Lifescripts, 3rd Edition

7Asking Your Supervisor to Be Involved in Projects That Provide Greater Exposure

STRATEGY

Asking your supervisor to help you get greater exposure in your organization carries some risks. The request sends two implicit messages: first, that you're ambitious, and second, that you feel your direct supervisor isn't promoting you as much as they should. While a supportive or neutral supervisor will, after some probing or defensiveness, be open to helping, a supervisor who's insecure or not your number one fan could respond by criticizing your performance. That's especially likely since you'll need to push a bit to get results from this dialogue. You can mitigate the potential problems by making this a specific approach, tied to an existing project, rather than a general request.

TACTICS

• Attitude: Accept that this request is as much planting a seed for involvement in future high visibility projects as it is an effort to work on the current effort. Being added to an existing endeavor is an uphill battle but it's a necessary investment of effort.
• Preparation: Know what you will bring to the project that it's currently lacking and why that's important for success. Be ready to address your relationships with others on the team.
• Timing: Approach your supervisor about joining a project as soon as you've learned you're not on the team. The more time that goes by without your participation the less likely you'll be able to take part.
• Behavior: It's a balancing act but you want to exude ...