June 11, 2023 • 15 mins
Welcome to Career Coaching Xs and Os, the podcast that helps you navigate the challenges of working with extraordinary people. I'm your host, Mark Anthony Peterson, and today we will discuss how to survive a superhero boss.
Whether your boss can fly, shoot lasers from their eyes, or read minds, you might feel intimidated, overshadowed, or even resentful. But don't worry; there are ways to cope and thrive in this situation. In this episode, I'll share with you seven tips that will help you deal with your super-powered leader and make the most of your career opportunities. So stay tuned, and let's get started! Want to improve your negotiation skills? Take the 100 Days of Rejection Therapy Challenge. The goal of the 100 Days of Rejection Therapy Challenge is to desensitize yourself to the pain of rejection and to overcome fear. Check out the website at https://www.rejectiontherapy.com/100-days-of-rejection-therapy. I took several challenges. Click the links to see if I got rejected during my negotiations:
(1) Rejection 7: Speak Over Costco's Intercom - https://youtu.be/AycKKgP21fQ
(2) Rejection 43: Hug a Walmart Greeter - https://youtu.be/GSjyly_C8pM
Subscribe to Ceyero Consulting's YouTube Channel. Track my progress as I complete all 100 Challenges. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7lxMSEtBOAgNBOPrmA9O_w
Need help to develop a business pitch for your startup or small business? Check out my online course "How To Develop A Winning Business Pitch" https://ceyero-consulting-eschool.thinkific.com/courses/how-to-develop-a-winning-business-pitch. The course is only $139.00.
Are you thinking of launching a business? Please check out my book, #Guerrillapreneur: Small Business Strategy for Davids Wanting to Defeat Goliath, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes - shorturl.at/tvLM9
If you like this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and leave us a comment. Please share this episode with your colleagues. Follow us on Twitter @ceyeroconsltg and Instagram and Facebook @ceyeroconsulting. Please find us on the web at https://www.ceyero.com.
If you like Career Coaching Xs and Os, then you might also like my other two business podcasts, #Guerrillapreneur: The Art of Waging Small Business Warfare (Mastermind Interviews with Entrepreneurs, Consultants, and Business Mavericks) and #Gigging: Everything and Sharing Economy (news and predictions about the Sharing Economy).
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/career-coaching-xs-and-os--3047801/support.
Whether your boss can fly, shoot lasers from their eyes, or read minds, you might feel intimidated, overshadowed, or even resentful. But don't worry; there are ways to cope and thrive in this situation. In this episode, I'll share with you seven tips that will help you deal with your super-powered leader and make the most of your career opportunities. So stay tuned, and let's get started! Want to improve your negotiation skills? Take the 100 Days of Rejection Therapy Challenge. The goal of the 100 Days of Rejection Therapy Challenge is to desensitize yourself to the pain of rejection and to overcome fear. Check out the website at https://www.rejectiontherapy.com/100-days-of-rejection-therapy. I took several challenges. Click the links to see if I got rejected during my negotiations:
(1) Rejection 7: Speak Over Costco's Intercom - https://youtu.be/AycKKgP21fQ
(2) Rejection 43: Hug a Walmart Greeter - https://youtu.be/GSjyly_C8pM
Subscribe to Ceyero Consulting's YouTube Channel. Track my progress as I complete all 100 Challenges. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7lxMSEtBOAgNBOPrmA9O_w
Need help to develop a business pitch for your startup or small business? Check out my online course "How To Develop A Winning Business Pitch" https://ceyero-consulting-eschool.thinkific.com/courses/how-to-develop-a-winning-business-pitch. The course is only $139.00.
Are you thinking of launching a business? Please check out my book, #Guerrillapreneur: Small Business Strategy for Davids Wanting to Defeat Goliath, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes - shorturl.at/tvLM9
If you like this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and leave us a comment. Please share this episode with your colleagues. Follow us on Twitter @ceyeroconsltg and Instagram and Facebook @ceyeroconsulting. Please find us on the web at https://www.ceyero.com.
If you like Career Coaching Xs and Os, then you might also like my other two business podcasts, #Guerrillapreneur: The Art of Waging Small Business Warfare (Mastermind Interviews with Entrepreneurs, Consultants, and Business Mavericks) and #Gigging: Everything and Sharing Economy (news and predictions about the Sharing Economy).
