A Tale of Three CEOs

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This is a story about three CEOs who made whopping mistakes in managing both up and down, and as a
result, nearly ruined their companies.

We know a lot about managing down, about supervising people who report to us and leading a team. We
know we have to make our goals and standards clear, we have to oversee the work without becoming
micromanagers, and we have to manage in a variety of styles that best suit the needs of staff members.
For those who like lots of structure, we provide that structure at the beginning of the project and save
time later by avoiding the mistakes and false starts because we missed a detail that took a staff member
down an expensively wrong path. For the independent types, we provide outlines and guidelines, stay in
touch, and leave them to work on their own, trusting that they know when to ask appropriate questions.
Some people learn by doing, some by talking, some by reading, so we accommodate all those
differences as best we can to keep everyone on the same path working toward the same goal.

But what’s managing up and how are we supposed to manage people over whom we have no control?
Shouldn’t they be managing themselves? Once you hear the story of these three CEOs, the need for
managing up will become very clear.

The company in question is a holding company with corporations and divisions of those corporations
among its holdings. The CEOs are the CEO of the holding company, CEO-H; the CEO of the
corporation, CEO-C; and the CEO of the division, CEO-D.

The CEO-C was told by executives at the holding company (not the CEO-H) that the corporation was
being sold and would have to move, so the building the corporation was in had to be sold, too. Although
he had reservations about the deal, CEO-C began the work necessary to sell both the corporation and the
building. He signed a document saying that he agreed with the decision to sell the company, began the
necessary due diligence, and found a buyer for the building. Of course all this took months and about
half a million dollars in legal fees, realtor fees, time from several corporate staffs, and everything else
that goes into a major change in organizational structure.

About six months into this process but before the sales were finalized, CEO-C was called to a meeting
with CEO-H and her executive staff to review the plans and progress. This meeting was the first face-toface
meeting he had had with CEO-H since well before the plans for the sale were explained to him. The
two CEOs hadn’t met or talked much about anything in the three years that CEO-H had been in place.
Instructions and decisions from CEO-H were conveyed to CEO-C through executive staff members.

At this meeting, CEO-C was asked for his opinion, and much to everyone’s surprise, he said he was
against the whole thing. When asked why he had signed the document agreeing to the sale in the first
place, he said that a member of the CEO-H’s staff had instructed him to do so on the orders of CEO-H,
who looked surprised to hear that he thought he was following her instruction.

When CEO-C also said that selling the building was a bad idea, the CEO-H’s jaw dropped. CEO-H
knew nothing about selling their building and had approved no such action. Suddenly everything
stopped. The sale was put on hold, the building taken off the market, many hundreds of thousands of
dollars were lost, and several very senior holding company executives were fired.

Why had CEO-C changed his mind, or at least not said anything against the proposal in the first place?
Hard to know since the actions were confidential, but we can guess at several reasons. Maybe the sale
would have made it difficult for the corporation to succeed with a new owner. Maybe neither the newly
restructured holding company nor the new owner would have been able to accommodate senior staff
from the corporation, including CEO-C, so the prospect of losing all those jobs was suddenly a reality
that needed to be addressed. Maybe the financial details had become so clear and so negative that the
looming reality forced an honest statement. Hard to know, but easy to understand the fallout.

CEO-H made classic mistakes in managing down, that is managing CEO-C. First, she never really
established a working relationship with him. He was firmly in place when she became CEO of the
holding company, and she failed to learn from him about the company and about him. With no
established relationship and with messages being conveyed to him by executive staff at the holding
company, there was no relationship to build on that would have prompted him to go to CEO-H and ask
what the plan was and why she wanted to sell the building. That single question would have changed the
course of the sale, but it wasn’t possible given the lack of relationship.

In addition, CEO-H clearly had no control over the executive staff who communicated decisions that
were made and instructions that were never given. Lax or nonexistent management of executive staff put
the responsibility for the potential disaster clearly on her shoulders. With no oversight, the executive
staff simply gave instructions they thought best, perhaps because there was some outside, vested interest
to be met, especially related to the sale of the building which had never been approved by the CEO-H.

