Managing Your Boss and Creating a Positive Relationship
As a Creative, your unique perspective on detail and design can bring the dullest meetings, projects, and presentations to life. (More on this in Getting Along with Colleagues and Getting Ahead at Work, Part 1.) Things can get tricky, however, when you approach shared space, business outings, and budgets with the same joie de vivre (or lack thereof when things aren’t going well). Keeping these things in mind will help. Want more career inspiration? Click here to see more ArcheGuides.
Since you’re a Creative, it’s easy to see everything as a potential art project or performance piece, but when you do this with your office space it can make your boss tense. Don’t distract her, or detract from your own performance, by working in an office that’s in disarray. Artsy shouldn’t equal messy.
Passion for your craft is essential, but it shouldn’t be expressed at the expense of others’ comfort. With this in mind, keep artistic angst to a minimum: Make your morning greeting hearty, observe traditional table-manner niceties in group settings, and follow up client meetings with a written thank-you.
While ingenious solutions and aha! moments are the result of unfettered Creative juices, if your big ideas make no concession to timelines or budget constraints they are apt to make your boss more cranky than congratulatory. Factoring in the mundane details is a necessary evil.