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/career-coaching-xs-and-os--3047801/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is career coaching, acts andoaths, and I am your host,
Mark Anthony Peterson, the founder andthought leader at Serial Consulting, a small
business strategy and technology consulting firm.A small part of our practice is executive
coaching. These episodes are the summationof some of those sessions. Welcome to
(00:24):
episode forty three. I know it'sbeen a while since we published an episode,
and that's a good thing. Thatmeans a lot of you have used
what you've learned from the first fortytwo episodes and have built great careers.
But as many of you know,threats of recession have brought out more superhero
bosses who are aiming to transform theirorganizations. And transformative bosses means a lot
(00:51):
of the things you become accustomed towill no longer exist, at least in
your corporate environment for the next fiveto ten years. So in this episode,
I'm going to give you seven tips. Seven tips for surviving a superhero
boss. Seven tips for surviving asuperhero boss. Now, before we dig
(01:17):
in, what do I mean bya superhero boss. This is a boss
that's going to make decisions quickly.They won't always do the necessary research to
determine if they're cutting too many people, laying off critical people, or abandoning
(01:37):
strategies that are starting to show fruitin order to cut crop cost. They're
going to transform the organization by makingit lean and mean. And if you
want to be around after these transformationalbosses have been hired, you might want
to take a listen to these seventips. First, at all time,
(02:04):
do not waste time. And everythingthat you do do not waste time.
Your meetings should be concise, nomore than twenty minutes. If you get
towards thirty minutes, you're wasting time. Keep them short, have an agenda,
and make sure the agenda has timemarked for each item on that agenda.
(02:30):
Now, I was doing that beforeyou got transformational bosses. Whenever I
held a meeting, I'd have theintroduction two minutes, the first item five
minutes, the next item ten minutes, and I would total up the number
of minutes needed for that meeting,and when we hit the mark, I
shut the meeting down. We tookthe tabled what we didn't cover and rolled
(02:53):
it over to the next meeting.We're not going to waste time in meetings
when you have to be productive.Make sure that your explanations are short and
impactful. We don't need to consultantspeak. Just say what you mean and
mean what you say. So developan attitude for not wasting time. Second
(03:19):
tip, you got to be ableto prove that you're productive. You got
to be able to prove your worth. Now. For many transformational bosses like
Elon Musk, that means you gotto be willing to burn the midnight oil.
Now, burning the midnight all whenI look back over my twenty to
thirty year career in corporate America,meant some of that will show. You'd
(03:44):
come in put your jacket on theback of your chair at five in the
morning, just in case the bossshowed up and looked in to see who
had gotten there. Some people expectthat kind of activity to show that you're
burning the midnight oil. Now,if I went through the trouble of doing
(04:04):
all that, I was going tostay at work and do my work at
five am, which is typically whatI did. But see transformational bosses that
truly want to turn the company around, they reward that type of hard work.
To Elon Musk promised stock for exceptionalperformance, not busy work. Exceptional
(04:30):
performance that means there was a consequenceto the action that you took and it
showed up on the bottom line.Bottom line results drive stock price and that
makes everybody happy, which is whyhe wanted to make more people owners.
So be able to prove your worthand show how your activities drive the bottom
(04:55):
line. Now, how did Ido that and measure that? As a
manager? I used balance scorecards,I used key performance indicators. I tried
to create line of sight between thetop and the bottom of my organization,
and I tried to show which metricswere tied to the most important aspect of
(05:17):
my department. So if we weredriving revenue or cutting costs or producing more
widgets, I wanted to show howeveryone in that department contributed to that goal
and gave them a metric to measureit and stretch goals in order to give
them rewards when they gave exceptional performance. So, if you're a manager,
(05:41):
I want you out there doing thesame thing, because when you have that
kind of data, your meetings areshort and impactful because you can lay out
the scorecard with the key performance indicatorsthat drive performance that are ultimately leading to
increases in stock price. With theexecutive team, When you speak that language,
(06:05):
you become a part of the executiveteam. Third, now, I've
seen this happen all the way backto elementary school. There's always one in
a bunch that's going to criticize thetop person, criticize the individual that's sent
(06:28):
there to transform the organization or tochange the status quo. Don't you be
that person? Right? Tip numberthree, do not criticize the boss,
especially the boss that's been sent into transform the organization. Just check the
newspapers. The Tesla employees who postedan open letter about Elon Musk were all
(06:57):
fired. The Twitter employee who pushedback publicly and privately against Elon Musk was
fired. The point you have tounderstand is that if the organization wasn't so
broken, they never would have broughtin a transformational leader so publicly or privately.
