How to be successful at work even when your manager ghosts you
Written by Adrienne, edited by Alexis
We don’t typically get to choose our managers, and it can be difficult to work with someone new, especially if they have a different working style from you. I used to have a manager that would continuously reschedule our 1:1s. This was frustrating -- it wasn’t personal, but it affected my trust in our relationship and it made it difficult to bring important updates and discussion topics to her and ask for help where I needed.
We frequently have a lot of strategies for managing products — but we neglect that we ourselves are also products. I am a product, and my team members are users. And if something is not working, I have to figure out the best channel to reach them.
My manager is one user, and I had to figure out the best way to reach her -- I had to debug the communication API. I observed how my manager operated -- she was event-driven rather than planning-oriented -- and thought about how I could slide into her default communication methods (DCMs).
While my manager never responded to my calendar invitations, she was responsive in-person. I started scheduling our 1:1’s directly after stand-up, calling her directly, and finding her at her desk, instead of relying on calendar events. I was able to unblock myself more quickly, bring important problems to her, update her on potential solutions we were exploring, and hear her feedback on potential gaps.
Seeing it as a technical problem -- as figuring out how to use the API -- also helped move me from a place of taking things personally (“my manager doesn’t want to talk to me”) to de-personalizing them (“I have to figure out the right channel to get a hold of my manager”).
Individual contributor PMs care about developing a trusting relationship with their managers, but it’s not easy. In many cases, we don’t get a choice in choosing our managers, and they end up having a very different working style as we do. Thinking of my manager as an API that needs to be figured out with non-judgmental observation helped me iterate into a good working relationship faster.