperwork take away from sales? Perhaps a clerical assistant for your paperwork could mean you spend more time on sales so that you could generate more than enough revenue to pay for the assistant from your increased sales volume.
As you develop a clearer picture of your situation, it is important to learn more about the objectives and pressures that are significant for your manager. Is his/her success measured by sales, paperwork, or something entirely different? Does s/he need to prove his/her value to someone higher-up in the organization? Does your manager have experience doing your kind of work? Perhaps this experience means the manager could become your mentor or advisor. If you say to the manager, "I am enthusiastic about my work and pleased to be working for you. I want to do a better job. Could I come to you for advice or coaching from time to time (or on a regular basis)?
The more you learn about what's important to your manager, the more likely you will be able to offer him/her proposals that respond to those important issues.
One hard aspect of this is that you need to take a cold-blooded look at the situation. Is this the kind of job which you should be doing? Does it give you the rewards you need? Would you be better off working in a different place within the company or in another company? The reasons you should ask these questions of yourself is to strengthen your understanding of your alternatives. If the manager is unreasonable or too demanding, perhaps you have more to gain somewhere else. But you need to know whether a change is more attractive to you than the current situation.
This has not offered you any 'magic formula' for resolving the issues -- but hopefully the questions you ask yourself, your colleagues, people who know the local job market, and your manager will help you find answers that make good sense for you.
Good luck,
Steve
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