(07:20):
Criticizing that individual means you're going tobe a barrier to that change,
and they're not gonna wait around longenough to figure out how much of a
barrier you're going to be. It'sjust going to get eliminated. You think
I'm kidding. Elon Musk had histeam comb through messages in Twitter's internal chat
(07:42):
platform and make a list of allthe employees who were subordinate. He took
that list and began firing individuals whowere insubordinate to the company. The fourth
tip for surviving a superheros don't betoo cute. What do I mean by
(08:05):
that? Guys? Don't go outof your way to try and prove the
boss wrong, especially if you're provingthe boss wrong on something that's none impactful.
I was told at one of thecompanies that I worked with that a
(08:26):
junior member of the team pointed outthat a senior member of the team had
a hole in his shoe during themeeting. That individual never made it back
to his desk. He was firedon the spot. So don't be too
cute. Don't try to prove theboss wrong on things that don't matter.
(08:54):
Don't go out of your way toremind the boss when he failed or she
failed at another company, or whenthey were much younger within that current company.
All that does is put a targeton your back, and you may
(09:16):
not make it back to your deskafter making that comment. Tip number five
embrace change. Transformative leaders are sentin to break things, to break processes,
to break norms, to throw outthe kitchen sink or bring it in
as Elon Musk did. And soyou have to embrace change. You have
(09:41):
to learn to look for change evenfor things that are working well, because
it could get better. And soembracing change puts you on the side of
the transformative leader. You're looking todo things better so the company survives.
(10:01):
Hanging onto the old way of doingthings. The old way, which by
the way, led to bringing thistransformative leader in, is not going to
keep you around that company very long. So embrace change. Don't remind the
boss this is the way we usedto do it unless you have a really
(10:26):
good explanation and it's tied to keepingthe stock price where it is or getting
higher. But don't embrace the pastjust because it was the past. Number
six. I want you to writethis one down because some of you are
(10:46):
going to struggle with this because youspent all your life in corporate America and
you believe that you have earned thattitle and you don't want to give it
up. But you get a transformativesuperhero boss, you got to let go
of that title and get your handsdirty. At many of the big tech
(11:09):
companies now they're cutting out middle managementand putting senior management directly in charge of
projects and activities. That means you'retaking on a lot of the middle management
responsibility. And if you can't handledoing more, thinking more, as well
(11:31):
as being the visionary, you're notgoing to survive. So give up that
title. In terms of what youthought your responsibilities were going to be,
roll your sleeves up and get yourhands dirty, be willing to do whatever's
necessary to get the job done.Didn't trust me. I've had the luxury
(11:56):
of being in corporate America. I'vealso had the luxury starting many startups and
being an entrepreneur. You know,you have to wear many hats just to
give your startup enough run way toget traction. That's exactly what that transformational
leader wants. They want to ignitethe entrepreneurial spirit within the company in order
(12:22):
to spur innovation, but to alsodrive down cost. Okay, we've almost
made it to the end of theseven tips for surviving a Superhero boss.
And here's the last one. Andthis is the one I gotta tell you
I loved most about working in corporateAmerica. All the perks, and that's
(12:46):
the one thing you're gonna have toget over, no more perks, guys.
I've had the luxury of being incorporate America at the beginning of Internet
one point zero, and that's whencorporate America was spending livishly on anybody and
(13:07):
everything that had anything to do withtechnology. You flew first class, you
didn't have to wear a tie anymore. They got dog walkers to take care
of your dog. You dropped limosto the airport. All the perks in
the world in order to keep thebest people in their organization and not out
there starting up dot com businesses.You're not gonna get that now. The
(13:33):
heyday of Google splurging on everything inthe cafeteria five different types of mineral water,
those days are gone, and yougotta let them go. I know
it's great to have it free foodin the cafeteria, but transformative bosses come
(13:54):
in and they're looking at line itemsand they're trying to justify expendo Church on
items like that, and they can'tjustify it, so they cut it.
So before that transformational boss cuts it, why don't you put it on your
recommend that list of things to becut right, embrace that change that we
(14:18):
just talked about. So this hasbeen the seven tips for surviving a superhero
boss. I hope you found thisepisode helpful. If so, hit subscribe.
I know you will share this episodewith your colleagues because the best people
listen to this podcast. Tell usthe issues you are struggling with in your
(14:41):
career, and we will research themand we might even do a podcast about
your issue. If you need moresupport for your career, please find us
on the web at cerro dot com, that ce y e r o dot
com. Follow us on Twitter,Instagram, and Facebook at Sierro Consulting.
