Hey Morris, I work for a small consulting agency that I used to really love because there are a bunch of us who are in our mid-20s and we had a lot of fun at work. My manager is only a few years older than me; he was pretty chill and gave us a lot of freedom to work the way we want to work. About a month ago he picked me to attend a conference with him in Germany. It was my first time in Europe; totally blown away! I have an Instagram following and I shared my experiences with my followers. But after the first day my manager told me to stop posting because some senior manager had seen my Instagram posts and was not pleased. I guess I looked like I was having too much fun… of course I’m having fun – it’s Europe, WTF! I even made sure I thanked the company for the opportunity (and the drinks!) to travel and dine in a few of my posts, which I then deleted because I was so mad! Anyway, I didn’t think it was right for the company to care about what I posted, and I told him that, especially because I didn’t post anything negative about the company. Besides, the posts got a lot of likes and comments from envious followers, one even commented how lucky I was and how she wished her company sent her on trips overseas. He didn’t explain why that was bad and just repeated that he wants me to stop posting about the trip. Infuriating! And, for the rest of the trip I felt I was being punished because we didn’t go out together once, not even for a drink at the beautiful hotel bar which was on the way to the guest room elevators! I think my posts got him in a lot of trouble because since we’ve been back, he’s not as chillax as before. As a result, the team dynamic is stifled; everyone feels it. Should I tell him that the way he’s acting is making work not as fun as before? What can I do to return things back to the way they were? As my manager, shouldn’t he have stood up for me anyway?
-IG Criminal
Dear IG Criminal,
There’s a lot of ‘I’ in your description, but what about him? How much of what happened to him during the trip do you know? Have you looked at the situation from his point of view?
Most work trips are responsibilities first, with perks a distant and optional second priority. Imagine the cost difference between having you at work in your regular office vs. sending you away to a foreign country to work, even just for a few days. Every minute you’re there, the company is paying the expenses: things like airfare, taxis, hotels, food, insurance, etc. The main reason a company sends you on the road is because management thinks you’re the best person to achieve the business objectives of that trip. The other reason is to give you the experience to grow as a professional so that you can be that best person for some future work trip.
It doesn’t sound like Instagram posting was an objective of this trip. Attending a conference to derive some value out of the conference (whether for the business, personal growth, or both) was the objective. Hence, I can understand why the higher-ups might have WTF’d when they saw your ‘I’m having fun’ posts on the first day of your trip – you haven’t completed the objectives of the work trip and you’re already having fun… on the company’s dime… hmm… pretty f’d up.
As for your manager, remember that he picked you to go on this work trip. His manager expected that he would select the best person to complete the business objectives of this trip. What you did called into question whether you were that best person, which then further raised doubts in your manager: can he pick the right talent, manage them, develop them, and get stuff done? Your manager probably not only defended you, but worse, he had to also defend his choice of you. In looking at the way he acted from that point onward, the conversations were probably numerous and not friendly, and his manager might have put him on notice.
You might have had a personal objective to show and tell how much fun you were having in your first time in Europe, but then you should have asked for time off and paid for the trip yourself. Mentioning the company in your posts and getting likes and envious feedback were not the business objectives of this work trip, so they don’t make what you did acceptable to the business.
If you want things to return to the way they were before, you’ve got to work pretty hard. The best thing to do is to show your manager’s managers that him picking you wasn’t poor judgment. So first, you must convince your manager what happened in Germany was a one-off: a moment of insensible immaturity on your part that became a wake-up call for you, and that you’re thankful for the air cover he must have provided and the valuable lesson that you learned. Then, you need to outperform, overdeliver, and ‘out-professionalize’ yourself to convince his managers that your manager was right all along – he can, in fact, pick the right talent and develop them to become superstars – even if at first, they appear a little young and inexperienced.
In other words, you need to become the successful poster child of his management style.
If you accomplished that, you win, your manager wins, and the company wins.
Is there something on your mind?
Please send it to questions@heymorris.com and I’ll do my best to be helpful in a future post.
Hey Morris 