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Hello everyone. Welcome to the 5 Minutes podcast. Today I like to talk about a very sensitive topic. Many people say, you know, I cannot perform in a project because my boss does not like me or how do I improve my relationship with my boss or, for example, the sponsor of my project. And I want to give you five components that I believe are critical for improving your relationship with your boss. And the first one, it's all about trust. Many times when you are new project manager and you are joining a new team and you have a new boss, it's natural that he or she will have concerns about your ability to deliver the project, to meet the deadlines, to deliver a quality work on time in a consistent way. And it's natural. So how do you do that? So the first thing is you need to be transparent and you need to understand what is his or her expectations. And you need to ask them, what is your expectation about my work? Because if you don't build trust, do you know what happens? You will only receive less relevant projects and with that you will deliver less powerful results and with less powerful results, you will be stuck many times in your career because you need to show quality work to move forward. But you need to have the chance to undertake a work that will be perceived.
So you need to understand what is his or her expectation in terms of quality and you should be transparent on that. The second vital component is how do you establish connection? It's very common that you feel, you know, he or she does not give me attention. I cannot meet, for example, I don't have any bonding with my boss. And when I say bonding, I'm not talking about You become the best friend of your boss. No, no. I'm talking about a professional relationship. The first thing you need to understand is, is this lack of connection or lack of strong connection, something that is happening just to you or it's just a natural behavior that she or he demonstrates? Because then you need to understand if it's something more related to his or her cultural behavior or beliefs or aspects of professional life. And you need to start paying attention on what topics they engage, what topics they see value, what is the common ground that you can talk about? And this will open. It can be on the professional side, but it can be on also some unrelated side. You need to identify, okay, what does she value? What does he value? What is important for them? It's not necessarily what is important for you because many times when we want to talk, we want to talk what matters for us.
But it does not mean that the same thing will matter for them. The third aspect, and this for me, I don't want to say the most important, but it's one of the most relevant is avoid negative bias. The first thing you may say when you have a lack of connection or you believe that your boss does not trust you is to have the negative bias. Oh, he or she does not like me, you know, or because we are from a different background or because some of my values he or she does not respect or does not see a value. Please stop complaining. Give a step back and try to reframe your mindset to a more positive one. Give the benefit of the doubt. And it's very important because many times he or she is not establishing connection because your boss is just busy under a massive pressure. It's not easy for him or for her. It's nothing related necessarily to who you are, but it's far much broader. Remember, they are human beings like you. So avoid and give these benefit in a very professional way. And the fourth vital component for me is improve your networking and invest in broader relationships. You know, probably your boss, he or she has people that he or she trusts.
They have their own network. Maybe it's a little bit tough for you to go straight to your boss because you don't see this openness now, but you can go to other people and improve your networking maybe with a peer. Of your boss. Maybe with someone your boss trust. And I'm. Please. I'm not saying for you to be cynical or fake or try to use people. No, it's not that. It's just because if your boss hear positive things about you from different sources, about your values, about and if you could establish a connection with them, it will benefit the way he or she will look to you in the future. So many times through these relationships, you can build a connection and build trust in an indirect way until you have the chance to have the ears and the attention of him or her on your topic. So these four topics will make your life a little bit easier, will make your life better, and at the end it will improve the results of your project. Always think about that. It's not a matter of your personal judgment or your personal belief. At the end, what we want is true a better result improve the project and improve our professional experience. Think about that and see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.