(15:05):
And again, I am your host, Mark Anthony Peterson, Founder and thought
leader at Sierro Consulting
This is career coaching, acts andoaths, and I am your host,
Mark Anthony Peterson, the founder andthought leader at Serial Consulting, a small
business strategy and technology consulting firm.A small part of our practice is executive
coaching. These episodes are the summationof some of those sessions. Welcome to
(00:24):
episode forty three. I know it'sbeen a while since we published an episode,
and that's a good thing. Thatmeans a lot of you have used
what you've learned from the first fortytwo episodes and have built great careers.
But as many of you know,threats of recession have brought out more superhero
bosses who are aiming to transform theirorganizations. And transformative bosses means a lot
(00:51):
of the things you become accustomed towill no longer exist, at least in
your corporate environment for the next fiveto ten years. So in this episode,
I'm going to give you seven tips. Seven tips for surviving a superhero
boss. Seven tips for surviving asuperhero boss. Now, before we dig
(01:17):
in, what do I mean bya superhero boss. This is a boss
that's going to make decisions quickly.They won't always do the necessary research to
determine if they're cutting too many people, laying off critical people, or abandoning
(01:37):
strategies that are starting to show fruitin order to cut crop cost. They're
going to transform the organization by makingit lean and mean. And if you
want to be around after these transformationalbosses have been hired, you might want
to take a listen to these seventips. First, at all time,
(02:04):
do not waste time. And everythingthat you do do not waste time.
Your meetings should be concise, nomore than twenty minutes. If you get
towards thirty minutes, you're wasting time. Keep them short, have an agenda,
and make sure the agenda has timemarked for each item on that agenda.
(02:30):
Now, I was doing that beforeyou got transformational bosses. Whenever I
held a meeting, I'd have theintroduction two minutes, the first item five
minutes, the next item ten minutes, and I would total up the number
of minutes needed for that meeting,and when we hit the mark, I
shut the meeting down. We tookthe tabled what we didn't cover and rolled
(02:53):
it over to the next meeting.We're not going to waste time in meetings
when you have to be productive.Make sure that your explanations are short and
impactful. We don't need to consultantspeak. Just say what you mean and
mean what you say. So developan attitude for not wasting time. Second
(03:19):
tip, you got to be ableto prove that you're productive. You got
to be able to prove your worth. Now. For many transformational bosses like
Elon Musk, that means you gotto be willing to burn the midnight oil.
Now, burning the midnight all whenI look back over my twenty to
thirty year career in corporate America,meant some of that will show. You'd
(03:44):
come in put your jacket on theback of your chair at five in the
morning, just in case the bossshowed up and looked in to see who
had gotten there. Some people expectthat kind of activity to show that you're
burning the midnight oil. Now,if I went through the trouble of doing
(04:04):
all that, I was going tostay at work and do my work at
five am, which is typically whatI did. But see transformational bosses that
truly want to turn the company around, they reward that type of hard work.
To Elon Musk promised stock for exceptionalperformance, not busy work. Exceptional
(04:30):
performance that means there was a consequenceto the action that you took and it
showed up on the bottom line.Bottom line results drive stock price and that
makes everybody happy, which is whyhe wanted to make more people owners.
So be able to prove your worthand show how your activities drive the bottom
(04:55):
line. Now, how did Ido that and measure that? As a
manager? I used balance scorecards,I used key performance indicators. I tried
to create line of sight between thetop and the bottom of my organization,
and I tried to show which metricswere tied to the most important aspect of
(05:17):
my department. So if we weredriving revenue or cutting costs or producing more
widgets, I wanted to show howeveryone in that department contributed to that goal
and gave them a metric to measureit and stretch goals in order to give
them rewards when they gave exceptional performance. So, if you're a manager,
(05:41):
I want you out there doing thesame thing, because when you have that
kind of data, your meetings areshort and impactful because you can lay out
the scorecard with the key performance indicatorsthat drive performance that are ultimately leading to
increases in stock price. With theexecutive team, When you speak that language,
(06:05):
you become a part of the executiveteam. Third, now, I've
seen this happen all the way backto elementary school. There's always one in
a bunch that's going to criticize thetop person, criticize the individual that's sent
(06:28):
there to transform the organization or tochange the status quo. Don't you be
that person? Right? Tip numberthree, do not criticize the boss,
especially the boss that's been sent into transform the organization. Just check the
newspapers. The Tesla employees who postedan open letter about Elon Musk were all
(06:57):
fired. The Twitter employee who pushedback publicly and privately against Elon Musk was
fired. The point you have tounderstand is that if the organization wasn't so
broken, they never would have broughtin a transformational leader so publicly or privately.
