So. I had my annual performance appraisal this week. It all went well, got told I am very good at my job. I also got told that the next career step is management.

 

So far so good. However the next part is trickier. For this step I need better personal skills apparently. Including more eye contact ( a thing I hate) and also more general ability to influence and Express vision.

 

Now I am not a socially awkward penguin but I am also not exactly warm and personable either. I do tend to be standoffish and also don't deal well with people who irritate me. I also confront incompetence with a lack of diplomacy.

 

So has anyone else been set such targets and have any tips on how to get ready to move into management?

My take on this is v. simple - Treat people the way they treat you, unless they're senior, then, suck it up and be polite and positive always. Such is life esp. in big bureaucratic organisations. 

 

I almost always approach people with politeness and positivity, even if they're v.v.v. junior, see the guy at the bottom of the chain havd only one thing going for them, it's not money, they're at minimum wage already or below, and it's not the perks either, it's self-respect and dignity, that's all they got, never damage that, unless they're extreme arrogant pricks. I've seen people who pull rank on everything, they're the type who get thier coffee with the spit in it. I dont respect those guys who dont even have IMO even basic human decency. 

 

Even if I know someone is a prick, I wont be a prick to them unless they're being prick to me. 

 

Just stay positive and polite, that's what I'd say. 

 

Regarding influence and express vision --> I call that bs and corporate jargon for stalling. The vision always comes down from top and not the other way around. So, tl;dr, just repeat whatever corporate vision etc is, saying it confidently even if you think it's a load of bs, see if you dont believe your own bs, no one else will. So you got to be convinced about it or atleast pretend that you are. 

 

Regarding stand-offish and lack of diplomacy - Unfortunately, wherever you go, you're bound to be surrounded with some degree of incompetency. I deal with it with two phases - first, I try to politely say how things need to be done so the guys get to know what is the better way to do something, mostly, it's about educating, and people will pick that up and improve upon it, give it a go one or two or three times, depends on your patience, if people still dont get it and still be stupid, see why is it - is the work they doing above their pay grade? is it lack of training? who is supposed to do it? where does the buck stop? if people cant do it, take it to the guy whose KPI it is, get it done that way if everything else fails. 

 

I do become an arrogant prick if someone simply cant follow simple instructions. Incompetence more often than not is the result of poor hiring and training by corporate and the incompetent guy may not even be aware or it might be simply beyond his capability, so you got to pick up to why the problem is there. For instance, our procurement guy, he's a school graduate, he doesnt have college or uni degree, I expecting him to make sure orders are done as per the damand forecast is bit too much. All that guy needs to know is what to order and when to order, often, previously, he was expected to make sure things are available, so he'd do his own calculations and just order boat loads of stock, regardless of inventory storage capacity and what not, lots of lols, see it's not his problem, his KPI is making sure stock is there, not how much and when or the stock levels, that's the job of demand planner. So instead of shouting at him why he ordered boat loads of something that was supposed to be discontinued next month, I simply went to demand planner (who btw is one of my BFF) and told him wtf is going on and to pass on minimal and simple to follow instructions to the ordering guy. 

 

So yea, understand the root cause of incompetence. Everyone is different, this all may sound bit daunting but it'll come naturally to you. Remember, some people will just judge you for being stand-offish, and think you might be prick if you arent, world's full of shit and everyone unfortunately judges at certain level.

 

Hope that helps. 

Thanks for the advice, especially on the incompetence thing. With the vision it's not so much the corporate thing.

 

To give some context my job is to review applications for grant funding and advise the committee which makes the decision. In one case a member disagreed with my assessment and I was able to talk them round by exploring with them the difference between grant funding this thing and what would arise if we advised them to seek private finance.

 

This is what I think is meant by clearly explaining vision.

 

Me doing this badly was with another project that I felt should be rejected and a committee member disagreed. At the route of this was a fairly to adequately present wjat a good project in this area would look like. This would be a failure to present a vision.

/edited.

Double post.

Make sure you are honest. People below you will use dishonesty against you more than anything else. If you cant tell them something then tell them that, or if you don't know something tell them that you will look into it and make sure you follow through. If you have their respect people will go out of your way for you.

Eye contact is tricky.  One work around is to look between someone's eye brows.  It works very well, no one can tell you're doing it at all.

 

"Expressing vision" is an annoyingly vague term to a lot of people.  To me, it means you have an idea or goal and you share it in a way that makes people feel inspired to reach the goal with you.  The way you presented your question in this thread is exactly the way you express vision.  You were straightforward, honest, direct.  You also freely asked for help.  I think that when you are leading people it is very empowering  when you  show a desire to involve people in the process of figuring things out.  People are inspired when they feel like they matter.  Even if you think someone is an idiot, it is worth it to hear them out respectfully, you may be pleasantly surprised that the village idiot occasionally has a great idea.  Validating and incorporating people's ideas and making sure you share credit for successes is a large part of how you build loyalty and trustworthiness and vision.  Also, when I'm leading I do my best to avoid blaming anyone for failures.  No one wants to be publicly embarrassed, so addressing what went wrong privately, but standing by your team in public is a very visionary thing to do.  When I was IRON President, and really whenever I've been in a leadership position, part of the reason why I was successful is that I was always willing to take the heat if things didn't go perfectly, and I was not afraid to let it be known that I needed support.  I welcomed and encouraged feedback and that made people more understanding of my vision because they were helping to create it.

 

It sounds like you lack confidence, which is understandable.  The way you build confidence is by doing something you aren't sure you can do and succeeding in it.  I think that if you practice the things that have been identified as your weaknesses (like eye contact, using my workaround if necessary) you are likely to start feeling comfortable doing it.

 

Eye contact is tricky.  One work around is to look between someone's eye brows.  It works very well, no one can tell you're doing it at all.

 

"Expressing vision" is an annoyingly vague term to a lot of people.  To me, it means you have an idea or goal and you share it in a way that makes people feel inspired to reach the goal with you.  The way you presented your question in this thread is exactly the way you express vision.  You were straightforward, honest, direct.  You also freely asked for help.  I think that when you are leading people it is very empowering  when you  show a desire to involve people in the process of figuring things out.  People are inspired when they feel like they matter.  Even if you think someone is an idiot, it is worth it to hear them out respectfully, you may be pleasantly surprised that the village idiot occasionally has a great idea.  Validating and incorporating people's ideas and making sure you share credit for successes is a large part of how you build loyalty and trustworthiness and vision.  Also, when I'm leading I do my best to avoid blaming anyone for failures.  No one wants to be publicly embarrassed, so addressing what went wrong privately, but standing by your team in public is a very visionary thing to do.  When I was IRON President, and really whenever I've been in a leadership position, part of the reason why I was successful is that I was always willing to take the heat if things didn't go perfectly, and I was not afraid to let it be known that I needed support.  I welcomed and encouraged feedback and that made people more understanding of my vision because they were helping to create it.

 

It sounds like you lack confidence, which is understandable.  The way you build confidence is by doing something you aren't sure you can do and succeeding in it.  I think that if you practice the things that have been identified as your weaknesses (like eye contact, using my workaround if necessary) you are likely to start feeling comfortable doing it.

Thanks for the advice, that is all very helpful.