How to talk to your manager when something isn't working

A lot of people I speak to are miserable at work but haven't said a single word about it to their manager. Not because nothing's wrong, but because they're scared of coming across as difficult.

I spoke to someone recently who felt completely unsupported. Their manager seemed to care about one thing which was whether they turned up to the office on the set days. No development conversations or targets and no real interest in how things were going.

When I asked if they'd raised it, the answer was no, so I asked what was stopping them, and they couldn't quite pinpoint it

So I brought in a bit of my Danish "I don't take any sh*t" approach and asked why they were just accepting it and something shifted. The person actually did care about their job, they wanted to grow, and they weren't someone who was fine with settling. So what made them act like they were fine with it?

That question answered it for them and from there, we looked at how to approach the conversation. Not confrontationally and definitely not as a list of complaints. We need to remember the manager wasn't doing anything wrong. They didn't know what this person needed because this person had never told them. Once we reframed it that way, the fear of "getting in trouble" started to look a lot less rational.

The conversation happened and the 1-1s improved. The working relationship got more productive. Not because anything dramatic changed, but because two people finally understood what the other one actually wanted.

Keep in mind a lot of managers do want to do a good job, but a lot of them have been placed in positions they've not been trained to do, and rather than fighting an inexperienced manager, how about trying to work with them? Every individual is also different and may require something different from their manager.

If you're putting your head down and getting on with it, but you're not okay with how things are, you don't have to choose between a formal grievance and just tolerating it. There's absolutely a middle option which is having the conversation, with a bit of support to work out how.

It usually sounds harder than it is. If there's a conversation at work you've been putting off, feel free to book a discovery call. Let's work out how to have it.