(07:20):
Criticizing that individual means you're going tobe a barrier to that change,
and they're not gonna wait around longenough to figure out how much of a
barrier you're going to be. It'sjust going to get eliminated. You think
I'm kidding. Elon Musk had histeam comb through messages in Twitter's internal chat
(07:42):
platform and make a list of allthe employees who were subordinate. He took
that list and began firing individuals whowere insubordinate to the company. The fourth
tip for surviving a superheros don't betoo cute. What do I mean by
(08:05):
that? Guys? Don't go outof your way to try and prove the
boss wrong, especially if you're provingthe boss wrong on something that's none impactful.
I was told at one of thecompanies that I worked with that a
(08:26):
junior member of the team pointed outthat a senior member of the team had
a hole in his shoe during themeeting. That individual never made it back
to his desk. He was firedon the spot. So don't be too
cute. Don't try to prove theboss wrong on things that don't matter.
(08:54):
Don't go out of your way toremind the boss when he failed or she
failed at another company, or whenthey were much younger within that current company.
All that does is put a targeton your back, and you may
(09:16):
not make it back to your deskafter making that comment. Tip number five
embrace change. Transformative leaders are sentin to break things, to break processes,
to break norms, to throw outthe kitchen sink or bring it in
as Elon Musk did. And soyou have to embrace change. You have
(09:41):
to learn to look for change evenfor things that are working well, because
it could get better. And soembracing change puts you on the side of
the transformative leader. You're looking todo things better so the company survives.
(10:01):
Hanging onto the old way of doingthings. The old way, which by
the way, led to bringing thistransformative leader in, is not going to
keep you around that company very long. So embrace change. Don't remind the
boss this is the way we usedto do it unless you have a really
(10:26):
good explanation and it's tied to keepingthe stock price where it is or getting
higher. But don't embrace the pastjust because it was the past. Number
six. I want you to writethis one down because some of you are
(10:46):
going to struggle with this because youspent all your life in corporate America and
you believe that you have earned thattitle and you don't want to give it
up. But you get a transformativesuperhero boss, you got to let go
of that title and get your handsdirty. At many of the big tech
(11:09):
companies now they're cutting out middle managementand putting senior management directly in charge of
projects and activities. That means you'retaking on a lot of the middle management
responsibility. And if you can't handledoing more, thinking more, as well
(11:31):
as being the visionary, you're notgoing to survive. So give up that
title. In terms of what youthought your responsibilities were going to be,
roll your sleeves up and get yourhands dirty, be willing to do whatever's
necessary to get the job done.Didn't trust me. I've had the luxury
(11:56):
of being in corporate America. I'vealso had the luxury starting many startups and
being an entrepreneur. You know,you have to wear many hats just to
give your startup enough run way toget traction. That's exactly what that transformational
leader wants. They want to ignitethe entrepreneurial spirit within the company in order
(12:22):
to spur innovation, but to alsodrive down cost. Okay, we've almost
made it to the end of theseven tips for surviving a Superhero boss.
And here's the last one. Andthis is the one I gotta tell you
I loved most about working in corporateAmerica. All the perks, and that's
(12:46):
the one thing you're gonna have toget over, no more perks, guys.
I've had the luxury of being incorporate America at the beginning of Internet
one point zero, and that's whencorporate America was spending livishly on anybody and
(13:07):
everything that had anything to do withtechnology. You flew first class, you
didn't have to wear a tie anymore. They got dog walkers to take care
of your dog. You dropped limosto the airport. All the perks in
the world in order to keep thebest people in their organization and not out
there starting up dot com businesses.You're not gonna get that now. The
(13:33):
heyday of Google splurging on everything inthe cafeteria five different types of mineral water,
those days are gone, and yougotta let them go. I know
it's great to have it free foodin the cafeteria, but transformative bosses come
(13:54):
in and they're looking at line itemsand they're trying to justify expendo Church on
items like that, and they can'tjustify it, so they cut it.
So before that transformational boss cuts it, why don't you put it on your
recommend that list of things to becut right, embrace that change that we
(14:18):
just talked about. So this hasbeen the seven tips for surviving a superhero
boss. I hope you found thisepisode helpful. If so, hit subscribe.
I know you will share this episodewith your colleagues because the best people
listen to this podcast. Tell usthe issues you are struggling with in your
(14:41):
career, and we will research themand we might even do a podcast about
your issue. If you need moresupport for your career, please find us
on the web at cerro dot com, that ce y e r o dot
com. Follow us on Twitter,Instagram, and Facebook at Sierro Consulting.
(15:05):
And again, I am your host, Mark Anthony Peterson, Founder and thought
leader at Sierro Consulting
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