Amidst high growth, the salespeople at a global technology company were confused about which accounts and opportunities to focus on. Mark, a rising director on the go-to-market team, was leading a project to build a propensity model to solve this problem. The model took in numerous data points across disparate systems to give salespeople directional leads. Leaders were excited about the model and the problem it would solve, but they often ended up getting stuck in the details during presentations. Mark was beginning to get frustrated. How can he get his leaders out of the weeds so he can keep advancing this important work?
Managing Up When Leadership Is Stuck in the Weeds
How to reset the conversation and start getting things done.
August 24, 2022
Summary.
Many of us have been in situations where we’re managing a project or advancing a new initiative at work and the leaders supervising the work get lost in unnecessary details. How do you manage up so the project doesn’t lose momentum? Using a real-life scenario of how a director at a tech company built a propensity model to streamline sales and presented it to his leaders as well as the salespeople using it, the authors present three strategies to get leaders out of the weeds on a project: 1) Work with your “users,” 2) sell the big picture, and 3) create self-service content.
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HBR Learning
Managing Your Boss Course
Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Managing Your Boss. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Build a productive partnership with your most important stakeholder.