The CEO-C didn’t manage up very well either. He took no initiative to establish a closer relationship
with his new boss so that he would be included in decision-making and influence the outcome. Without
developing his credibility with the new CEO-H, he had no role on which the CEO-H could count and
had not demonstrated his value to her and the holding company, so he was essentially run over in the
sale process by the executive staff. His early agreement made him unimportant.

The holding company bought the corporation, everyone stayed in their positions, and the CEOs managed
their own organizations. But really, neither managed anything very well. With no ongoing
communications between the two CEOs, there was no precedent, context, or trust for raising sensitive
issues, and because instructions had often been communicated by the senior staff, there was no reason or
process to question the instructions about the sale.

It’s hard to image not wanting to make an appointment with the CEO when you have just discovered
that your company is being sold and you had no say in the decision. Had CEO-C managed up more
effectively, a better relationship would have allowed him to go directly to CEO-H and ask about this
sale. He would have been more comfortable talking directly to her about selling the company and could
have asked about selling the building, too. The bad decisions could have been spotted earlier, but the
relationship wasn’t strong enough to allow this kind of conversation. Should CEO-H tried harder to
establish a better relationship? Should COE-C? Sure, but neither did, and this was the result.

How can we manage up effectively?

1. Be clear that managing up means managing a relationship, not necessarily a person or task or process.
You can’t control the actions of the manager, but you can control aspects of the relationship that foster
trust and good communications.

2. Stop being afraid of managing up and getting the manager mad at you. Demonstrating respect for the
manager’s position and institutional authority, something you would want for yourself, is the first step in
not generating hostility or resentment.

3. At the beginning of a new relationship, establish a pattern of regular communications to check-in,
bring someone up-to-date, ask a few questions. The purpose is to establish a relationship based on trust
so that difficult questions can be asked when they need to be.

4. A comfortable relationship will make your opinion and insight valuable to your manager, and thus,
welcomed when it is offered and requested when it is not.

5. Ask the new manager what works best for that person: formally scheduled meetings? phone calls?
emails? Identifying someone’s preferred communications format will support the dialogue, and being
accommodating will make for smoother communications.

6. Demonstrate support for the manager by being honest and thoughtful. When there are problems, raise
the issue and offer some insight or help in solving it. Managers need people they can depend on even to
get bad news. And if the decision goes against your recommendations, don’t sulk or complain. Your
opinion was considered; now get on board with the decision. In working toward the established goal,
you may be able to influence the process since you are still in good standing with the manager.

7. Don’t take advantage of trust, and don’t brag about the relationship. That behavior will generate
resentment among people with whom you have to work.

8. Remain respectful of the position and title no matter what you think of the person, and use the best
communications and conflict resolution skills you have to explore difficult issues or disagreements when
they occur, and they will. This might be hard, but it’s good practice.

9. Recognize when your own staff members are trying to manage up, and see how you can respond to
their efforts successfully. Apply your knowledge about managing up to understanding how you can
better manage down.

And the CEO-D?

She led a regional division of the corporation and really had no input into the
decisions or control over the outcome, so the strategy was to fulfill all requests for information, do the
best job possible, try to stay in touch to get as much information as possible, and roll with the punches.
Because this was the second time the division was going through a sales process, having been sold once
before, CEO-D now had valuable experience she could provide to the people doing the audits and
examining the business. She was more assertive in her communications and reservations than she had
been the first time and more confident in providing the information. In addition, the CEO-D had tried
many times to manage up and was pretty much ignored by CEO-C, so the best course of action was
simply to do the best possible job. Since this experience, the two corporate CEOs are talking much more
frequently.

The bottom line? Think of managing up as managing relationships so that you are a recognized partner
in that relationship and can contribute appropriately to decision-making. If the manager is not open to
including you, then remain respectful, at least to the office and title, and do your best work. In the long
run, it will be recognized. And if you’re left out of the decision-making, then at least you can
demonstrate that you were not responsible for the mistakes, as these two CEOs were.