How to Know When Your Boss Is BSing You

Have you ever walked away from a meeting with your boss and wondered, did he really mean that or was he BSing me? Are all those reports your boss wants you to do to justify your existence really necessary, or is he just covering his you-know-what or justifying his existence?

How about that slick company press release where the CEO says, "We're restructuring to better align our business with changing market conditions" - is that for real, or is it just spin for "We're laying off 20 percent of the company because our market's gone to s**t."

To put it succinctly, just how much of what your management says and asks you to do is disingenuous? Not to be jaded or cynical, but the answer is more than you think. We're not just talking about formal communication that toes the company line, but even stuff that really counts, like direct feedback on your job performance.

Why is the corporate world so full of it? For the most part, it comes down to alignment, or more accurately, misalignment.

You see, in a perfect company, everybody's goals and needs - management, employees, customers, shareholders - are aligned. Also, what you see is what you get, nobody has an agenda, and people don't play office politics or stab each other in the back to get ahead.

The real world is a whole different story.

Here's an example. When the American Dental Association recommends you brush twice a day, buy those expensive electric toothbrushes, and change the $15 heads every three months, you don't really think that's entirely for your health, do you? I mean, really.

And, if companies BS their customers - and you know they do - imagine how they treat their employees? It's sort of like the boss in Dilbert telling everyone, "From now on, you're all getting new job titles instead of raises" and everybody shouts, "Yea, new titles!"

Not that management is out to get you. Things are almost never that black and white in the real world. In fact, what benefits management and benefits the company sometimes benefits you too. And sometimes it doesn't. Here's how to know which is which.

How to Know When Your Boss is BSing You

• Look out for "but" and "because" in a sentence. For example: "You're doing a great job but you're only getting a two percent raise because that's all I could get for you." Everything between the "but" and "because" is probably true; everything else is suspect. Maybe he's blowing smoke up your you-know-what because he doesn't want to deal with a pissed off employee. Maybe you are doing a great job but he's a wimp who doesn't fight for his employees. Just remember, before "but" and after "because" is usually BS.
• Recognition without reward. If there's money or a promotion in it, then it's legit. If not, it's BS. Simple as that. I don't care how they spin it. Recognition or commendation without any reward is for one purpose: to make your management look and feel good. If that makes you feel good too, congratulations, you're just the kind of employee companies love ... to step on.
• Consider the source and triangulate. Look, not all bosses are created equally, so if you really want to know the truth, you've got to cultivate some relationships and triangulate. Befriend a manager, even if she isn't yours. Once you've got someone you trust on the inside, you send her on fact-finding missions to get the scoop. If you don't, well, hate to be blunt, but you deserve what you get.
• Justifying a layoff or RIF. I've seen and heard every possible spin on restructuring and layoffs. In fact, I used to write that stuff in my previous life. And I'm here to tell you that any positive positioning of a layoff is pretty much all spin, just like the "restructuring" example at the top of the post.
• Drowns you with requests for detailed status reports and plans. The only time it makes sense for a boss to drown you with endless report requests is if you're screwing up big-time and he's trying to get you to quit. Otherwise he's a micromanager, a control freak, or he's got something up his sleeve.
• 360 degree feedback. This one's tricky. You might be inclined to think it's all good and, in a perfect world, you'd be right. But in the real world, all sorts of personal issues and agendas have a funny way of ending up in 360s. How to know if comments are legitimate? If they're one-offs, ignore them. Pay attention to significant trends, but it's not unheard of for folks to band together to tank your review. It happens.
• Your boss is not BSing you ... when he asks you to justify your job, project, or proposal. That's usually real and, assuming you want to keep your job or increase your responsibility, staff, budget, etc., it's a good idea to follow up and deliver. The same goes for technical or functional feedback, i.e. when your boss says your presentations stink or you're getting more things wrong than right, listen up.

Also check out:

• 10 Ways to Know When Someone Is BSing You
  
• It's Not What You Say, But How You Say It
• Why the Peter Principle Works